As you can see from the foregoing, I believe that I am not ableright now to endorse strong efforts to centralize Federal science. activities, mainly because I cannot now see that such efforts will meet the major objectives in Mr. Daddario's prefacing statement. Mr. DADDARIO. Dr. Seaborg, you refer in your report from time to time to our own report on the "Centralization of Federal Science Activities." I want to make it clear that in no instance is the subcommittee suggesting that any of the proposals contained therein be gone ahead with. They are not our proposals, but rather points of reference to which we wanted you and others to look at and come to some determination about. Dr. SEABORG. Yes. Mr. DADDARIO. It is for that purpose, rather than for any other purpose of making recommendations of any stiff nature on the part of the subcommittee, that those were offered. Dr. SEABORG. Yes, I understand that. Mr. DADDARIO. I am concerned, as you are. Every member of the subcommittee is, about the importance of the individual in our society. This may be the strongest thrust of the subcommittee's concern. As we examine this particular administrative and management problem, we are concerned about how our science resources are being handled. Your reference on page 15 about the effect of the National Science Foundation imposing severe cuts in projects at each campus. It did have a tremendous depressing effect on many of our young graduate students and on many emerging programs in some of our schools where we had been prodding for scientific activity to go ahead. They were drastically affected even though the amounts were relatively small. Dr. SEABORG. Yes. I think the effects were perhaps more important on the young investigators than on the more established investigators. It affected them more, the young investigators. Mr. DADDARIO. And therefore affects our ability to handle problems in the future which are going to become more intense than they presently are because we will not have the manpower to handle some of these problems. Dr. SEABORG. That's right. Mr. DADDARIO. And manpower appears to be in short supply in many of these complicated problems of society with which we deal. But this is not the only problem either. For example, during the last few years $19 million in projects were transferred from Department of Defense and other agencies to the National Science Foundation, especially in the area of high energy physics. Because this did happen, and since the National Science Foundation did not get additional funds to make up for that $19 million, this hindered the flexibility of the Foundation to support other worthwhile projects. I think this raises a serious question so far as transfers are concerned. How does this take place? Was the AEC consulted? What relationship is there between you and OST, DOD, NSF, so that this can be an orderly process and so that proper preparations can be made for the transfer and still not affect other important and meaningful development programs? 33-257-69- -4 Dr. SEABORG. I don't think that we have as an agency been involved in such transfer of funds to any appreciable degree. I might say a word about how we coordinate with other agencies. In the application of nuclear energy to space we have a joint effort with NASA which is administered through a joint office, Space Nuclear Systems Office, which is staffed by AEC and NASA people; and all of our efforts that involve the application of nuclear energy in any form to space is administered through that office. We budget our share of it and NASA budgets their share of it, but we coordinate the administration of the work through that office. We have similarly a coordination with the Department of Defense in all the work that we do with them in the development of nuclear weapons, and of course we have what amounts to a joint operation in the case of the application of nuclear energy to naval propulsion in Rickover's operation. Our coordination with the National Science Foundation is rather close. We don't have any joint budgeting or transfer of funds, but we have a continuous consultation with the objective of trying to avoid duplication and to cover areas that require support when they are in an area of mutual interest, like high-energy nuclear physics. Overall, we work very closely with the OST, the Office of Science and Technology, in our support of basic research and academic science. Mr. MOSHER. Mr. Chairman. Mr. DADDARIO. Mr. Mosher. Mr. MOSHER. Mr. Chairman, you raised the question concerning DOD's desire to transfer the high energy work to some other agency. It is my understanding that DOD had asked AEC to take that work on and AEC refused, and then at that point the National Science Foundation was expected to pick it up. Dr. SEABORG. Yes. This is something that we would have loved to take on, but we are budgeted on a line-item basis and we had no funds that could accommodate new activities of this kind. Mr. MOSHER. NSF has somewhat the same problem, and yet NSF was expected to pick it up. And I think this is the basic question that the chairman is raising, isn't it? Mr. DADDARIO. I think that is exactly the point. When you were asked to do it, you wanted to but didn't have the funds. Then there was some shopping around so that it would go somewhere else. And you finally found a home for it because you felt that it was necessary. This would appear to be bad management practice. Dr. SEABORG. This is an argument Mr. DADDARIO. This is a point which we would like some help on now. Dr. SEABORG. Yes. This is an argument for better coordination in the administration of science, that's right. I think in this particular case, it never got to the point where the DOD offered to transfer the money to the AEC. Mr. MOSHER. That is the problem. I think what we would like is just sort of a blow-by-blow description of how this was accomplished, if that is possible. Dr. SEABORG. We could supply that for the record. I think we have the broad outline here, but we could supply the blow-by-blow account for the record. (Information requested for the record is as follows:) AEC ACTION RELEVANT TO THE TERMINATION OF DOD UNIVERSITY RESEARCH PROGRAMS IN HIGH-, MEDIUM-, AND LOW-ENERGY PHYSICS By letter of May 8, 1967 (J. S. Foster, Director of Defense Research & Engi neering [DDRE], DoD, to G. T. Seaborg, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission), the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was informed by the Department of Defense (DoD) of the latter's intention to withdraw support of selected high energy physics programs. We were informed that a similar communication was sent to the National Science Foundation. Subsequently, by letter of June 9, 1967 (F. J. Larsen, Office of DDRE, DoD, to G. T. Seaborg) and later communications, the AEC was informed that with the exception of some cryogenic accelerator work at Stanford University, it was the intention of the DoD to withdraw support of all their university research in the area of elementary particle physics and to drastically reduce support in the area of nuclear structure physics and nuclear astrophysics. While interagency meetings were held to determine the extent and timing of the impending DoD terminating actions, the Atomic Energy Commission took several actions, to attempt to alleviate the problems. By letters of October 3 and October 26, 1967 from Seaborg to the Director of the Bureau of the Budget, specific action was requested in order that the AEC be able to financially support terminated DoD research programs. The earlier letter was the formal FY 1969 budget transmittal letter which included a request for additional funds required by the AEC in its role as executive agent for high energy physics including additional funds for support of the terminated DoD high energy programs. The letter of October 26, 1967 dealt specifically with the DoD plans to reduce university support in high, medium, and low energy physics and requested additional funds for FY 1969 of $4.25 million for High Energy Physics and $2.10 million for Low and Medium Energy Physics. Funds provided in the AEC's FY 69 budget, developed subsequent to these appeals, did not permit support of a significant portion of DoD's terminated programs. On the basis of these latter fiscal developments, it was deemed necessary to inform the DoD (letter of December 13, 1967 from Seaborg to Foster), that the AEC would not be able to give significant assistance to the terminated university programs. In addition to these communications and considerations interspersed in the period beginning in May 1967 were numerous interagency meetings on the part of the above involved agencies which also included the Office of Science and Technology, the Bureau of the Budget, and the Technical Committee on High Energy Physics. It is our understanding that the National Science Foundation was permitted to include in its FY 1969 request to Congress funds for support of DoD terminated research under the Physics budget category. Subsequent decreases and limitations on the Foundation FY 1969 budget are, of course, well known. No transfer of funds from DoD to the AEC or the NSF has taken place. The AEC was able to merge a single ONR terminated high energy physics accelerator user group with the existing AEC accelerator user group at Princeton University. We have been informed that with few exceptions the majority of the DoD terminated university research programs in recent years have been supported at reduced levels by the National Science Foundation. 1. May 8, 1967, letter from J. S. Foster, Jr., to G. T. Seaborg. 2. May 23, 1967, letter from G. T. Seaborg to J. S. Foster, Jr., 3. June 9, 1967, letter from F. J. Larsen to G. T. Seaborg. 4. September 15, 1967, letter from G. T. Seaborg to J. S. Foster, Jr. Hon. GLENN T. SEABORG, DIRECTOR OF DEFENSE RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, DEAR GLENN: We have a problem which stems from both the attached proposal from Stanford University and a 1965 interagency agreement regarding support of the high energy physics program there. I am writing to both you and Lee Haworth simultaneously in order to ensure the widest consideration of the matter. This latest proposal from Stanford requests us to replace the Mark III accelerator with an accelerator of a new design, which purports to be a significant advance in the state-of-the-art in accelerator technology. It is a superconducting linac cooled with helium below the lambda point. Furthermore, they propose to bypass the technology development phase and proceed with construction and operation because of recent "breakthroughs" in the cryogenic equipment field. The concept of a superconducting accelerator was mentioned during the 1965 interagency discussions. Since it was not considered to be a safe design at that time, the agreement did not approve funding for this accelerator. At those meetings we did agree to support the modernization of the Mark III so as to make it more useful for research. At this time I do not feel that the Department of Defense should support major advances in the high energy field. Because SLAC is such a major national facility, it would appear in this particular case that the DOD and AEC are competing on the Stanford campus. Everyone should understand by now that the AEC is carrying the major high energy research programs for the nation. On the other hand we are interested in continuing the Navy support of cryogenic research at Stanford and in a more vigorous manner than that permitted at present. The attached plan entitled "Planned Navy Support" contains most of the funds necessary for accomplishing this and simultaneously supporting $5.4 million of non-severable facilities needed both for cryogenic experiments and for the proposed superconducting accelerator. In order to complete the latter and continue research in high-energy physics on this new machine an additional $8.6 million would be required during the period 1968-1971 inclusive. Since $1.3 million of this amount can be financed from carryover funds already in the Navy contract only $7.3 million in new funds would be needed to complete the machine, and for the time period FY 69 through FY 71. I would appreciate hearing from you with regard to possible AEC interest in supporting the Stanford superconducting accelerator concept. If the work proposed is of great importance to future accelerator technology, then perhaps it should be given serious consideration by the AEC. Please contact me regarding this matter after your staff has examined the issues involved. If I or my staff can provide any additional information, please let us know. Sincerely yours, JOHN S. FOSTER, Jr. HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS SUPPORT NEEDED (FOR COMPLETION OF SUPERCONDUCTING ACCELERATOR) 1 This amount can be provided by Navy from carryover funds already obligated under the Navy contract. Revised Proposal for the Superconducting Accelerator Project (SCA) in the Stanford High-Energy Physics Laboratory No. −229 (67) Accomplishments relating to the superconducting accelerator (SCA) In work sponsored by the Office of Naval Research we have made substantial progress in the development of the first superconducting accelerator. A number of essential experiments relating to the microwave properties of superconductors have been completed; a small test accelerator has been successfully operated; a ten foot long prototype of a large accelerator is near completion; experiments on the transport of heat by superfluid helium are in progress. We have ordered a refrigerator from the Arthur D. Little Co. which is to be delivered in September 1967. The refrigerator is designed to remove 300 watts at 1.85° K, and a prototype has already been built by this company. This is the first refrigerator to operate below the λ point in helium (2.18°K), and represents a major advance in refrigerator design. We have obtained reproductible Q's of 5 x 10o in superconducting lead cavities operating in the TE11 mode. This represents an improvement of a factor 100 over the highest Q's obtained before this research began, and is 105 times that obtained with room temperature copper which is used in conventional linear accelerators. We have demonstrated that this Q is independent of magnetic field strength up to the DC critical magnetic field, which for lead is about 700 gauss. Electric fields up 4.5 x 10 volts per foot have been obtained before the Q showed any drop due to field emission from whiskers. Preliminary experiments indicate that this RF critical electric field can be considerably increased by burning off the whiskers with a gas discharge, and that the above value is not the ultimate limitation. A superconducting accelerator plated with lead would make possible unity duty cycle operation at energy gradients comparable to those used in conventional linacs. Within the last week we have tested some niobium samples made by the Linde Division of Union Carbide, and also by Varian Associates, which gave a higher Q than lead although the experiments are still preliminary. The theoretical magnetic breakdown for niobium is about 1500 gauss which corresponds for the accelerater cavity to 25 x 106 volts per foot. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of accelerating electrons in a superconducting cavity we constructed a small test accelerator 4 inches in length. Electrons injected into this superconducting cavity were accelerated to 500 kilovolts; this indicates peak electric fields in the excited part of the cavity in excess of 4 x 106 volts per foot. At the present time construction of a 10 foot prototype accelerator is near completion. This system will consist of two 5 foot accelerator sections and is designed to stimulate the conditions encountered in large superconducting accelerators. Many of the design problems for large superconducting accelerators are being worked out in this system. With the cooperation of the accelerator group at Los Alamos detailed calculations have been performed relating to the choice of accelerator mode and to the optimum geometry of the accelerator structure. |