this question shortly.

Finally, a look at the Polar Programs. Studies conducted in the dry, ice-free valleys near McMurdo Station, Antarctica, have revealed a unique assemblage of microscopic plants living in rocks and has led to speculation that similar life may exist in similar environments on other planetary bodies, such as Mars and the ice moons of Jupiter.

The large numbers of meteorites recovered in Antarctica in recent years are proving to be extremely valuable in the study of the evolution of the solar system. Their scientific importance is not far removed from that of the moon rocks recovered by the Apollo program. NASA and the Smithsonian Institution are cooperating with us to assure proper handling and storage and to make them available to the scientific community for

research.

A multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional research project in the Bering Sea has revealed a complex system of oceanic fronts and interfront zones that are directly related to the transfer of energy and food materials to the higher forms of marine life in that highly productive area. These findings may contribute to better understanding of the role of oceanic fronts in the functioning of marine ecosystems on other continental shelves as well.

The subject of support for major facilities and support for scientists, or if you prefer, the question of "big" science versus "little" science is particularly pressing in the earth and polar science areas. The only technology now available for drilling the seafloor in deep water employs a drilling ship. The only way to do research in the Antarctic is to go there. The long distances and the often hostile environment of both the deep sea and the Antarctic region produce expenses and demand high quality

resources. The AAEO staff, in all of its divisions, are alert to setting the best possible balance between support for things and support for people, since we believe one is essential to the other.

In summing up our current efforts I want to emphasize the interdisciplinary aspects of AAEO research. The oceans measurements made in the SEAREX work relate to the destruction of stratospheric ozone, as I have already said; they also have application in the area of climate research. The deep sea sediment cores of Challenger, already mentioned, bear on climate, but so do the ice cores from Greenland and the Antarctic obtained through the polar programs. Seismic continental profiling, as I said earlier, has revised our thinking about the origins of parts of the southeast U.S., but it also has told and will continue to tell us important information about natural resources. The astronomers study the Sun; much of what they learn is of immediate interest to both weather and climate research. Similarly, the Antarctic program discovers meteorites, but astronomers learn a great deal about extra-terrestrial matter by studying them. While AAEO is organized into five divisions, more or less along scientific disciplinary lines, it is in point of fact a team of five groups of players whose integrated purpose is the understanding of our environment, its utilization and protection, and hopefully prediction of its future states. The work performed is truly basic research, but basic research that holds real promise for benefits to society.

I would like to draw attention to the major highlights of the FY 81 Budget.

The Astronomy Division is looking to a major new start--the 25-meter diameter millimeter-wave radio telescope. This new instrument, when completed, will be the most precise for its size in the world. The telescope

is to be located on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. That location was chosen because it is at a high altitude to minimize the effects of water vapor, it is relatively free of radio interference, and because from there the telescope will be able to view the entire northern hemisphere and a large part of the southern. The FY 1981 Budget request asks for $1.7 million for the final design. Actual costs for construction of the new instrument are expected to be about $27 million over a three-year period. This cost estimate, done the same way as the VLA, includes 10% inflation and 10% contingency.

The Astronomy Division is also initiating a study designed to determine the best sites for astronomical observations in the United States. Increasingly, astronomical observations are being made with various types of electronic image detectors, and the Astronomy Division is undertaking an effort to provide such detectors to university and national observatories. These detectors require new data handling and reduction facilities. As a result, new computers are being installed both at selected universities and at the Kitt Peak National Observatory.

The total request for astronomy for FY 1981 is $60.2 million. Of that total, $19.2 million will be used for the support of astronomy research projects in such areas as solar system study, stars and stellar evolution, stellar systems, galactic and intergalactic investigations, and for the development of instruments. The remainder goes for funding the major national observatories for support of research, a majority of which is conducted by small university-based groups and individuals to use telescopes too expensive to be operated by any single university.

The principal single item in the atmospheric sciences budget is, of course, the National Center for Atmospheric Research at $29.9 million. Just

recently a new President was named to head UCAR, the NSF's contracting entity for management of NCAR. He is Dr. Robert M. White, former Administrator of NOAA. Dr. White is now in the process of recruiting a new Director for NCAR. I am anticipating some new exciting efforts at NCAR in the coming years.

One of our goals, in which NCAR is a major actor, is to improve the understanding of the physical processes governing the full range of scales of atmospheric motion and applying this understanding to prediction of atmospheric evolution. The major success to date in prediction of turbulent flows, such as those that occur in large-scale atmospheric dynamics, has been possible only with the aid of the most powerful computing machinery available. The NCAR computer center is the key to progress in many areas of atmospheric sciences, including the area where numerical simulation models of maximum physical fidelity and resolution are essential. Another NCAR effort of special interest is directed toward determining trends in air quality, factors influencing it, and how air composition is affecting climate trends. The goals of this effort are to determine the composition, chemical conversions, and dynamic features of the atmosphere; to design photochemical-meteorological models for the analysis and interpretation of global atmospheric data and to predict future trends in the earth's chemical, physical and biological environment; and to determine the important chemical, physical and biological mechansims that maintain or perturb chemical balances within the earth's atmosphere.

Beyond NCAR, we are requesting $38.6 million for the Atmospheric Sciences Division to support its atmospheric research projects in aeronomy, atmospheric chemistry, climate dynamics, experimental meteorology, meteorology, solar-terrestrial studies and the Global Atmospheric Research Program.

$2.6 million is also requested to operate the National Scientific

Balloon Facility.

The field of aeronomy opens this decade with a fresh attack on the upper atmosphere. We have recently come to recognize that energy deposited by auroral and other processes at high latitudes impacts the entire global-scale upper atmospheric system: its wind patterns, energy budget, and composition. We are now deploying a longitude chain of very sensitive radar facilities that will, for the first time, allow a comprehensive study of the upper atmosphere in perspective as a global system. These radars provide wind measurements continuously in altitude and in time. Long period observations will enable upper atmospheric science researchers to prepare detailed, precise descriptions of the high-altitude wind patterns--a significant step forward toward prediction of weather and possibly climate as well.

The Global Atmospheric Research Program will continue, shifting its major thrust to the analysis of the set of data obtained in the first field phase of the Global Weather Experiment, which was recently completed. This set of world-wide data, when edited and organized, will be used as input for truly global numerical models of the atmosphere-ocean system. These models may well be the key to such things as improved weather prediction and forecasts of future climate.

The Atmospheric Chemistry Program is expanding support of laboratory studies of the chemistry of trace gases of natural and man-made origin. The intent is to understand how pollutants and natural emissions of gases from the earth's surface affect both the troposphere and the stratosphere. A major program of airborne field observations will develop a more complete description of the chemistry of the troposphere, allowing a test of