Senator Moss. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the enthusiasm and concern about this. That was very fine testimony. I appreciate it.

Senator ANDERSON. Senator Allott.

Senator ALLOTT. Doctor, I am sorry that a sudden influx of constituents with problems kept me from hearing all of your statement, but I am informed that a question was raised during the course of your statement concerning where the research should be performed; that is, whether it should be performed primarily in Government facilities, in universities, or other private and quasi-private facilities. I would like to make a short statement and ask you to comment on it.

Recently I had the opportunity of meeting with some 16 or 17 heads of various research projects at the Colorado State University. On this general subject a real concern was expressed by these gentlemen-and I am sure you thought of it although it had never occurred to me before that when the Government does in-house research or in turn puts it out to private research institutions, the effect is that the Government or its contractor comes into direct competition with the universities who, No. 1, often are capable of this research themselves and No. 2, the Government thereby tends to withdraw from the universities the manpower which enables them to, in turn, produce masters and doctors in the various fields and various disciplines. Therefore when the Government engages in research on an in-house basis it is actually competing with the universities and may destroy the university's capability of providing the new fresh blood of scientific personnel, and to that extent deplete it.

I understand the question was raised during the course of your discussion. Will you comment briefly?

Dr. CALHOUN. Senator Allott. I did not speak to this particular point in my testimony but I will be very happy to comment on it.

It is my own personal belief that university research must go hand in hand-does go hand in hand with the development of graduate students. You cannot do one without the other.

Now if you are going to develop advanced students in a particular area of knowledge you must have access to the experience and to the scientific principles that go along with that area of knowledge. If the Government-which is about the only agency that can support any large-scale experimental work in the atmosphere or the ocean or space-if the Government funds available for this are not somehow made available to universities, this means there is a great big vacuum in the university's access to knowledge and to developing facts which are germane to the development of their graduate programs.

So I am very much in favor of Government funds and programs like this being made available to universities where our new manpower is being developed.

After all, we can talk about the atmosphere and the ocean and all of our other resources but the most important resource we have is people, and our mechanism for developing these people is fundamentally our educational system. We must give this attention while we are doing some of this other work.

Senator ALLOTT. Definite incidents were given to me where to some limited degree, temporarily, the competition of private firms and particularly Government in-house research had to some extent limited the ability of universities to produce new graduate students.

I must confess I should have thought of this a long time ago.

Dr. CALHOUN. It has, sir. I would agree with that.

Senator ALLOTT. But I think it is a very important point which we must keep in mind, when talking about moving ahead on such vast programs as this. I do appreciate your comment to this.

Thank you.

Dr. CALHOUN. Thank you.

Senator ANDERSON. Thank you very much for your testimony this morning.

Dr. CALHOUN. It was a pleasure.

Senator ANDERSON. Dr. Vonnegut.

STATEMENT OF DR. BERNARD VONNEGUT, SCIENTIST, ARTHUR D. LITTLE, INC., CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

Dr. VONNEGUT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator ANDERSON. We appreciate having you here.

Dr. VONNEGUT. My name is Bernard Vonnegut. I am the scientist with the Arthur D. Little Co. For over the past 20 years I have been concerned with problems in atmospheric research. My work has been primarily of a scientific nature.

I am grateful for the opportunity this morning to talk. I would like to emphasize what I believe to be the great importance of scientific research if we are ever to have a meaningful system for weather control and cloud modification.

First of all I think it would be well to define what I mean by scientific research. I am referring to studies which I feel must be undertaken to determine how the atmosphere works, how the air moves in clouds, how rain forms in clouds, how storm systems originate.

Now this, while related to the problem of weather modification, I think is somewhat different. There are many experiments that are being carried out that are worthwhile experiments and are necessary to the development of weather modification but that I do not think are the sciences that I am referring to.

For example the experiments in which we make silver iodide smoke or seed clouds from an airplane, these were worthwhile experiments but they are not designed to answer a scientific problem.

They are designed to answer a social problem, an economic problem. I think that it must be stressed that no matter how much activity of this sort is carried out I question that it will provide the basic understanding that we require. So, this morning I am making a pitch for adequate support of fundamental scientific research into the weather. because any structure or technology or cloud modification is going to have to be based on this basic knowledge.

I think it should be emphasized that the research into how the atmosphere works is not a sort of venture that will have a financial payoff for a private organization. In other words, I think that a company would not be justified in spending its own money in research into the atmosphere with the hope of realizing a direct financial benefit.

Although this knowledge is of great value to society and to the country, it is very difficult to see how an individual company can capitalize on it. For this reason I think that essentially the only source of support for basic atmospheric science is from the Government. It is my

eeling that the support has not been adequate in the past and that it ould be strengthened in the future.

An illustration of the inadequacy of the support of basic research in mospheric science is that there have been quite a number of our colges in this field who are no longer working in the lower atmosphere. is a fact in the scientific world that it is far easier to get money to udy the stratosphere, the ionosphere, the magnetosphere, than it is e troposphere, where the weather takes place.

I think even any effort to speed up the development of the techology of weather modification will have to recognize that the funds ust be made available to support a broad program of research.

I think that we have not made nearly the optimum utilization of the sources, scientific resources, that we have for studying the atmoshere. Although the technique or the idea of cloud seeding originated iginally in an industrial laboratory, I think it is unfortunate that dustrial laboratories have played rather a small part in the developent and science of weather.

I think that the people in these laboratories have ideas and techiques for instrumentation that can be extremely helpful and in the ature an effort must be made to bring these scientists into the picture. I know that in some regions of the atmospheric sciences it is necessary at a man have long experience in weather studies and in studies of the mosphere, but this is by no means universally true. It is possible or a scientist with a good background in physics, chemistry, or enineering to make big contributions to atmospheric studies just in the me way that these men have made great strides and contributions to e field of space sciences.

It is, of course, necessary not only to have funds to support basic ientific research in weather sciences but it is also necessary to have roper administration of these funds. This is, of course, a difficult roblem. I feel that Irving Langmuir was correct in a statement that recall he made that it is impossible to plan scientific research. About all you can do is provide a favorable climate for it. There re differences of opinion, I know, concerning what a favorable climate or basic research is but I think that one important thing is to have a ide diversity of ideas and approaches.

For this reason I think it would be a very real mistake if we were > attempt to centralize scientific research concerning the atmosphere. is true, perhaps, that by centralizing a research effort one may crease the efficiency, if there is such a thing, of research.

On the other hand I think that we run a very great risk in having the esearch, which is essentially an individual enterprise, smothered y a bureaucracy which, in my opinion, inevitably would result. I ink that we must recognize now that within the Government we have rather large number of well trained, very skilled people in the adinistration of research, in the administration of atmospheric reearch.

I think that these people have done a good job in the past and they ill continue to do a good job in the future. It seems to me that the rimary thing is to increase the flow of research funds to the people ho will administer and grant support for this work.

Again I think we must recognize that in scientific research one of he most important things is the question that we ask of nature. And f we ask nature a poor scientific question, one that is not adequately

defined, we will not get a scientific answer. In my opinion, while it i of great value to know just how much we can increase precipitation this information that you can produce a 10- or 20-percent increase is o little value to the scientist in understanding what is going on.

in

I think that we should recognize that we cannot have double pur pose experiments that will answer the social problems of, can we crease precipitation and at the same time yield valuable scientific in formation? I think it is asking too much of one experiment to do this While recognizing the need for the rain stimulation experiments an learning by doing, I think at the same time we must be very carefu that we furnish adequate scientific support and thank you for th opportunity of making these points.

Senator ANDERSON. That is a fine statement. I am not really sur I understand you correctly. Are you trying to say that we can affor to overlook the possibility of increasing rainfall by 10 percent becaus we don't understand the scientific ends of it?

Dr. VONNEGUT. No, indeed, sir. I think that we must carry ou experiments, it is desirable; I approve of experiments that are de signed to find out how much can we increase rainfall. I think we ca increase rainfall and I think we should try to increase rainfall.

On the other hand, the growth of the science, in other words, th perfection of the methodology, if we want to understand why some times we get an increase of 20 percent and sometimes we get a decreas of 20 percent, when we face problems like that, as I think we will the scientists are going to be asked why is this so, and in order t answer the question of why this is so, and to avoid failures in th future, it will be necessary to have a lot of background knowledge basic knowledge of how clouds work, how the air moves in them, hov the particles grow, the nature of precipitation forming processes.

The point I am trying to make is that experiments of the sort wher you seed clouds and see whether it increases rain or not, while valuable will not answer the basic scientific questions.

They are not designed as a scientific experiment. I think that i must be recognized that even though such experiments may utiliz what we call a scientific approach, even though it may utilize statistic and a lot of scientific apparatus, it is not what we would call a goo scientific experiment. It is not the sort of experiment that will pro vide the type of information I am talking about.

Does that make it any clearer?

Senator ANDERSON. Yes. Thank you, it does. One gentleman from Arizona is saying that, although they had a good program of clou seeding, the rainfall was less than it had been over a long period of time. Therefore it could be possible that they hit a very dry perio and would not have had rainfall at all if they had not had cloud seeding. You do believe it is possible to increase rain fall?

Dr. VONNEGUT. I think, if I may deal with this question at a little length, that the situation now in the scientific world is that everyone believes that precipitation can be increased and agrees that it is pos sible by cloud seeding to turn supercooled clouds into ice crystals This is not a questionable thing.

Cloud seeding works and it works every time.

It turns the supercooled cloud into ice crystals. Now from all experiences that we have in science we know that-first of all we know that the cloud seeding changes the number of particles in the cloud by

hundred or a thousand or even a million. It changes the vapor presire. Then it changes the temperature. It changes the humidity. Tow if treating a cloud in this way did not affect the precipitation and he subsequent life of the cloud, this would be the most startling thing 1 the world. If it turns out that cloud seeding does not increase or ecrease rainfall, but has no effect at all, I will go into a different kind f business.

Senator ANDERSON. I will join you wherever you go.

Thank you very much.

Senator BIBLE. That is a very fine statement. I want to compliment he doctor on it. You say you need adequate funding. What range re you talking about?

The authorization in the bill calls for, as you know, $35 million for he first year, not to exceed $50 million for the second, not to exceed 70 million for the third year.

From then on it seems to be open ended. The bill says such sums hereafter as may be necessary. Is it possible to put an overall price ig on experimental research? I have asked this question several times nd most men I have talked to say it is not possible. I don't know. What range are we talking about?

Dr. VONNEGUT. When I see the figures of $30 million or something of this order, it strikes me as being a lot of money and adequate to upport a program. This scientific effort I am speaking of will be mall financially compared to the overall effort that is being considered

ere.

The thing that I wish to be sure of is that there is an understanding of the effort for scientific research rather than precipitation. It is a elatively small but vital part of the effort. I think it should be made lear to everybody involved that the scientific effort is to find a reason vhy things happen. I am afraid, if it is not made clear, we may face problem in the future of saying, while we spent so and so many milion dollars in basic research and scientific research under the assumpion that just because there were scientists and scientific apparatus involved, that basic science was being undertaken. It is not a large sum of money I am speaking of, but I think that, in the past, money that as been allotted for scientific research has been used to carry out experiments to see just how much could you increase rainfall.

Now this is a very important social question. In other words, it is a question that must be answered for you gentlemen. It is a question hat must be answered for the farmer, for industries who are considerng putting money into cloud seeding.

Scientific answers are not going to help them very much at this stage of the game. They want a practical answer. This is a very important social problem but it is not a scientific one.

I think that we can waste a lot of scientists' time if we involve them In this question. In other words, I think there are good important scientific questions that have gone begging because of the enormous pressure to answer this social question.

Senator BIBLE. The thing I was driving at was prompted by hearings we had a year ago in the Appropriations Committee, of which I am a member.

At that time Senator Margaret Chase Smith entered into the record a statement taken from a magazine saying that weather expenses by agencies showed a total of $431 million spent by 17 agencies.

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