Mr. RAMEY. On the ANP, again, Mr. John Early Jackson apparently had a great deal to do with the ad hoc committee's activities. Is he working on this project?

Dr. BROWN. He is aware of the project. He is not in fact the OSD member on it. However, I would expect to get advice from a number of members of my staff who might be knowledgeable in this area, and then would, having made the decision, take the responsibility for the decision myself.

Chairman HOLIFIELD. What specific questions or guidelines did you set up for this recent study, this last study?

Dr. BROWN. I think I had better not go into too much detail on that in open session, Mr. Holifield, but in general the group was asked to answer the questions of technical feasibility not only of the reactor but of the associated components which would be a part of a vehicle such as the ones that I have mentioned-guidance, terrain avoidance, and so on.

Chairman HOLIFIELD. Have they made a study of this and expressed their opinion as to priority between this and other alternate systems of delivery, such as the B-70?

Dr. BROWN. We considered asking them to do this. I think as they finally were instructed, they were asked to spend some time on this question if they wanted; but it was, I think, understood that they were not in a position to evaluate the merits or demerits of other systems; that they should, however, come up with the possible merits and possible disadvantages of something of this kind; and that the comparisons would then be made not by committees but by people who have responsibility for making the decisions, both in the Air Force and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Chairman HOLIFIELD. What direction has been given to the Pluto program by the Air Force in the form of specifications and performance schedules?

Dr. BROWN. I think perhaps that question is best deferred to the appearance of the Air Force witnesses, if that is satisfactory to you, Mr. Holifield.

Chairman HOLIFIELD. All right.

Representative HOSMER. Has anything been given that is satisfactory to the witness!

Dr. BROWN. Would you repeat that question?

Representative HOSMER. I want to know if the Air Force has given any specifications that are satisfactory to you.

Dr. BROWN. The Air Force has mentioned a number of specifications which it would like to see as a possible vehicle. I think the Air Force has not ever made a statement that there is a requirement for a system for this, at least not a very detailed one. I think that I have seen the Air Force's guidance as to its interests and I think I consider it reasonable.

Representative HOSMER. You have gone ahead and appointed a committee, here, to do some evaluation on a technical developmental problem, something that has not really been defined. You might say that the Air Force has given some guidance as to what it wants. It is one thing going out in the wild blue yonder and another thing going someplace specific.

Dr. BROWN. The Air Force has given some studies as to what altitude, what lifetime, what payload capacity, and so on, it would be interested in, in terms of one possible use of a ramjet vehicle. Now, there may be other possible uses.

Representative HOSMER. In those terms, has it conveyed to you and have you conveyed on to the ad hoc group what the thing is going to be used for?

Dr. BROWN. I think that the Air Force has made sufficiently clear what the possible uses are, so that the ad hoc group can examine whether a developmental program can be carried out which has a reasonable expectation of meeting those requirements.

Representative HOSMER. Very well.

Representative MORRIS. I was quite interested in the doctor's discussion with the committee, particularly in view of his statement at the bottom of page 2, where he says, "The most critical element in the SLAM system is the reactor." And he made it known modestly that he was pretty well involved with the reactor.

Dr. BROWN. The reactor is the most important item in the feasibility. Now, I pointed out that it seems likely to me that some such reactor can be developed; that there remain a number of additional tests, experiments, which need to be carried out, before one is positively convinced of that. And one of the things that this group has been asked to do of course, actually the Air Force and the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory will come up with suggestions-is to examine possible suggestions, make an independent estimate of how much they are likely to cost, how long they are likely to take, how likely they are to succeed. And they also are supposed to examine perhaps less critical features, to see whether they also will function.

If they do, there remains the question of requirements, which is related to what Mr. Hosmer brought out, that you need some kind of goal to shoot at before you can make up a program.

However, a goal to shoot at is still not a definite military requirement. And even after the feasibility is established, a good deal of consideration must go into the weighing of how something that might grow out of this technology compares with alternative ways of doing the same things or somewhat different things. This takes not only technical considerations, but good military judgment and overall judgment of the proper way to do a strategic mission or some other kind of mission. This will not be put in by the committee, but will have to be put in by people within the Department of Defense and the Air Force.

Representative HOSMER. I have a couple more questions for Dr. Brown, who I recall in the old days, before he got his present post, used to give pretty straightforward answers.

I want to ask you, Dr. Brown, about the second point, which I do not think was answered. I assume that the Air Force has in mind that there are certain targets somewhere that they should have a capability of destroying. And then they look around at the alternate means of getting something there to destroy them. And somewhere in this speculation is the consideration of whether this particular project is suitable. Is that it?

Dr. BROWN. That is correct.

Representative HOSMER. And I also assume they would end up having one or two or even three alternate ways of going about it. Right? Dr. BROWN. Yes. In fact, there are a variety of missile and manned aircraft systems. We have all heard about the manned aircraft versus missile question.

Representative HOSMER. They may evaluate a dozen or two dozen ideas, to end up with the three types of hardware?

Dr. BROWN. That is right.

Representative HOSMER. Now, at the present moment, as I understand it, this project falls into the evaluation stage, along with a lot of others.

Dr. BROWN. I would say it is still in the idea stage. It has not yet gotten into the weapon development stage, still less into the procurement stage. And of course those are two separate and substantial decision points.

Representative HOSMER. At the same time, we are spending quite a bit of money on this project, in this phase.

Dr. BROWN. That is correct.

Representative HOSMER. We buy things for this project that may not be used, like we do for every other project. Now, is there any way that you can accelerate, through guidance from your office to the branches of the service, the selecting out of a reasonable number of alternatives to concentrate on at an early date and avoid this spectrum of expenditures down a dozen different lines, not only for this particular purpose but for a hundred other military purposes?

Dr. BROWN. I think this is a very fundamental question, Mr. Hosmer. And I think that it is true that if we knew now what would be both feasible and the best possible operational thing to face a situation 10 years from now, at which time something like this could be developed and procured-and I am not just speaking of Pluto, here; I am speaking of a variety of things, just as you are-we should just pick those three out of the hundred ideas.

The trouble is that we do not know. We have not got the foresight. We do not know how things are going to work out.

Representative HOSMER. I understand that. And you can fill in the rest for us. But the major ingredient of feasibility is effort and concentration. There are a lot of things that become feasible because they are worked on and worked on hard.

And what I am getting at is: Is it not wiser at some earlier stage in the game to get into this concentration process?

Dr. BROWN. This is a matter of judgment which depends upon how well you think you know what it is that you are going to want.

My personal judgment is that it makes sense to work on several times as many ideas as you can afford to develop. You are limited in the manpower you can expend on development. You are less limited on the number of ideas that you can work on, because that does not take as many people.

I think it is appropriate to have a factor of perhaps four or five between the number of ideas you have and the number of developments you go into. And I would say that the Pluto project is still in the idea stage, rather than the full-scale development stage.

And then I think that there ought to be another factor of several between development and procurement, because there is another factor

of several in cost. That is, as the cost goes up by a factor of 3 or 4 or 5 or 10, I think that the selection process ought to select out a fraction of, say, a third of the things that you have carried on until that point.

Representative HOSMER. Personally, I think the thing is technically feasible, but I have great doubts about whether it is any good for the military purpose for which it is proposed. And this military value in relation to other technology seems to me to be an area in which the services have not exercised as stern discipline as they could. And I thought with all your other duties you might take on more imposing of discipline. That is in relation to these two ad hoc committees, too; because we are getting a lot of experience with ad hoc committees in connection with testing. There are two ways of spelling it. One is the Latin spelling and meaning. The other spelling ADHOC connotes "Attack, Destroy, Heave Out Concept."

Dr. BROWN. I am sure this group does not consider the killing of anything.

Representative VAN ZANDT. I just read, here, a list of the studies that have been made, I think nine in all to date. Mr. Chairman, at this time I ask unanimous consent that the listing of these studies be made part of the record.

Representative PRICE. Without objection, they will be made part of the record.

Representative VAN ZANDT. And a summary of the correspondence that has been exchanged between the committee and the Department of Defense concerning it.

Representative PRICE. Without objection, it will be included in the

record.

(The ad hoc committee, list of studies and summary of correspondence referred to follow.)

OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF Defense RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING, WASHINGTON,

D.C.

ROSTER, AD HOC GROUP FOR EVALUATION OF NUCLEAR RAMJET, AUGUST 14, 1961 Dr. Allen E. Puckett (chairman), vice president and assistant group executive, Aerospace Group, Hughes Aircraft Co., Culver City, Calif.

Dr. Howland H. Bailey, Rand Corp., 1700 Main Street, Santa Monica, Calif. Joseph G. Beerer, vice president of engineering, North American Aviation, Inc., International Airport, Los Angeles, Calif.

Dr. Arthur T. Biehl, MB Associates, 1279 Boulevard Way, Walnut Oak, Calif. Dr. William Bollay, 4592 Via Vistosa, Santa Barbara, Calif.

Carl A. Covington (OSD member), Office of Director of Defense Research and Engineering, Room 3E1060, the Pentagon, Washington, D.C.

Dr. Alexander H. Flax, vice president, Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, 4455 Genesee Street, Buffalo, N.Y.

Payne Harris, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, University of California, Post Office Box 1633, Los Alamos, N. Mex.

Dr. Russell O'Neal, vice president, engineering, Bendix Corp., Fisher Building, Detroit, Mich.

AF Advisor to Group: Col. Ola P. Thorne, Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff, Research and Technology for Atomic Energy, Headquarters USAF, The Pentagon.

AEC advisor to Group: Dr. Allen J. Vander Weyden, Deputy Director, Division of Reactor Development, Atomic Energy Commission, Washington, D.C.

SYNOPSIS OF AIR FORCE STUDY EFFORTS SLAM-PLUTO

1. The first contracts let specifically for studies of the application of nuclear power to missiles were the Martin Co., Baltimore, Md., and the Missile Division, North American Aviation, Downey, Calif. Brief studies had previously been conducted by the NEPA project, by Boeing, Lockheed, Convair, and other groups. The Martin contract was for the period November 1, 1954, through October 31, 1955, plus a 3-month extension. The North American contract was for the period February 1, 1955, through January 31, 1956, plus a 1-month extension. 2. One-year extensions during fiscal year 1956 were granted to the Martin and North American contracts and the project was transferred from Wright-Patterson AFB Headquarters, ARDC, Baltimore, Md. Greater emphasis was given to the ramjet application.

3. Fiscal year 1957 funds were not available for a continuation of the contracts. A study was therefore initiated under the ARDC voluntary study program under ARDC system requirement No. 149 dated October 5, 1956.

4. The SR 149 studies were evaluated during December 1957 and conclusions and recommendations were presented to Headquarters, USAF. The selection of a weapon system contractor was one of the recommendations. CurtissWright with AEC and AF contracts, the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory and Atomics International under AEC contract, and Marquardt under AF contract had already been selected to proceed with the development of a high altitude ramjet reactor.

5. In response to ARDC's recommendations, Headquarters, USAF, directed ARDC to select two or more contractors to conduct funded studies to further define the weapon system and to provide information to the Air Force on which to base a development plan. Chance Vought, Dallas, Tex.; Convair, San Diego, Calif.; and North American Missile Division, Downey, Calif.; were selected and placed under contract for the period August 1, 1958, through February 28, 1959. 6. In February 1959 the Wright Air Development Center was requested by ARDC to conduct a technical evaluation of the SLAM program at the conclusion of the above contracts. In May 1959, ARDC requested Headquarters, USAF, to publish an Air Force requirement and that selection of a single contractor be initiated. On June 1, 1959, Headquarters, USAF, advised ARDC that the SLAM concept was being evaluated and that further guidance would not be issued until the evaluation was completed.

7. On August 18, 1959, system development requirement No. 11 was published for SLAM. Its net effect was to cause ARDC to repeat the work that had been accomplished the previous spring; however, in a more detailed manner. In the meantime, Headquarters, USAF, was to continue its evaluation of SLAM. 8. In response to the SDR No. 11 requirements, a thorough and comprehensive technical evaluation and an abbreviated development plan were completed in early 1960 and submitted to Headquarters, USAF.

9. On September 4, 1959, DOD established an ad hoc group known as the Littlewood Committee to evaluate the nuclear ramjet program. Evaluation was completed on October 12, 1959.

SUMMARY OF PLUTO PROGRammatic GUIDANCE CORRESPONDENCE

October 6, 1955: Letter, Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense, to Chairman, AEC, requested active participation of the AEC in a program toward determination of the feasibility of a nuclear ramjet engine.

October 21, 1957: Letter, Office of Secretary of Defense, to Chairman, AEC, reaffirmed the DOD interest in the Pluto program and requested that AEC continue to pursue program.

August 14, 1959: Letter, AEC General Manager, to Chairman, MLC, proposed a schedule for the testing of the Pluto reactors and requested a reclarification of DOD objectives in the program. It also stated that in view of the magnitude of the AEC effort it was incumbent upon the DOD to evaluate the merits of a nuclear ramjet powered weapon system and determine the military interest. August 17, 1959: Letter, Director of Defense Research and Engineering, to Chairman, AEC, endorsed the proposed Pluto development schedule and requested every effort be made to accomplish the proposed program. It stated that the Air Force was establishing a requirement for further investigation of the SLAM system.