General GLASSER. That is true. But I think we would have to agree in some measure there is a compromise even in that, because countdowns and everything else are at least conditioned by the knowledge that you have an R. & D. payload that has to go along.

I would find it very difficult to describe the degree of this compromise without going back through rather detailed analysis. The reason being that this is a characteristic of the R. & D. business. You do this on a daily basis.

Everything, every decision that you make, every consideration is in the nature of some sort of an engineering compromise.

Mr. HORTON. You were not here at our hearings during the earlier part of the week.

General GLASSER. No, sir.

Mr. HORTON. And you were not here when I questioned Mr. Rogers. I said that from my viewpoint there was not the sense of urgency in putting up this operational system and what you have defined as an R. & D., or experimental system. The system was discussed some 2 or 3 years ago and was scheduled. It was announced that it could be put up, and then the Department of Defense began negotiations with Comsat which slowed down the operational system. So there was some slippage, and then there was a decision that the Department of Defense would go ahead on its own, and then it was announced they would pick up the program and it would move ahead.

Now, it seems to me there have been not months but years of slippage and the system is not up yet. The question that I have been concerned about is the sense of urgency. There are so many people here that one can't put a finger on who is responsible, but I want to know whether or not there is a sense of urgency with regard to putting up this operational system.

General GLASSER. I suspect, sir, that you are speaking of the communications satellite program in its broad context, and I was restricting myself to the IDCSP program.

Mr. HORTON. Well, let's restrict it to that, because that is the first one that has to go up.

General GLASSER. There has been no delay in the IDCSP program based on any lack of a sense of urgency.

Within the Air Force we are doing everything that we can to achieve an operational capability as soon as possible.

Mr. HORTON. You could have put more satellites on that first launch, could you not?

General GLASSER. But it would not have been a prudent decision to have done so.

Mr. HORTON. Why not?

General GLASSER. Because there is no sense in sending up two booster loads of satellites until you find out if the first one is going to work as your program had imagined it.

Mr. HORTON. Are you talking now about the satellite working or are you talking about the booster working? Our committee took into consideration earlier the fact that there was a tested vehicle which could have been utilized to put this system up.

General GLASSER. Yes, sir.

Mr. HORTON. And the decision was made to go with the Titan.
General GLASSER. That is correct, sir.

Mr. HORTON. So the question is, I think, whether or not there was any sense of urgency to get this system up.

General GLASSER. Well, I was not going back
Mr. HORTON. It is still not up.

General GLASSER. I was not reopening the question of whether it was a wise decision to transfer from the Atlas-Agena to the Titan III. Mr. HORTON. I am not, either. I am accepting that decision. But I am pointing out this question of whether or not there was any compromise with regard to the number of satellites that were put up on the first launch.

General GLASSER. Let me try to explain it this way. Having determined that we would go on a Titan III, and starting from that point, the number of satellites that we were able to put up at that time was eight. To have required more would have necessitated a redesigned shroud which could not have been done on that schedule. So the number selected is eight. One of those is a gravity gradient experiment, and that allows you to get seven communications satellites on orbit. So those seven go up.

Now, it is true that we could have planned to put a second Titan up much sooner. But that would not have been prudent either from the development of the Titan III booster or from the evaluation of the on-orbit satellites that went up on the first launch.

We are currently scheduled to put up a second group later this month, and I would submit that that is a reasonable program. would say that it is quite an urgent program, to put up one group on the 16th of June and another on the 24th of August. There would not be any reasonable basis for having put more than that 15 up as an initial investment.

ADVANCED PROGRAM CONTRACTS

Mr. ROBACK. Colonel Gibson, are you also the project officer for the ADCSP?

Colonel GIBSON. We expect to be; yes, sir.

Mr. ROBACK. That hasn't matured into a project office yet?
Colonel GIBSON. No, sir; not yet.

Mr. ROBACK. What contract obligations, that is not money but what contract responsibilities in that field are passed to your office-feasibility studies?

Colonel GIBSON. Yes, sir; we participated in the evaluation of the feasibility studies.

Mr. ROBACK. Did you contract for them?

Colonel GIBSON. No, sir; we did not.

Mr. ROBACK. Who did?'

Colonel GIBSON. DCA.

Mr. ROBACK. DCA is going to contract for the contract definition studies?

Colonel GIBSON. It is my understanding, sir, that the responsibilities for contracting for the contract definition studies will be assigned to the Air Force.

Mr. ROBACK. Did you have anything to do with a bidders' conference on the original studies?

Colonel GIBSON. Yes, sir; we did.

Mr. ROBACK. You remember the bidders got a lot of literature telling what they expected in the ADCSP.

Colonel GIBSON. That is correct.

Mr. ROBACK. And do you recall that there came a time when there was a big flap because somebody got excited that the ADCSP might have a little bit more capacity than some people considered was desirable and so you had to change the specifications? Are you familiar with that?

Colonel GIBSON. No, sir; I am not.

Mr. ROBACK. You are not familiar with any part of that?
Colonel GIBSON. No, sir.

Mr. ROBACK. You didn't have anything to do with the specifications for, the specifications for the bidders' conference?

Colonel GIBSON. No, sir.

Mr. ROBACK. When do you expect that you will get an assignment on the ADCSP?

Colonel GIBSON. It would only be speculation, sir, if I told you. Mr. ROBACK. You don't think that that would contribute to the record?

Colonel GIBSON. No, sir.

Mr. ROBACK. Do you think that it will be a belated decision?
Colonel GIBSON. I have no way of knowing, sir.

Mr. ROBACK. Do you think that this decision you are speculating about is tardy?

Mr. HORTON. I assume the witness doesn't want to characterize it, either.

Mr. ROBACK. We never force anybody to answer who doesn't have full responsibility for the decision. [Laughter.]

Mr. DAHLIN. Could Colonel Gibson tell us whether there are any significant problems with respect to materials priorities, priorities in the defense materiel system, as between the Titan III program or any of these R. & D. loads?

Is that affecting the program at all?

Colonel GIBSON. I can't comment for the Titan III. We haven't had any problem with materials on the satellite procurement.

Mr. DAHLIN. So far it is not a problem?

Colonel GIBSON. So far it is not.

Mr. DAHLIN. The level of priority hasn't given you any trouble so

far as the project office?

Colonel GIBSON. Not to date.

AIRBORNE TERMINAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Mr. DAHLIN. Is the Air Force now concerned or contracting for both voice and teletype needs with respect to the airborne terminal equipment that you are responsible for?

Colonel GIBSON. Are we now

Mr. DAHLIN. Are you now in specific programs?

Colonel GIBSON. For the tactical communications satellite?

Mr. DAHLIN. You spoke about your responsibility for aircraft terminal equipment in the program.

Colonel POLIO. The only contract we have underway right now is for teletype communications in the early Lincoln Laboratory experiments. The rest of the terminal programs are in study as of the moment. There are no contracts.

Mr. DAHLIN. The experiment you mentioned with the Syncom satellite was that special hardware, R. & D. hardware, or was this a modification of existing equipment?

Colonel POLIO. I might go back to that one, the Leapfrog program as we referred to it, is a flying laboratory which is looking into many techniques and propagation problems. It is not in any way characteristic of what the operational type hardware will look like. It is just for investigative purposes. Although we did have a voice contact on that particular link, we are treating this as exploratory develoment rather than advanced development for conceptual type testing of the type we plan to do on the Lincoln Laboratory satellite.

Mr. DAHLIN. Are there any research and development areas with respect to aircraft terminal equipment for which there has been insufficient attention or money? That is, is the technology in any part of the area not up to the state of the art required or is this straightforward equipment development within the state of the art?

Colonel POLIO. The program we currently have on contract is pretty straightforward; it is modifications of existing equipment but there are many problems we face in the future which require insight and more technical evaluation. These are currently under study.

MAC ROLE IN TRANSPORTING GROUND STATIONS

Mr. DAHLIN. Does the Military Airlift Command now have responsibility for moving the movable or transportable terminals for IDCSP as they become available or being ready to do so?

General GLASSER. I have to assume the answer to that question based on normally assigned responsibilities for channel movement. Yes, they would.

In theater movement, it is unlikely that they would have that responsibility.

Mr. DAHLIN. Have there been any problems in the growth of terminal size or weight or shape that have caused any difficulty for the Air Force in planning for aircraft to transport terminals?

General GLASSER. I am not qualified to answer that.

Mr. DAHLIN. Will you provide it for the record?

General GLASSER. Yes, sir; I will.

(The information referred to follows:)

AIRLIFT PROBLEMS CAUSED BY TERMINAL GROWTH

The first four terminals were shipped by surface means, based on economy considerations and the need date. (Airlift was not needed for the first four.) For the fifth terminal, the Army had arranged for a C-133B aircraft to airlift the terminal from Long Beach, Calif., to South Vietnam on June 30, 1966. When it became evident that site preparation at South Vietnam had slipped beyond the program date, the Army decided to ship the terminal by surface means: thereby negating the need for airlift. In summary, it can be stated that the lack of military aircraft in no way had an impact or effect on the delivery of the Army ground terminals.

SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS- -AIRCRAFT TO GROUND

Mr. DAHLIN. Let me ask once again on the kind of communications there have been between aircraft.

The Syncom experiment and the data transmission that was done in the private area-have these experiments explored all of the possible modes of transmission between aircraft and the ground? That is, have all frequencies now been explored initially or are there many more left to be studied by your program?

General GLASSER. There are many more experiments to do. I would characterize these as isolated incidents.

AIR FORCE ROLE IN NATO COMMUNICATIONS

Mr. DAHLIN. In the Electronic News of Monday, August 15, there is an article concerned with the effect of NATO changes on U.S. communications. In the article it states that the Air Force Electronics Systems Division held a meeting to wrestle with the problem of revamping the European communications complex. Is that part of Air Force responsibility? Is that part of all the services and DOD, or what kind of studies do you have to undertake in that area?

General GLASSER. The Air Force, and the Electronic Systems Division in particular, are involved in this, but they are not the organizations responsible for the requirements for communications capability in the European area. This, again, is a DCA responsibility with the various services participating.

Mr. ROBACK. Why do you suppose they mentioned your old division in this connection?

General GLASSER. Because the Electronic Systems Division does much of the development, procurement, installation and checkout of the actual equipments and they would be involved. Several of the programs that they are responsible for doing, for the DCA, are being seriously affected, by this action on the part of the French.

Mr. ROBACK. Maybe we are digressing a minute, but does MITRE have people on assignment to NATO still on communications problems?

General GLASSER. I am not personally aware of any in connection with the communications problem. I recall some that were in the European area previously in connection with the air defense ground

environments.

Mr. ROBACK. IS MITRE involved at all in this NATO interest in communications which Mr. Rogers adverted to; namely, possible interest in military communications satellite communications program? In other words, is there any MITRE offshoot on this?

General GLASSER. I think not, but I am not sure.

Mr. ROBACK. With NATO?

General GLASSER. Although I have been away from ESD for a year now and I am not current, I would rather doubt that they are. We can investigate that.

(The following information was furnished for the record :)

MITRE AT NATO

We presently have six MITRE people supporting the U.S. NATO delegation, U.S. Regional Office (USRO). The primary purpose for sending these people to Europe was to prepare studies and plans on NATO Air Defense ground