The National Academy of Sciences The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963 (1978) / Chapter Skim
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16. The Academy in the Fifties -- Beginnings of the Space Age
16. The Academy in the Fifties -- Beginnings of the Space Age
Pages 517-564
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16 The Academy in the Fifties Beginnings of the Space Age DETLEV WULF BRONK (195~1962) Detlev Wulf Bronk, sixteenth President of the National Academy of Sciences, was born in New York City in ~89~.
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. Detlev Bronk's scientific career began in 19zl, when as a graduate student at Michigan, he and two others published a paper that is a classic in infrared spectroscopy and contributed to the evidence for half-quantum numbers.
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That same year he was appointed to the U.S. Commission for UNESCO, to the Armed Force - NRc Vision Committee, to the Conference Board of Associated Research Councils, and to the editorial board of the Academy's Proceedings.
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(President Richards noted that the members of the Executive Committee of the Academy Council had been ex officio members of the Executive Board since ~9~5, but that their attendance at Board meetings had lansed.) Following con ~ ~ , 4 Quotation from Saturday Review 40:44 (February 2, ~ 957)
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Meeting together for one day every six weeks, this combination of the Executive Board, comprising the chairmen of the Research Council's divisions, and the Academy Council came to be known as the Governing Board of the National Research Council.~° 6 "Minutes of the Council," June 2 I, Ago; E
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That Dr. Bronk had for sime time considered such a journal is evident in NAs,annual Reportfor 1947~8, p.
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The Academy in the Fifties Beginnings of the Space Age Douglas Whitaker, Chairman of the National Research Council, ~ gbo- ~ 95 ~ (Photograph courtesy the Rockefeller University)
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The restructuring of the Academy contributed nothing, however, to settling the problem of space in the Academy building, which had become increasingly limited under the impact of the postwar years '4 W
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. When the administrative staff rose above 3so in Ago, the Academy authorized establishment of the NAS-NRC Employee Insurance Benefit Plan, adding group insurance, group hospitalization, and surgical benefits to the retirement and disability insurance in force since ~944 (NAS, Annual Report for 1949-50, p.
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As had NDRC and OSRD a decade before, the Science Advisory Committee stated in its preliminary agenda its intention of "making more effective use of the National Academy and Research Council" in the defense effort.~9 Although it was inactive during the short remainder of Truman's Administration, under President Eisenhower "the committee grew rapidly in status and function .
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Calling on medical experts, engineers, and chemists, and with the counsel of representatives of the Federal Civil Defense Administration, the armed services, and the Department of Defense, the NRC set up the Committee on Disaster Studies in the Division of Anthropology and Psychology, its Chairman Carlyle F Jacobsen, psychologist and medical educator at the State University of New York.24 Over the next two years the committee prepared a systematic bibliography on human behavior in disaster situations and a roster of 2~ NAS, Annual Reportfor 1948~9, pp.
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II, pp. 473-487; NAS, Annual Reportfor 1950-51, p.
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, passim. 29 NAS, Annual Reportfor 1950-51, p.
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In ~ 95 ~ the National 5~ NAS Archives: EX Bd: CBARC: Proposed: ~943; NAS, Annual Reportfor 1947 - 48, p.
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35 NAS, Annual Reportfor 1947—48, pp. 3~40; NAS Archives: FELLOWSHIPS: NRC Fellowship Office: ~947; NAS, Annual Report for 1951-52, pp.
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The massive but uncoordinated flow of radiation data and information here and abroad, including Academy studies in radiation biology, prompted President Bronk, with further encouragement from the Atomic Energy Commission and support by the Rockefeller Foundation, to undertake in April ~955 a thorough review of all available knowledge of the effects of atomic radiation on living organisms.37 Ultimately, six BEAR committees were appointed: Genetics, under mathematician Warren Weaver, Vice-President for the Natural and Medical Sciences, Rockefeller Foundation; Pathology, under Shields Warren, pathologist at the New England Deaconess Hospital, Boston; Agriculture and Food Supplies, under A Geoffrey Norman, Director, Botanical Gardens, University of Michigan; Oceanography and Fisheries, headed by Roger Revelle, Director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography; Meteorology, chaired by Harry Wexler, Director of Meteorological Research, U.S.
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; NAS, Press Release, June ~3, ~956 (NAS Archives: BEAR Series: PUB Rel: Press Releases) ; "Biological Effects of Atomic Radiations," Science 123:1 1 10-1 1 1 1 (June 22, ~ 956)
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; and the creation of a national agency to control and keep records of all dumping of radioactive material in the oceans and an international body to set up standards for the marine and air disposal of radioactive materials. Further recommendations stressed the importance of accelerated research in fundamental, mammalian, and human and population genetics; radiation pathology; the mixing between various parts of the atmosphere and the oceans; and the geophysical and geochemical aspects of the ultimate disposal of radioactive wastes.
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4` The Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation: Summary Reports (Washington: NAS-NRC, ~ 956)
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Disposal of Atomic Wastes in the Oceans A growing concern of the Academy was the possible hazard to marine life of atomic wastes dumped in the oceans. The exploration by the Academy of the extent and implications, begun in its studies of the biological effects of atomic radiation, became the special function of the Panel on Radioactivity in the Oceans of the Academy's Committee on Oceanography.
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It was the safest and most economical method, but admittedly not the ultimate answer.5t In the absence of any real knowledge of the effects of the continued disposal of radioactive wastes in the sea, the practice seemed questionable, and as early as ~gbo oceanographers at Woods Hole communicated to the AEC their concern. As a consequence, the National Report on Acid-Iron Waste Disposal," tune ~948 (NAS Archives: B&A: Com for Investigation of Waste Disposal: National Lead Co Contract: Preliminary Report)
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Properly packaged radioactive wastes, an NCRP subcommittee reported, should be sunk in waters at least one thousand fathoms (six thousand feet) deep, which in the Atlantic could be some two hundred miles offshore.52 The question of disposal of atomic wastes in the oceans concerned other Academy-Research Council committees and panels, namely, Abel Wolman's BEAR Committee on Disposal and Dispersal of Radioactive Wastes, Roger Revelle's BEAR Committee on Oceanography and Fisheries, and Donald W
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12. 56 Studies of the disposal of radioactive wastes appear in The Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation: Summary Reports (1956)
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The CUP and CRY dealt directly only with other international organizations, including the new United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) , formed in ~955, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (lAEA)
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The Academy in the Fifties Beginnings of the Space Age / 54 The AD-X2 Controversy When Edward Condon resigned as Director of the Bureau of Standards in ~95~, Secretary of Commerce Charles W Sawyer turned to the Academy for advice on a successor, and from among the five nominees suggested by the Academy, appointed Allen V
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The Bureau should also reduce many of its routine and repetitive testing activities and seek greater use of its unique facilities by other government agencies. 62 Bronk to the members of the Academy, April 2~, ~953; Department of Commerce Press Release, "Statement by Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks," November ~3, ~953; Weeks to Bronk, May 4, ~953 (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Com on Battery Additives: Beginning of Program)
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Of more than fifty recommendations to the Department, perhaps the most important was that which led to the appointment of an Assistant Secretary 65 NAS, Annual Reportfor 1953-54, p. 2; "A Report to the Secretary of Commerce by the Ad Hoc Committee for Evaluation of the Present Functions and Operations of the National Bureau of Standards," October ~5, ~953, pp.
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For the advisory panels set up by the Academy for NBS (and one for the Coast and Geodetic Survey) , see NAS, Annual Reportfor 1957-58, p.
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With the aid of Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation funds, and acting through the President's Committee for Hungarian Refugee Relief, the Academy assisted in placing more than twelve hundred Hungarian refugee scientists, as well as a number of refugees from other Iron Curtain countries, in fellowship programs or in scientific and technical positions in universities and industry.7i Auguring better relations for the future between the scientists of the United States and the USSR was an invitation from the Russian Academy of Sciences received by the National Academy of Sciences on December As, ~955. It suggested an exchange of scientists on a broad scale to acquaint each other with their current activities.72 As increasing numbers of invitations arrived, Bronk encouraged greater travel to the satellite countries and welcomed word in ~956 that Poland and Russia had been admitted to the International Mathematical Union, an adherent of ~csu, and that membership applications were pending from Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia.73 The rapprochement the "thaw" thus begun in science broadened and grew as one of the most gratifying results of the International Geophysical Year of ~ 957-~ 958.
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McMillan of the University of California, the $so,ooo Atoms for Peace Award (NAS, Annual Reportfor 1963 - 4, p. lo; Washington Evening Star, October 24, ~963, p in)
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National Committee and its Executive Committee, see NAS, Report on US Program for International Geophysical Year (IGY General Report No.
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of Earth Sciences: June ~953; ibid., G&G: Geology-Geophysics Relationship)
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So successful was it, in fact, that all participating IGY committees continued work on the writing of their reports on the "unprecedented study of the earth, sun, and space" for another three years, the U.S. National Committee in the Academy remaining active until the reports were completed.82 The most dramatic aspect of the IGY was, of course, the satellite program developed by the National Academy and carried out by the Department of Defense which ushered in the Space Age.
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~7-~9; NAS, "The United States-IGY Earth Satellite Program," lone ~957 (NAS Archives: IR: US National Committee: Earth Satellite: ~957)
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James C Hagerty, Press Secretary to President Eisenhower, gave out the startling news at a White House Press Conference at which representatives of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Foundation were presenter Since the project was of such magnitude, funding fell to the Department of Defense, and the choice of vehicles and launching rockets came to lie between the Navy's Viking and the Army's Red84 Walter Sullivan, Science Editor of the New York Times, who covered the IGY with a high degree of technical skill and competence, has told the whole story, including the saga of the satellites, in his book, Assault on the Unknown: The International Geophysical Year (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., ~96~)
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education, and shaking world confidence in the technological supremacy of the United States.86 On November it, ~957, a month after the Russian success and the reorganization of the satellite programs in the services, President Eisenhower announced the creation of the post of Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, naming MIT President lames R Killian to that office as his full-time personal advisor on all policy matters having a scientific bearing.
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Pickering, James A Van Allen, and Wernher von Braun, the Army's rocket expert who designed the Jupiter-C missile that propelled the satellite (Photograph courtesy Wide World Photos)
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Hornig, Chairman, Department of Chemistry at Princeton. 89 White House Press Release, March ~3, ~959, and Executive Order, March ~3, ~959 (NAS Archives: EXEC:FCST)
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, proposed NACA as the nucleus of a new space agency. The President agreed, Congress approved; and on October I, ~958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
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National Committees for four international unions of science those in astronomy, geodesy and geophysics, physics, and scientific radio; the Chairman of the U.S. National Committee for the International Geophysical Year; and several members-at-large.99 93 NAS, Annual Report for 1957-5S, pp.
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To advise on problems of recording, storage, and retrieval of scientific information and data, the Academy established an Office of Documentation in May ~959 (NAS, Annual Reportfor 1959~0, pp. 78-79 et seq.; NAS Archives: GOV Bd: Advisory Board on Information & Documentation on Science: Proposed: ~958)
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Tracey of the Geological Survey. ~06 With outer space and the ocean depths spoken for, Project Mohole |05 Hess was then Chairman of the Research Council's Division of Earth Sciences, which would include a new Committee on Oceanography that July.
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The drilling would be done in the oceans where the Moho becomes accessible at depths of thirty thousand to thirty-five thousand feet below sea level. On land it would have been nearly one hundred thousand feet, in temperatures too high for drilling equipment.
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The responsibility for ensuing events, however, became highly controversial as differences arose between the AMSOC committee and the NSF on the direction and objectives of the project and AMSOC'S interest in an extensive intermediate program of sedimentation research.' In addition, there was the hotly debated question of the choice of the prime contractor for the platform. Nor was Congress amenable in ~963 to a funding estimate for the next three years of Project Mohole amounting to "about $68 million," or to the subsequent agreement of the NSF, its National Science Board, and the Bureau of the Budget on a total cost figure of $47.4 million through fiscal year ~967.~2 lox NAS, Annual Reportfor 1957-58, p.
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. In January 1964, upon the appointment by NSF of Gordon Lill as Mohole Project Director, the Academy discharged its AMSOC committee and established new Advisory Committees on Site Selection and on Scientific Objectives for the Mohole Project.
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and fellow scientists examining a core sample from the ocean bottom during Project Mohole test drilling (Photograph by Fritz Goro, Time-Life Picture Agency)
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~7~, note. ~37 NAS, Annual Reportfor 1953-54, p.
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't~ NAS Archives: NAS-NRC, Organization & Members pamphlets; Telephone Directories. ~9 NAS, Annual Reportfor 1945~6, p.
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