Mr. ANFUSO. It is still in the question of theory, is that it?
Dr. YORK. The question is whether it will work at all.

If it performs as it is supposed to, then the answer is "Yes." Mr. ANFUSO. Have you any idea, Doctor, how long you think it would take us to perfect the Nike-Zeus?

Dr. YORK. No. I haven't.

Mr. ANFUSO. You don't know?

Dr. YORK. No.

Mr. ANFUSO. Are we working on any other weapon of defense against missiles?

Dr. YORK. Yes-well, we have the ARPA Defender program. Defender is not the name of a weapons system, where Nike-Zeus is. Defender is a collection of programs which Dr. Ruina can discuss later. It has to do with research and development in the whole general field of the antimissile defense problem. Research is the phenomenology of what happens when the missile reenters, kill mechanisms, control systems, and so on. They do, in the course of this, explore certain advance system possibilities. There is no other major systems program going on at the present time designed to intercept missiles. We have other programs in the missile defense area that have to do with warning.

Mr. ANFUSO. Outside of an antimissile missile, do we have any form of gas

Dr. YORK. We don't have any

Mr. ANFUSO. Or rockets in the sky?

Dr. YORK. We don't have any. There are a collection of ideas that involve rays and nonnuclear kill mechanisms.

Mr. ANFUSO. Does that come within your department?

Dr. YORK. Yes, sir. If it is in the Department of Defense, then yes. Mr. ANFUSO. Are you conducting research on that?

Dr. YORK. Yes; sometimes research, sometimes studies related to these, those projects are in ARPA, although there is some work being done in the Air Force in a coordinated fashion.

Mr. ANFUSO. Do you feel as though you are doing enough in that direction?

Dr. YORK. It is always possible to do some more. I feel it is in balance with the rest of our activity.

Mr. ANFUSO. You don't think more money would help you in that field in trying to find out other weapons for destroying a missile?

Dr. YORK. In any field within the Department of Defense you can always spend some more money and get some more results. Our problem, of course, is to balance up the whole thing and using the judgment that we can get from all sources.

Mr. ANFUSO. In other words, if you did have more money in these other fields, you could get better results?

Dr. YORK. You can say that about anything that is going on.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bass.

Mr. BASS. No questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Karth.

Mr. KARTH. Dr. York, the instability of liquid fuels; that is, the availability of them at the time and place that you might want to send a missile, and their very explosive and highly critical nature, degree of care with which they must be handled and all that raises several

questions in my mind whether we are giving enough time and effort and money toward the research and development of solid fuels. Could you just express

Dr. YORK. We are doing a great deal in that field. The two missile programs that are receiving the most attention in terms of almost any measure, dollars, manpower or anything else, are both solid fuel systems at the present time, in the field of research and engineering, these are the Minuteman and the Polaris. These are both solid fuel missiles. The Air Force has some applied research programs also in connection with solid fuel rockets.

Mr. KARTH. I am familiar with that. How about the big booster systems, Dr. York? Do you feel we are putting enough emphasis on research and time and effort on the development of solid fuels for the big booster systems?

Dr. YORK. A solid fuel, in general, can be used in a big booster or a little booster. Then any work being done on the fuels per se doesn't have too much to do with the size of the booster. That is not something that is an absolute truth. What we do by and large in the business of developing the chemicals themselves doesn't relate to the size. And we have a substantial program in ARPA, for example, just for the purpose of trying to get the specific impulse, as we call it, for solid propellants improved.

Then there is development of big thrust systems. The Nike-Zeus, as has been said, has a very large thrust. It has a smaller total impulse. But in terms of building large thrust there is no question but what that can be done. Building large total impulse is also something that is being explored by the Air Force.

The CHAIRMAN. Doctor, it has been called to my attention that some of the new members may not know what you mean by "ARPA.” I was on Armed Services when that was created by an amendment to the law.

Dr. YORK. ARPA is a set of initials for an agency whose full name is Advanced Research Projects Agency. It was created early in 1958. There have been some modifications in how it was organized and set up within Defense. It is in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and specifically in my Office of Research and Engineering. Its purpose is to carry out such programs and projects as the Secretary of Defense deems should be carried out in a centralized fashion.

Mr. KARTH. It appeared to me yesterday, doctor, that Dr. Dryden wasn't quite as optimistic as you about obtaining the specific impulse that we might need or already have in liquid fuels, so far as solid fuels are concerned.

Dr. YORK. I don't think we will be able to do as well in solids as we can in liquids in terms of specific impulse

Mr. KARTH. Do you think we can close the gap as we have now between the two fuels?

Dr. YORK. I am not entirely sure, because tomorrow there may be a discovery that I am not aware of. But in terms of what we know today, liquid propellants will probably always be superior in specific impulse to solid propellants.

Mr. KARTH. For the last

Dr. YORK. It could change. That is in terms of what we know today.

Mr. KARTH. For the last year or two, at least, it has been my opinion that you folks and others who appeared before the committee are pretty well agreed, in booster power the Russians are considerably ahead of us, and that in the so-called guidance and control systems, if anything, we were ahead of them. Has your opinion on that matter changed any?

Dr. YORK. It is about the same. It is much more difficult to make judgments about where we stand relatively on things like guidance and control than it is on booster science.

Mr. KARTH. Has Gamma 1 (Venus probe) had anything to do with the change on that?

Dr. YORK. It certainly confirms

Mr. KARTH. Guidance and control

Dr. YORK. It sort of confirms the boost side. As far as guidance and control is concerned, it leaves me in the same position. I don't know how this really stacks up. Rather than just look at particular items, the best way to get a feeling for that would be to compare their general capability in automation and control systems, and so forth, with ours. Because that is what is involved when you talk about systems of this sort.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask you at this point, how many members have questions here that they want to ask the doctor? [Show of hands.

Well, we will proceed, then.

Mr. Hechler, did you have a question?

Mr. HECHLER. Yes, I do. Do you want to go to the other side?
The CHAIRMAN. All right. Do you have a question?

Mr. BELL. Dr. York, would you say the liquid propellants are as dependable as the solid propellants?

Dr. YORK. It depends on what the purpose is. For military purposes, the solid propellants have a great many advantages. It is not just as simple as dependable or undependable, although you can put it in those terms. What we are concerned about is building missile systems our primary use of rockets is missiles. We also use them for space. But I usually think of an answer to a question like that in terms of missiles because that is where the main weapons emphasis is. In terms of missiles, the solid propellants have many advantages. These are all tied in with reliability, simplicity, response time, storability, and so on, all of which make the solid missiles more dependable in the overall. They are not quite as good in terms of total performance measured in terms of payload. And they are not quite as easy in connection with certain problems having to do with guidance. But a military system involves many parameters. By and large we think they are good.

That is why we are going over to them as rapidly as we can in missile systems. Essentially, all Department of Defense missile systems under active development are solid missiles, with the exception of finishing the Atlas and Titan systems. We still have research on liquid systems, and there may very well be future liquid systems of perhaps a storable type in the future.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Hechler?

Mr. HECHLER. Dr. York, you made some comments earlier in response to questions of the chairman concerning chemical and biological agents. I have been disturbed by the extent of the activity in the Soviet Union in training people in this field. I just wonder if you could give me a little perspective here in your statement about the amount of applied research on both the defensive and offensive side that is going on?

Dr. YORK. In the Department of Defense?

Mr. HECHLER. Yes. A little statement on the emphasis that you are placing on applied research in terms of defense.

Dr. YORK. I am impressed, as you are, by the Soviet Union in this field. The total activity measured in terms of dollars is, well, it is in the $60-million class; something of that sort. That is in research and engineering.

Mr. HECHLER. On the question, the immediate question of the figure, do you feel we are placing enough emphasis on developing means of defense?

Dr. YORK. I think the main role of this type of weapon system is with respect to tactical or limited war situations. So the defense question is perhaps not one of civil defense, but of what we are doing about making it possible for our own troops to live in such an environ

ment.

We do have an extensive program. We have tried to balance within the program that we have, defense, offense, nonlethal systems, with emphasis on nonlethal systems as far as offense goes, super-riot control agents, whatever you want to call them.

We can do more but it is a growing program. These aspects are expanding. We are expanding them.

Mr. HECHLER. Shifting for a minute to another subject, I was very pleased to see your comments about oceanography. You recall that President Kennedy, in his state of the Union address, among many other things, expressed the interest of the Nation, the value to the Nation, in oceanography.

It would be the first time in history that the word has appeared in a presidential state of the Union address.

Dr. YORK. Probably so.

Mr. HECHLER. I wondered if you would care to comment any further on the type of emphasis that you would care to push forward in basic research in oceanography?

Dr. YORK. It is an across-the-board program as far as basic research, as basic research always is. It is largely physical oceanography as opposed to biological oceanography, but it includes some of the latter too. It involves all aspects of the oceans, the ocean bottoms, the geography of these, the physics of the sea in terms of its acoustic properties, temperature properties, salinity, and so on.

Mr. HECHLER. I understand these details. I just wanted to know what your personal interest was in any particular phase of it.

Dr. YORK. My concern as a Government official is with the overall problem. We are interested in it specifically in Defense because it is the medium in which the Navy operates.

Mr. HECHLER. I congratulate you for that concern. Thank you. Dr. YORK. On the other hand, I personally just am generally interested in the field.

The CHAIRMAN. Anyone on this side?

Mr. FULTON. I am glad to see you back, Doctor. I am glad you are over your illness. I think you look much better.

Dr. YORK. Thank you.

Mr. FULTON. It agrees with you.

The CHAIRMAN. He does look well. I have never seen him look better.

Mr. FULTON. On the Aeronautics and Astronautics Coordinating Board set up by NASA and the Department of Defense, is there any statutory authority for that?

Dr. YORK. At the present time I believe the answer is no. I think it was introduced into the Congress last year but it didn't get all the way through.

Mr. FULTON. What does that do that the former civilian-military liaison group couldn't do?

Dr. YORK. It is organized in quite a different fashion than the CMLC might have been. It is made up to handle rather specific problems. Its panel structure is designed to handle a specific set of problems. Generally speaking, we have attempted to fix it so that the members of the panels, the cochairmen of the panels and the cochairmen of the Board itself are people who have sufficient authority within the organizations, once they come to agreement, to act without further coordination.

In other words, instead of having an individual who has within the two organizations involved no authority, it is cochaired by the Deputy Administrator of NASA, who has the authority of the Deputy Administrator within NASA, and me, who has certain statutory authority within the Department of Defense.

In general, when we arrive at a conclusion, we can carry it out without further check. If you have a third individual, he can't check it out. He can't carry out a decision without checking with somebody else.

Mr. FULTON. Does that operate under the Space Council? What are its relations with the Space Council?

Dr. YORK. The Space Council hasn't yet been reestablished or at least it hasn't been reactivated or whatever the right word is, Mr. Fulton. The AACB is an organization at an entirely different level from the Space Council.

Mr. FULTON. The point with that

Dr. YORK. It can work with the Space Council however the Space Council wishes to have it work with it."

Mr. FULTON. You still need a Space Council even though you have the Aeronautics and Astronautics Coordinating Board between the DOD and NASA.

Dr. YORK. It is a different level of Government and would have an entirely different purpose.

Mr. FULTON. You would recommend then that the Space Council be filled out and put into living operation, wouldn't you?

Dr. YORK. Well, I am not entirely sure exactly what is the right thing to do here. I do see use for a reactivation of the Space Council, especially because we have a new administration and a Space Council is an excellent way to come to decisions needed at the very top of the executive branch and to establish policies for the guidance of everyone else.