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The of

Research institutions

a look at

government

laboratories

"'Anxiety for the future time, disposeth men to enquire into the causes of

things: because the knowledge of them, maketh men the better able to order

the present to their best advantage. ""

Thomas Hobbes

,j/ "'What is now proved was once only imagin'd. ""

William Blake
Frontispiece: Pioneer 10 deep space probe.

_ _?_,L- PAGE

COLOR PHOTOGP,APH

Cover: Photograph of a memory chip.
NASA SP_481

The of

Research Institutions

a look at

gover nlnent

laboratories

Hans Mark and Arnold Levine

N_A Scientific and Technical Information Branch 1984 National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Washington, DC
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

/

Mark, Hans Michael, 1929_

Management of research institutions.

(NASA SP ; 481)

Bibliography: p. 237.

Includes index.

_. Research institutes_United States--Management.

2. Technology--United States--Management. I. Levine,

Arnold. II. Title. III. Series.

Q 180. U5M325 1984 001.4 "068 84-14869

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Washington, D.C. 20402
Contents

Introduction ............................................. ix

CHAPTER I. What is Technology Development? ............ 1

The Nature of Technology Development ................. 1

The Federal Technology Development Laboratory ......... 6

Plan of This Book .................................... 10

CHAPTER II. The Technology Development Laboratory

From its Origins to the Second World War .............. 13

Origins of the Technology Development Laboratory ........ 13

Research and Development Institutions in the

United States ...................................... 25

Conclusions ......................................... 34

CHAPTER III. The Technology Development Laboratory

from the Second World War to the Early 1970s ........... 35

The Manhattan Project ................................ 37

The Post-War Period" Origins of Government by

Contract (1946 to 1957) . ._........................... 46

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration

(1958 tO 1970) ............................... ...... 54

Epilogue: The 1970s and After ......................... 62

CHAPTER IV. Features of Technology Development

Laboratories ......................................... 67

On Being the Right Size ............................... 67

V
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCHINSTITUTIONS

Problems of Research Diversification .................... 70

A Case Study" The NASA Helicopter Program ........... 77

Conclusions ......................................... 82

CHAPTER V. The Structure of Technology Development

Laboratories ......................................... 91

Obstacles to Technical Innovation ....................... 91

Organizational Structure of Research and Development

Institutions ........................................ 94

Innovation in Technology Development Centers ........... 96

A Case Study" NASA's Management of its Research and

Technology ....................................... 105

Conclusions ......................................... 109

CHAPTER VI. Projects" The Ultimate Reality ............... 113

Definition of the Subject ............................. 113

What Project Management Entails ..................... 118

Case Studies ........................................ 125

CHAPTER VII. The Management of the Professional Staff .... 139

Employment Patterns Among Federal Scientists and

Engineers ......................................... 139

The Problem of the Aging Staff ....................... 142

Research Productivity in the Federal System ............. 146

Two Case Studies in Personnel Management ............. 150

Conclusions ......................................... 155

,...

'4"

. -" .'i

r- :

CHAPTER VIII. Supporting Functions and Personnel ........ 159

Supporting Functions Defined ......................... 159

Measuring Productivity" The Method of Support Ratios ... 161

Measuring Productivity" The Job Analysis Method ........ 165

The Legal Status of Support Services ................... 168

vi
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

CHAPTER IX. What the Research Executive Does ........... 175

Toward a Theory of Research Management: Search

for a Method ..................................... 175

The Functions of the Senior Executive ................. 181

CHAPTER X. The Laboratory and its Sponsors .............. 193

The Role of the Sponsoring Agency ..................... 193

Autonomy of the Federal Technology Development

Laboratory ....................................... 200

Strengthening Productivity: The Role of the National

Bureau of Standards ............................... 207

The Multiprogram Laboratories of the Energy

Department ....................................... 213

CHAPTER XI. Conclusions ............. .................. 223

REFERENCES .......................................... 237

BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY ................................ 249

ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS FREQUENTLY

CITED IN TEXT ...................................... 255

APPENDIX I. Glossary of Science and Technology Terms ..... 257

APPENDIX II. Chronology of Federal Executive Branch

Science Organization, 1787 - 1976 ........................ 263

APPENDIX III. Summaries of Federal Development

Laboratories .......................................... 274

INDEX ................................................ 295

ABOUT THE AUTHORS ................................ 305

vii

INTRODUCTION

Few persons would dispute the assertion that advances in

technology have profoundly affected recent history. Yet the process

by which technology is developed, refined, and brought to production is both complex and subtle, and it evades easy generalizations.

But the very difficulty in grasping the nature of technology development should serve more as a spur than as a barrier to understanding.

For one thing, the subject has a strong intellectual fascination. More

important, technology affects each of us, whether we assist in

developing it, consume it, invest in it, or pay taxes to finance it. This

book looks at some of the institutions in which technology development occurs. For reasons explained below, we have selected for close

examination primarily those laboratories operated by or managed for

the Federal Government. And we want to answer one question" What

do these institutions do and how well do they do it?

This might seem a fairly easy question to answer. The surprising

thing is how few attempts have been made to answer it and how few

of those have transcended the obvious. There are excellent studies of,

for example, the functioning of large organizations, the formulation

of science policy by the Federal Government and some large private

enterprises, the genesis of scientific concepts, and the sociology of

scientific disciplines. What we lack are accounts of the working of installations on the order of the National Bureau of Standards, the

Naval Research Laboratory, or Oak Ridge National Laboratory,

where much of the most advanced technology has been developed.

No doubt, we could account for this lack in several ways" Scientists

and engineers may not have found the right words to explain what

they do; the compartmentalization of research and development

makes it difficult for anyone to see the institution whole; and, in

some of the larger laboratories, the best work often occurs entirely

outside formal organizational channels. Whatever the reasons, we do

not have a succinct account of how large technology development

laboratories operate. This book is intended to provide such an account.

But that account is possible only within self'imposed limitations.

Except in passing, we will have little to say about technology development in agriculture, medicine, geology, or the social sciences--say,

the development of computers specifically designed to manipulate

ix
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCHINSTITUTIONS

large data bases. Instead, our focus will be on the systematic use of

scientific knowledge to produce large, complex hardware systems"

spacecraft, advanced weapons, nuclear reactors, aircraft, and electronic systems such as radar. This is the most visible and certainly the

most expensive kind of technology development sponsored by the

Federal Government and the very large private corporations, which is

one reason for examining it. A second reason is that these institutions

manifest the issues of "Big Science" in their most acute form" How do

we translate basic scientific concepts into operating systems? How do

we break down the compartmentalization between scientists and

engineers? How do we permit discretionary research within the limits

of a rulebound community? How do we redirect institutions as their

larger programs are completed? And how do we maintain a certain

necessary distance between the laboratory and its sponsoring agency

or corporation?

A third reason for studying the large technology development

laboratories is that the programs that serve to justify their existence

are massive social facts. In one way, this only states the obvious,

since laboratories on the order of Los Alamos National Laboratory

or the Marshall Space Flight Center are vital to the economies of the

regions in which they are located. We mean rather more. Quite simply, the aircraft and integrated-circuit electronics industries would

have developed quite differently without the stimulus provided by

federally-sponsored defense and space programs or the protocols and

measurement tools developed at the National Bureau of Standards.

The work of large Federal technology development laboratories and

the large privately-sponsored ones served to set the direction that certain major industries- much of what is now fashionably called "high

technology"-- have taken.

In sum, the large technology development laboratory has been

an important (though not easily quantifiable) element in American

economic growth. Whether such laboratories can be directed by some

central agency or the White House toward stimulating economic

growth is still an open question. The notions that the laboratories can

produce innovation on demand as part of some ill-defined "industrial

policy" or that they constitute a republic of science whose members

are accountable only to each other are also very questionable. The

role of the large technology development laboratory is limited

because it is important, important because it is limited. There is no

sense in squandering national resources, and the roles of government

and most commercial laboratories--or rather, laboratories whose

missions are to produce commercial products--are not interchangeable. In the course of this book, we shall argue that most

government laboratories exist to do work which commercial firms

X
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

have no incentive to do; to provide a portfolio of technical concepts,

some of which may be taken up by the parent organization once current programs end; above all, to define those technology programs

whose actual development will be mostly in the hands of industrial

contractors. If our book is biased in favor of any thesis, it is that the

greatest strength of the technology development laboratory is in basic

and applied research and not (with rare exceptions) in product

development.

This book, then, is intended as an introduction--for scientists,

research administrators, students in technical areas, and the general

public--to a subject that has not received the treatment it obviously

deserves. Specifically, it is designed to accomplish three things deriving from our original question: to describe how technology development laboratories really operate; to identify conditions that militate

in favor of or against the performance of a laboratory's mission; and

to draw certain conclusions as to how such laboratories should be

managed. Of course, the conclusions should follow logically from

the analyses that preceded them. If our analyses are correct, we shall

find that successful diversification is most likely to occur in areas

closely related to the laboratory's core mission, or that the existence

of a technical capability in a laboratory sometimes triggers a national

or a corporate policy based on that capability.

Our work melds (or tries to meld) two viewpoints, two quite different kinds of experience. One of us is a physicist by training, a

research administrator by profession, and a student of the history of

science by avocation. The other is a social scientist specializing in the

study of large technology-based organizations. We hope that our collaboration, based as it is on differing experience and perspectives,

has been fruitful, though it has not always been easy.

The Management of Research Institutions originated as a course

of lectures first delivered by one of the authors (Mark) as a Consulting Professor at Stanford University during the 1974-1975

semester. These lectures are the nucleus of this book. But in the process of trying to get our thoughts down, the book outgrew its original

framework; we dropped several lectures, expanded others, and added

much completely new material--some two-thirds of the text. We

have tried, however, to retain the immediacy and spontaneity that

mark a good lecture.

While we take full responsibility for everything in the text, we

feel that, insofar as we accomplished what we set out to do, much

credit is due to those persons who encouraged us, criticized our

drafts, and eased the pains of bringing a book to press. John V.

Foster, former director of Development at the NASA Ames Research

Center, and Dr. Chester M. Van Atta, former associate director of

xi
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, participated in

developing the material for the original lecture series. Jeff Struthers,

of the Office of Management and Budget, Dr. Sylvia Fries, director

of the NASA History Office, and Dr. Malcolm Currie, executive vice

president of the Hughes Aircraft Company, read through our drafts

and offered penetrating criticism. Many institutions patiently

answered our requests for photographs and technical data, and we

are pleased to acknowledge their assistance at appropriate points in the

text. At NASA, Dorothy Kokoski cheerfully supervised our drafts as

they went through typing, and Eleanor Burdette of the NASA

Technical Library supplied research materials as and when we needed

them.

Finally, we acknowledge the help of the late Frank "Red"

Rowsome in bringing two very different authors together and making

this work possible. This book is dedicated to his memory.

Hans Mark

Arnold Levine

Washington, D.C.

August 1984

xii
CHAPTER !

What is Technology Development?

The Nature of Technology Development

There are certain assumptions in any era that are both widely held

and at least partially true. One of these is the belief in a correlation

between investment in scientific research and national productivity.

Science, so the argument would run, generates technologies which alter

and enrich the fabric of our lives. What was once slow and largely

unconscious has now become a managed process. As Alfred North

Whitehead wrote sixty years ago regarding the nineteenth century, "A

new method entered into life. In order to understand our epoch, we can

neglect all the details of change, such as railways, telegraphs, radios,

spinning machines, synthetic dyes [or: transistors, communications

satellites, computers, nylon, radar, microelectronics]. We must concentrate on the method itself; that is the real novelty..." (ref. 1.) What has

happened since Whitehead wrote these words confirms their truth.

Technology, conceived as a technique for mobilizing human energies and

for making the most effective use of technical talent, is the dominant

force in driving the economies of modem industrial societies.

But the success of modem product- and mission-oriented technological research is, paradoxically, an obstacle to understanding what has

made its accomplishments possible. The inevitability with which research

concepts appear to lead to operating systems is spurious. On the one

hand, there are many urgent social problems for which the requisite

research and development support does not exist; on the other, as Nathan

Rosenberg observes, the rate of diffusion of new technologies "is

intimately linked to the speed with which they come to offer distinct

economic advantages over old technologies, which may continue to be

improved, or to offer economic advantages for specific uses." (ref. 2.)

The successful development of new technology is almost always difficult

and uncertain, depending both on the customer's needs and on the speedy

transfer of knowledge between disciplines. How the process of

developing new technology occurs in one set of institutions the

mission-oriented Federal laboratory is the subject of this book.

For our purposes, technology development can be defined thus" It is

the systematic use of the knowledge and understanding gained from
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

scientific research directed toward the production of useful materials,

devices, or methods, including design and construction of prototypes and

demonstration of processes. (ref. 3.) This definition is broad enough to

cover many of the categories used by other writers and we mean it to

be broad. Starting from a broad definition, we can avoid those subtle

arguments which sprout like toadstools in the literature on science policy.

For example" What are the differences among strategic research, product

research, process research, and operations research? At what precise

point does applied research become development? There would be

nothing wrong with precise definitions, if they did not often lead to

unproductive arguments about what an institution actually does

hardening of the categories, as it were. There have even been cases where

a Federal laboratory would have reported no basic or applied research if it

adhered strictly to definitions laid down by the National Science

Foundation.* It is better to start with something comprehensive, refining

our categories as we proceed.

Compared to the events that Whitehead discussed, the pace of

technology development has accelerated immensely. (This is true both in

absolute and relative terms, as any reader who owns a pocket calculator

or personal computer or who plays video games can attest. Five years ago

these items were either unavailable, or available only at prices beyond the

reach of ordinary consumers.) In the case of major space and weapons

systems, there must be simultaneous advances along a broad front" in

electronics, materials, guidance and sensor systems, data processing, and

the like. Of necessity, such research draws on many disciplines, since the

problems to be solved are extremely complex; in some cases, new

specialties combining several disciplines, like astrophysics and biochemistry, are created.

In this setting, the role of basic research becomes problematic. In

* There is something both amusing and depressing about arguments over what a

research organization is doing. A study by the Congressional Research Service of the

National Bureau of Standards (NBS) notes that different observers saw the Bureau doing

different things. In 1970 and 1971, the Bureau responded to a survey by indicating that it

was spending between $13 and $15 million annually on basic research. But at a 1971

congressional oversight hearing, the NBS Director "testified that only $3 million was

being dedicated to basic research. Later he explained the apparent discrepancy by

suggesting that the first figures reflected the judgments of individual scientists about their

work rather than the, presumably, more accurate estimates of top management. As he

subsequently told the Visiting Committee, 'if that's how the NBS staff view their work

from a motivational view, that is fine.'" Congressional Research Service, The National

Bureau of Standards: A Review of Its Organization and Operations, 1971-1980. A study

prepared for the Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Technology, U.S. House of

Representatives, Committee on Science and Technology, 97th Congress, 1st Session

(May 1981), p. 110.

2
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

basic scientific research the purpose is to find out why things happen as

they do in nature. It depends on experiment and theory to devise a

structure for some finite element of the natural world. The emphasis is

always on the word "why." But for all the lip service paid to basic

research, the proper relation between it and technology development is

not susceptible to a once-for-all solution. The objectives of basic research

are not always easy to define, and frequently the only quality

control whether a piece of basic research is good or not is provided

by the researcher's colleagues and collaborators. Moreover, research per

se is seldom the objective of a product-oriented institution, or even of

most publicly or privately sponsored research installations. The purpose

of a space probe may be to expand our knowledge of the universe, but the

goal of the installation managing its design is to produce an operating

system within the time and budget allotted. Often, advances in basic

research may be more a permissive than an active element in determining

what kinds of technology development will be on the agenda. Indeed, the

relation can and does run the other way" A technological breakthrough

can be a stimulus to basic as well as product-oriented research, as

producers and users try to understand, and thereby improve, the original

innovation. A breakthrough, as Rosenberg has said, may signal "the

beginning of a series of new developments of great importance, not their

culmination.., the development of the transistor or the explosion of the

first nuclear device or the first achievement of heavier-than-air flight is

really the announcement of a new set of possibilities far more than their

attainment." (ref. 4.) There is nothing predetermined in deciding what

kinds of development will be undertaken, especially where improvements

in existing systems are to be more than incremental.

It can be argued that one of the most important changes in the way

that technology is developed is that, over the past twenty years, we have

come to understand the process so much better. If they are so inclined,

research administrators are in a position to know that the lines between

research and technology development run both ways; that the introduction

of new technologies often marks only the beginning of a process of

discovery; that the needs of government agencies have stimulated civilian

industries, notably in electronics; and above all, that the decision to

sponsor a major program of technology development always represents a

political choice. Up to the eve of the Second World War, the rate of

scientific advance was such that scientists, research managers, and

government officials often perceived technology developments as flowing

directly from scientific discoveries. Each new discovery was, in due

course, developed into new technology and then into engineering

projects; examples that come to mind include Roentgen's discovery of

X-rays, James Clerk Maxwell's theory of electricity and magnetism, and

John Dalton's atomic theory.
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS ,

This is no longer true. Since technology development is generally

very expensive compared to basic research, choices must be made. We

simply do not have enough money to support all the possible

developments that could be based on current knowledge. For example"

Should we or should we not develop the technology to extract thermal

energy from the oceans? Should we or should we not develop the

technology of moving earth with nuclear explosives? Should we or should

we not develop hypersonic passenger aircraft? All of these things

probably could be done if the decisions to undertake the necessary

technology developments were made, since the knowledge on which

these developments would be based already exists. Yet for reasons of

public policy, none of these programs has been undertaken. Our

mechanisms for making choices regarding the initiation of new

technology developments are still rudimentary. We have, as subsequent

chapters will show, an established pattern, but it is not at all clear that this

pattern is properly geared to the needs of our society.

Thus technology development mediates between basic research and

engineering that is, the application of the mathematical and natural

sciences to develop ways to utilize the forces of nature for human benefit.

Where a particular field of study attracts a sufficiently large group of

workers under an established name, they tend to form professional

societies, start their own specialized publications, and organize

departments within the university, leading to recognition by the scholarly

community. Sometimes the origin of such a field lies in the recognition of

a need (the splitting of engineering into electrical engineering, civil

engineering, etc., and more recently, into systems engineering and

biomedical engineering), and sometimes in combining two previously

separate disciplines. In contrast to basic research, technology development tends to be a group activity rather than an individual enterprise.* In

contrast to engineering, the time scale is longer and the costs

anywhere from ten million to billions of dollars _ greater than for all

but the largest engineering projects. The reasons for undertaking

technology development have included, for example, a perceived crisis

such as that leading to the development of radar and nuclear weapons in

the Second World War, or some large perceived profit if the technology

succeeds, as in the case of Polaroid-Land cameras and very large scale

integrated circuits.

* The difference is much more one of degree than of kind. Basic research in such

disciplines as high-energy physics and astrophysics is a group activity demanding access

to sophisticated facilities and a large supporting staff. By comparison, companies such as

Hewlett-Packard and 3M have deliberately kept their engineering and product

development teams small. Yet there is still a difference in scale between a weapons

development program and an experiment to detect the presence of neutrinos.

4
A Look AT GOVERNMENTLABORATORIES

To summarize the argument to this point: Technology development

is the process by which newly developed scientific principles are brought

to the point where they can be applied in an engineering sense. Typically,

the time between the beginning of a project and its completion (lead time)

is on the order of five to ten years; a really large program, like the lunar

landing mission, may cost billions of dollars. It has become increasingly

clear since the 1960s that such programs some of whose features will

be discussed in the next section cannot be managed successfully in

terms of a classical hierarchical structure. What we are dealing with here

is the "large-scale endeavor," a concept applied to his agency by the

former Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), James Webb. The endeavor characteristically results from

a new and urgent need or a new opportunity created by social, political,

technological, or military changes in the environment. Most often, it

requires "doing something for the first time and has a high degree of

uncertainty as to precise results" and it will have second-and third-order

consequences, often unintended, beyond the main objective (ref. 5). A

large-scale endeavor is so complex that senior executives in the

sponsoring organization cannot be expert in all facets of the operation.

"They must delegate important responsibilities to lower echelons and then

find ways to make sure the delegations accomplish their purposes without

harmful compartmentation." (ref. 6.) The organization must be adaptive;

"no longer can you have a grand idea and then go to work and cut and fit

and try." (ref. 7.)

Webb's description can, of course, apply to many endeavors besides

the space program. Recent examples include the attempt to build and

operate a national rail passenger network, to develop a strategic

petroleum reserve, to build the Alaska pipeline, and many programs

related to the national defense all share many of the features Webb

enumerates. But space and comparable programs have had certain

advantages, stemming from the nature of their missions, in attaining their

goals which most of the endeavors named above lacked.

Consider the American civilian space program of the 1960s. Goals

could be stated in precise, operational terms. NASA would describe a

goal within the broader mission" Put a communications satellite in

synchronous Earth orbit; or, develop an unmanned spacecraft to soft-land

on the Moon and a vehicle with a liquid-hydrogen upper stage to launch

it. Such precision may be contrasted with those Federal agencies charged

with improving the quality of education, fighting alcoholism and drug

abuse, or finding permanent jobs for the hard-core unemployed. As

Lindblom and Cohen have noted, "government agencies are again and

again assigned.., responsibilities beyond any person's or organization's

known competence. They do not typically resist these assignments

because they are funded and maintained for their efforts, not for their
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS ,

results." (ref. 8.) However this contrast developed, technology

development managers have the tools and resources to deal with many

technical unknowns and overcome enormous problems of time and

budget. This book is about the logic of this process as it applies to

Federally sponsored institutions.

The Federal Technology Development Laboratory

So far we have discussed technology development as a general

category, without much regard to the sponsoring organization. At this

point, it would be well to define those features which distinguish Federal

from privately-sponsored research and technology development. However one defines technology development, the Federal Government is doing

a lot of it. In 1981, Federal spending on research and technology

development amounted to roughly $40 billion, compared to $34 billion in

the private sector (ref. 9).* While some two-thirds of Federal research

and technology development obligations go to industrial firms or for basic

research carried on by universities, the remainder is done under direct

Federal supervision, whether through field installations run by government employees, non-profit contract, research centers, or governmentowned, contractor-operated facilities.** The impact of these programs

alone would be sufficient reason to discuss them; a really large

development program like Apollo at its height employed over 400 000

persons and generated $24 billion in expenditures, all of which as

NASA officials liked to point out were spent on Earth. What makes

Federal technology development distinctive?

First, while there is no "typical" Federal research installation, many

of the larger ones combine basic research with engineering and

technology development. NASA's Ames Research Center, for example,

has engaged in basic research, notably in the life sciences; it has been the

systems manager for the Pioneer series of interplanetary probes; and its

* But according to the National Science Foundation, 1983 was the first year in which

corporate expenditures, at $41.7 billion, exceeded government research spending. Mark

Potts, "U.S. Companies Probe Technology's Frontiers," Washington Post (January 8,

1984), G14.

** According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), about 24 percent of

Federally-supported Research and Technology Development is carried on in some 700

laboratories directly operated by government personnel. Another 9 percent is carried on in

so-called Federally-funded research and development centers, which normally work

exclusively or mainly for a single sponsoring agency. For the purposes of this book, both

kinds of organization are considered to be engaged in intramural research. See Chapters

VII and VIII for a discussion of the role of the research and technology development

laboratory working under contract to a single sponsor. On trends in Federal research and

technology development obligations, see NSF, Federal Funds for Research and

Development, Fiscal Years 1981, 1982, and 1983 (NSF 83-320), Section 2.
A LooK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

wind tunnels and other test facilities have placed Ames in the forefront of

aeronautical research. This combining of activities is not fortuitous. As

recently as the early 1960s, it was still possible for engineers at the NASA

Marshall Space Flight Center to build a large part of the lower stages of

the Saturn rocket. Today, the role of centers like Ames and

Marshall as different as they are in other respects is rather to draft

the specifications, plan the program, select the prime contractors,

evaluate contractor and system performance, and certify that all design

criteria have been met. The ability to carry on some basic research is a

necessary part of a mission-oriented center's activities. Basic research in

life sciences or materials processing serves many purposes. It serves to

attract many of the most capable scientists, particularly where Federal

salaries are not competitive with those paid by industry for development

work. It lays the groundwork for future programs; keeps professional

staff abreast of state-of-the-art developments; and, where the agency has

more than one research center, makes a cross-fertilization of ideas

possible.

From this account, a second important feature of the Federal

technology development laboratory, whether it is a NASA center, the

National Bureau of Standards, or a research facility operated under

contract to the Department of Energy, emerges. This is the need to draw

on the support of industry and the universities to achieve its ends, or what

one observer has called "participative responsibility." (ref. 10.) Because

weapons systems, space, and many energy projects are truly national

projects, the sponsoring agency must go outside the walls for the skills

and expertise necessary to take the project from concept through proof of

concept to the final operational phase. The agency does not stand in

relation to its contractors simply as customer to vendor. In many cases,

the "customer" cannot state very precisely in advance what kind of

operating system is desired. It is this feature which accounts for the long

lead times and cost overuns of certain space and weapons systems. The

role of the technology development center becomes one of working with

the contractor, making midcourse corrections where the program or

project changes its scope, and in some cases dropping a particular

approach once evidence accumulates that it is not an attractive one. Thus,

much of the research carried out at these installations is done, less for its

own sake, than to maintain the center's ability to deal on equal terms with

its contractors.

Finally, a publicly-supported institution will have to make its case

before a multitude of public bodies. The laboratory's budget, which

embodies its operating plan, will be reviewed by the Washington

headquarters of the sponsoring agency, the Office of Management and

Budget, and congressional authorizing and appropriations committees.

Compared to the secrecy enveloping most commercial Technology
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

Development, even defense-oriented Technology Development is carried

out in a goldfish bowl. Yet in the absence of immediate payoffs, center

directors and senior agency officials must solicit that public support

without which no long-term mission can be sustained. For the laboratory

and its sponsor, the political arena becomes the Federal substitute for the

marketplace. They shop for constituencies as companies shop for

customers.

Because the Federal technology development laboratory is not

driven by the incentives of a market system, other incentives must be

found to take its place. The record of Federal laboratories in

commercial-type Technology Development is mixed at best. As one

writer notes, "when government isn't trying to develop anything for the

commercial market, it often produces commercial wonders; but when

government sets out to foster commercial innovations, it usually falls on

its face." (ref. 11.) Instead, the laboratory's mission serves as the driving

force, and perhaps the severest test to which a mission-oriented

installation can be put is how to react to the completion of the original

mission. The center may convert its facilities to new uses, look for new

sponsors, or sell a program to Headquarters in terms of existing

capabilities or sometimes all three. It is safe to say that at least once in

the life of a large research installation, there will be an "agonizing

reappraisal" of its roles and missions. In many laboratories this

reappraisal is continuous.

While the primary focus of this book is the Federally-sponsored

technology development institution, there are at least two other ways of

"growing" technology. Some very large private organizations are capable

of maintaining mission-oriented technology development laboratories

similar to those sponsored by the Federal Government. The corporate

laboratory of General Electric (GE) in Schenectady, New York is a good

example. This institution was founded by Charles Proteus S teinmetz at

the turn of the century and was led and developed by the great Irving

Langmuir for two decades after the First World War. Both Steinmetz and

Langmuir were scientists of the first rank, but they chose to apply their

great talents to developing new technology rather than to doing pure

-disciplinary scientific research. The function of the Schenectady

laboratory was, and is, to perform research and technology development

relevant to the manufacturing divisions of GE. Each of these divisions

also operates product development laboratories which focus on the

specific requirements of the manufacturing divisions. The function of the

corporate laboratory in Schenectady is to provide the broad technological

base on which the product development is based.

The American Telephone and Telegraph Company had much the

same arrangement before the Corporation was broken up in 1983 in the

aftermath of an antitrust case. The corporate laboratories in Murray Hill,
A Look AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

New Jersey (the Bell Laboratories) provided basic technology

development for the corporation's manufacturing arm, Western Electric.

Western Electric did operate product development laboratories, but these

depended on the Bell Laboratories for their technology. Similar

arrangements can be found in other large corporations such as E.I.

DuPont de Nemours and General Motors.

These institutions are like Federal laboratories in some ways, quite

unlike them in others. Insofar as these arrangements are comparable to

those of Federal agencies with technical responsibilities, many of the

conclusions drawn in this book with respect to the latter apply as well to

the former. The similarities extend to the number of disciplines under one

roof, the need for expensive facilities and large support staffs, the role of

the laboratories as sources of ideas for their parent organizations, and the

mission orientation of both kinds of laboratory. The chief difference is

that GE Schenectady and Bell Labs are oriented toward profits in a way

not possible for the Goddard Space Flight Center or Los Alamos National

Laboratory. At a laboratory like GE Schenectady, promising projects are

sometimes dropped in favor of others which may yield a greater return on

investment. To support funding for work on nuclear magnetic resonance,

an advanced medical imaging technology, GE has phased down work on

a successful project in ultrasonic medical diagnosis. Again, GE officials

decided that the development of new circuit-board technology had to give

way to a project in video bandwidth compression (ref. 12).

There is yet a third form of research and technology development,

where the sponsoring and research organizations are separate. Under

certain conditions, this "second party" technology development is quite

common in industry" where the individual firm is too small to conduct its

own research; where the industry is regulated, profits are guaranteed as a

reasonable rate of return, and there is little or no incentive for the

individual firm to conduct research in order to increase its market share;

and where the technology is very advanced. In the second and third cases,

even though individual firms may be quite large, it is still to their

advantage to organize cooperative ventures, with each member having

access to the research.

Thus the electrical utilities sponsor the Electric Power Research

Institute in Palo Alto, California; the gas utilities sponsor the Gas

Research Institute (Chicago); the property and casualty insurance industry

sponsors the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (Washington, D.C.);

while fifteen computer and semiconductor companies recently organized

the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (Austin,

Texas) to do advanced research on supercomputers and artificial

intelligence. As we shall see in Chapter X, in much of the work

performed at the National Bureau of Standards, the Bureau acts as an

"agent" for other agencies, trade associations, and small-batch
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

manufacturers. This way of developing new technology is as legitimate as

doing it oneself or selecting, and then closely supervising, a contractor

responding to an invitation to bid.

Having said all this, we would stress that some fraction of

technology development in the United States is performed in organizations that will not be treated in this volume. We are speaking here of

small, innovative, privately-financed corporations working in certain

important fields, where large capital investments are not a precondition

for producing new technology. The classical examples are, of course,

computer development and genetic engineering. In both cases, it has

proved possible to make critical contributions to new technology with a

first class staff but only small capital investment in equipment. In

contrast, this is not possible in aerospace, nuclear technology, materials

development, and certain military technologies such as the design of

warships. In all of these cases, large capital investments in equipment and

facilities are required before any technology development can occur. It is

in these areas that the Federal laboratories and those sponsored by the

very large private corporations become important.

Plan of This Book

Our focus will be the research installation as a whole, rather than

project management or systems engineering at one end or the sponsoring

agency at the other. Our subject will be the management of applied

research its planning, organizing, performance, resource allocation,

administration, coordination, and evaluation. Our timeframe will be the

past twenty years, when many of the principal space and weapons

systems first came "on line." The process we will explore is how the gap

between basic research and technology development, and between the

acquisition of structured knowledge about the universe and the systematic

use of that knowledge to create products or operating systems, has been

bridged. Our assumptions will be" that few mission-oriented technical

agencies are issued a blank check, and those few not for long;

consequently, that even in basic research, some objective must be

defined; that the task of the research administrator is to find some

non-market incentive in lieu of profit considerations to drive the

organization; that, in Federal installations, one of the problems of the

administrator is to reconcile the annual funding cycle with medium- and

long-range planning; and that another is to ensure that basic research and

technology development can somehow be made compatible within the

same installation. In sum, the theme of this book will be the management

of large research installations under conditions of normal financial

limits.

Rather than begin at once with an account of modern research

10
A LooK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

institutions, we propose briefly to trace their development along a

wavering line running from the Institution of Prince Henry the Navigator

in the fifteenth century through the founding of the British Royal Society

in the mid-seventeenth century to the establishment of the great industrial

laboratories of Germany and the United States early in this century.

Chapter III will treat the period from the Second World War to the present,

with emphasis on those features of government-sponsored technology

development mentioned earlier: long lead times amid conditions of

uncertainty; difficulty in specifying end products; the necessity of

procuring services from outside the sponsoring organization; the creation

of contractual instruments to handle very large programs; and the

development of special management techniques for coordinating a

network of suppliers. The reader will note that many of these features

demand quite as much in entrepreneurial talent as in the skill needed to

exploit advances in scientific knowledge.

For the remainder of the book, we will focus on the administration of

the large technology development laboratories sponsored by NASA, the

Department of Defense, and the Atomic Energy Commission and its

successor agencies. In Chapters IV and V, we shall consider the

identifying features of modem research institutions those features that,

whatever the difference in missions, are common to a contractor-operated

facility like the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, an agency facility like the

Ames Research Center, and a nuclear weapons development center like

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. From the structure of

institutions, Chapter VI turns to the management of projects, that

combination of centralized planning and control with decentralized

execution so characteristic of modem research institutions. Chapter VII

focuses on the management of professional personnel, with emphasis on

problems of career development and transition. Chapters VIII and IX will

cover supporting functions and the techniques by which institution

directors manage manpower and funds. In Chapter X, we shall consider

the relation between technology development institutions and their

sponsors, with special emphasis on congressional authorization and

appropriations cycles. The final chapter will gather all these threads

together by reviewing three major problems or one problem with three

aspects within the organization: how to adjust to changing roles and

missions, how to find or keep sponsors, and how to define the role of

basic research in an engineering environment. In sum, the question to be

answered (and the one being considered all along) is how innovation

within the organization can best be fostered and maintained.

11
,..._. -,,.-_.. _. ,..: .... ""

_ "-:
CHAPTER !i

The Technology Development Laboratory

From its Origins to the Second World

War

The present technology development laboratory is a relatively young

institution with roots deep in the past. While we could jump immediately

into the problems of the contemporary research institution, to do so would

omit some of the most interesting parts of the story. Few institutions

wholly outgrow their origins, and today's mission-oriented laboratories

are lineal descendants of the institutions established by the Royal Society

of Great Britain, the German chemical laboratories of the early twentieth

century, and the research bureaus sponsored by the Government of the

United States. Neither systems engineering nor contract research nor the

captive research facility with essentially one client emerged full-blown,

as the result of some inexorable process. Nor are the technology

development laboratories, on one hand, and the institutes devoted to

theoretical research, on the other, absolutely distinct. Such things as the

justification of research for utilitarian ends, the focusing of scientific

activity in a group, and the need to justify continuously the organization's

goals, are common to both. Because the origins of both kinds of

institution are bound up with each other and because we believe that an

inquiry into their common sources can provide a deeper understanding of

today's Federally-sponsored research, we chose to begin there.

Origins of the Technology Development Laboratory

If an institution is to be judged by the extent and duration of its

influence, the Lyceum of Aristotle was the most successful, as it was the

earliest, of all research institutions (ref. 13). Founded by Aristotle during

his last long residence in Athens (335-323 B.C.), the Lyceum was a

combination of university, research center, and scientific academy. Like

most research centers today, the Lyceum had a government sponsor,

Alexander the Great, who had been Aristotle's pupil. The mission, as we

would say, of the Lyceum embraced a vast research program; unlike

Plato's Academy, whose work was purely theoretical, the Lyceum had a

strongly practical bent, with important accomplishments in biology,

PRECEDING PAGE BLANK NOT _"_ "_"_'-" 13
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

psychology, and anatomy. The work of the Lyceum included assembling

a collection of maps and manuscripts, and the delivery of public lectures.

In fact, almost all of Aristotle's surviving works consist of his lecture

notes. The Lyceum long survived Aristotle, and its influence extended

through the Middle Ages down to the seventeenth century, by which time

Aristotelianism had become a byword for a dry, hairsplitting philosophy

totally out of tune with the new system of the natural sciences. But in its

origins, the Lyceum was precisely the opposite.

Although the results of Aristotle's research proved immensely

significant, his method of organized scientific research lapsed after his

death and had to be rediscovered some eighteen centuries later. The first

tentative revival of goal-oriented research probably occurred in the early

fifteenth century, when the growth of commerce made improvements in

navigation (especially the determination of longitude), improved ship

design, and improved artillery imperative. Perhaps the earliest institution

with the earmarks of a modem technology development laboratory was

the organization set up by Prince Henry of Portugal, or Henry the

Navigator (1394-1460) (fig. 1), near Sagres at Cape St. Vincent in

southwestem Portugal. Opinions differ about the nature of Henry's

"laboratory." One historian (J.H. Parry) states flatly that "the story of a

school of astronomy and mathematics at Sagres is pure invention," while

another (Marie Boas) says that he set up "a veritable research institute" at

Sagres (ref. 14). From the little that we do know, certain conclusions

follow"

• Henry's institution was multidisciplinary. We would not go so far as

Parry, since it appears that mathematics, astronomy, cartography,

navigation, and certain things connected with the preservation of

food and water were represented. In conducting the affairs of his

"laboratory," Henry recognized the importance of establishing

relations with the creators of new knowledge. Thus he founded the

chair of mathematics at the University of Lisbon.

• The "laboratory" was mission oriented, since its purpose was to

master the art and science of navigation. According to Parry,

"Prince Henry placed gentlemen of his own household in command

of the ships, and set them definite geographical objects to be reached

and passed. Thus from the habit of making fishing and casual trading

voyages along a relatively short stretch of coast, there developed a

programme of progressive, though intermittent, exploration much

further south." (ref. 15.)

There was, then, a stress on applications and practical results

and _ what is less certain _ an interest in scholarship and research, so

far as these made the former possible. Henry wanted to open profitable

new trade routes, to convert pagans, and to make contact with any

14
OF POOR QUALITY. A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

National Museum of Ancient Art, Lisbon, Portugal

FIGURE 1.--Prince Henry of Portugal (1395-1460). Prince Henry, also known as

Henry the Navigator, established what was probably the worM's first

technology development center in 1420.

15
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

Christian rulers who might be found. To achieve these ends, he

encouraged improvements in cartography and navigational instruments.

Partly through his efforts, Lisbon, by the late fifteenth century, was the

most important center in Europe for practical astronomy.

The institution founded by Prince Henry in 1420 did not survive,

although it remained a center for the study and promotion of navigational

enterprises for some years after Henry's death in 1460. We know, for

example, that Christopher Columbus spent several years at Sagres before

his epoch-making journey in 1492. However, it is probable that the

Portuguese Government did not realize the importance of what Henry had

started in Sagres. Thus, Henry's institution was more of a short-lived

experiment than an enterprise with the base of support necessary to

become a permanent feature of Europe's technological landscape.

Henry's institute.was finally completely destroyed by Sir Francis Drake in

his famous preemptive strike against Spain in 1587 the "singeing of

King Philip's beard" of our high school history textbooks the year

before the Duke of Medina Sidonia led the Spanish Armada on its

abortive expedition against England. Did Drake realize how important

Henry's institution was and thus make it a special target? It is interesting

to speculate, but we do not know.

There were, however, two concepts that Henry's organization

showed in embryonic form the yoking together of scientific

investigation to practical ends, and the concept of research as a

cooperative enterprise with a promising future. But that future lay

beyond the Iberian Peninsula. First in Italy, followed by France and

England, groups of scholars met for discussions, to exchange ideas with

foreign correspondents, and, where funds permitted, to publish their

proceedings. The oldest such society devoted to scientific investigation

was the Academie des Lincei, founded in Rome in 1600, of which

Galileo was an active member. More significant was the informal society

founded by the French priest Mersenne in 1635, which brought together

scientists and philosophers like Descartes, Hobbes, and Pascal. This

society became the nucleus of the Academie des Sciences (1666) and,

through the activities of its founder, the nexus for scientific

communications throughout much of northern Europe.

By the mid-seventeenth century many of the preconditions for

technology development institutions existed. As we have seen, a network

for the exchange of ideas covered much of Europe; it became fashionable

among the clergy, the nobility, and public officials to dabble in scientific

experiments; while the new philosophy represented an attempt to

incorporate a scientific world view. The great philosopher Baruch

Spinoza, for instance, earned his living as a lens-grinder, and his

philosophy can be considered as an attempt to give a completely

naturalistic view of the world. But the most influential voice on behalf of

16
A LooK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

organized scientific inquiry was that of Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626),

politician, essayist, and propagandist for the scientific method. Although

his own scientific work was insignificant, Bacon saw very clearly the

importance of corporate scientific activity. In his Advancement of

Learning (1605) and especially in The New Atlantis (1627), Bacon set

forth the program adopted by the Royal Society forty years later. As Hall

puts it, "The object of Bacon's model organization was not merely to

bring men together, but to set them to work in common on the tasks most

important for science, so that it resembled a scientific institute more than

a modem scientific society. The vast realm of natural knowledge, he felt,

was too vast for one man to tackle single-handed . . . To the efforts of

individual pioneers, as Sprat put it later in speaking of the Royal Society,

'we prefer the joint Force of many Men.' " (ref. 16.)

It was out of this soil that the Royal Society of London for

Improving Natural Knowledge grew. Like its counterparts in France and

Italy, it originated in meetings of private persons in this case,

meetings that began during the English Civil Wars of the 1640s and

continued under Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth. The Society was

founded in 1660, only becoming "Royal" when it received a charter in

1662. In the beginning it was nothing but an association of gentlemen

who were friends of the newly restored Charles II. It had no laboratories,

its members received no government stipends, and it never had the funds

to sponsor the Baconian research program in which many of its members

believed. But absence of government funding-also signified absence of

government control. The founders of the Royal Society were free to

pursue their interests, although from time to time they were called upon

by the government to provide scientific advice.

There were several features of the Royal Society which serve to

explain how it set the pattern for the establishment of learned academies

throughout Europe and elsewhere. While the Society benefited from a

cultural climate in which science was fashionable, it also did something

to create that climate. In its origins the Royal Society's purpose was

strongly utilitarian, and a large portion of its early research was devoted

to socio-economic needs" to methods of determining a ship's position,

especially its longitude; to studies of times of tides; to experiments in ship

construction and ship accessories; to studies of methods of mine

ventilation, metallurgy, and general mining techniques; to experiments

with gunpowder, measuring the velocity of bullets, and relating the

length of a gun barrel to the range of a bullet (ref. 17). The research

sponsored by the Royal Society could be justified on both practical and

religious grounds. Science was a means of increasing the nation's wealth,

whether by increasing the depths to which mines could be worked or by

determining nautical longitudes; it could serve the interests of the state by

improving military technology; it was a mental discipline, better than the

17
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

outworn Aristotelianism at which much of the Society's propaganda was

directed; and in a country still under the cultural influence of Puritanism,

it was a means by which the glory of God's handiwork could be revealed

(ref. 18).

Thus the Royal Society, in its origins, had a strongly practical bent,

which was reflected in what Bishop Sprat, the Society's first historian,

called the "plain and naked" style of the papers delivered by its members.

For the Society was an agency, not only for producing new knowledge,

but for disseminating it. Beginning in 1665, the Royal Society published

its Philosophical Transactions, the first journal to print original scientific

communications regularly (fig. 2). Given a culture favorable to the

growth of science, the influence of such members as Christopher Wren,

Robert Hooke, and Isaac Newton (President from 1703 to 1727) and the

Society's emphasis on applied research, the Royal Society did more than

any other institution of its day to promote the advancement of research

applied to social needs.

Much of the Royal Society's work was carried out through

institutions with which it had working relations. The most important of

these was the Royal Observatory which was founded in 1675 as a separate

institution, although the Society came to exercise a "vague surveillance"

over it (ref. 19). The Royal Observatory (fig. 3) was located in

Greenwich, several kilometers downstream from London, at the site of

one of the royal dockyards. Once again, a mastery of navigation was the

motive behind much technology development. National power and

prestige depended on the ability to conquer, colonize, and then trade and

exploit, and this could only be done by securing the best possible ships

and the best trained crews. The first Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed,

was an independent character, and the government recognized that if the

Observatory was to be useful in providing navigational data, it would

have to exercise control. To this end a Visiting Committee consisting of

Isaac Newton, Christopher Wren, and several others all members of

the Royal Society was appointed in 1703. The Visiting Committee

managed to gain control of the Observatory, thus establishing a pattern

that persists to this day, by which governments exercise control over their

technology development institutions through the various academies of

sciences. This implies programmatic, not administrative, control. The

administration of the Observatory then and of laboratories today goes

through different channels. But the program content of the laboratory,

then as now, tended to be determined by scientific and technical

committees representing the academy of sciences of the nation involved.

When Edmund Halley, who joined the Board of Visitors of the

Observatory in 1710, succeeded Flamsteed as Astronomer Royal ten

years later, the Observatory became more and more a prototype of a

technology development laboratory. Two examples will bear this out:

18
A Look AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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FIGURE 2.- Title page of the first volume of the Royal Society's "'Philosophical

Transactions."

19
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

The accurate measurement of longitude, and the voyages of Captain

Cook. While the major function of the Observatory from the beginning

had been astronomical observations and the production of accurate charts,

other problems began to attract the attention of the scientists and

instrument makers working there. The most famous of these problems

(and one that preoccupied the Royal Society) was the vexing one of

determining longitude.

Royal Observatory, Greenwich, England

FIGURE 3.- The main building of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. Designed by

Sir Christopher Wren and erected, 1675-80, it still stands and is still in use.

Latitude is easy to determine; all one has to do is to measure the

azimuth of the pole star and one can determine one's latitude.

Determining longitude is much more difficult. There are astronomical

methods for determining longitude, but these tend to be difficult and

require a skill not often available to the average mariner, especially if the

measurements have to be made from the heaving deck of a ship. The

easiest way to determine longitude is to determine the local time by

measuring the Sun at its azimuth at noon and comparing it with

"Greenwich" time, i.e., the time at the Greenwich Observatory. Since the

rate of the Earth's rotation is known, the longitude can be calculated from

this measurement. Obviously, this method requires an accurate clock or

"chronometer." This problem was considered so important that a Board

of Longitude was appointed in 1714 under the Royal Society and a prize

20
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

of £20,000 offered for solving the problem of producing an accurate

chronometer. The prize was finally awarded in 1773 to John Harrison

who, over a span of forty years, developed five models (ref. 20). The

principal problem was to develop a spring clock with a constant tension

spring independent of the environmental conditions of temperature and

humidity. To do this, Harrison invented bimetallic strips, many of which

were tested in what today would be called "environmental test chambers"

located at the Observatory.*

The chronometer thus produced (fig. 4) was tested by Captain James

Cook on his three famous voyages (1768-1771, 1772-1775, 1778-1779).

These voyages were carried out under the joint sponsorship of the Royal

Society and the Royal Navy, and the Greenwich Observatory played an

important role in their development. They mark the high point of

scientific exploration in the eighteenth century. A Yorkshire native like

Harrison, Cook (1728-1779) was a remarkable character (fig. 5). He was

a farmer's son, was completely self-taught, and rose in the ranks of the

Royal Navy through sheer ability. His three voyages served the interests

of science in several ways. On his first voyage he measured the transit of

Venus across the disk of the Sun from the island of Tahiti in 1769. This

measurement was necessary to establish precisely the parameters of the

solar system and was of great practical importance in establishing an

accurate calendar. On his second voyage Cook who had failed to find

the "Terra Incognita Australis" the Admiralty thought might exist

searched again for a southern continent. This voyage accomplished three

things" It marked the first important tests of Harrison's chronometer;

Cook developed a cure for scurvy after assuming (correctly) that it was

caused by the lack of fresh fruits and vegetables in the sailors' diet; and it

marked the beginning of the first thorough investigation of the large-scale

ocean currents and weather patterns in the Pacific. More than any other

person, Cook laid the foundations for the systematic study of Pacific

geography.

From the late eighteenth century, the British Government, either

directly or through autonomous bodies, increased its sponsorship of

scientific research. The government maintained observatories at

Greenwich and the Cape of Good Hope and research laboratories at Army

and Navy installations; subsidized occasional expeditions, like the

voyage of HMS Challenger (1873-1876), one of the pioneer events in the

history of oceanography; and, beginning in 1849, made an annual grant

of £1,000 to the Royal Society, raised to £4,000 in 1882.

* The prize was awarded only after George III intervened personally, owing to the

reluctance of the Royal Society and the Board of Longitude to award the prize to a

Yorkshire clockmaker.

21
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington, D.C.

FIGURE 4.- The Harrison Chronometer, the first clock with accuracy sufficiently

good for the precise determination of longitude at sea.

By mid-century, the government had created a pattern of aid to

science which was to have a lasting influence on science-government

relations in Britain and the United States. Where possible, the

government preferred to work through small committees of scientists

empowered to provide stipends for researchers and to consider grant

applications. And the scientists were ready to oblige. By this time a

well-organized scientific community had come into being with official

spokesmen, professional societies-like the British Association, publications like Nature and a political program with a "lobby" to back it. This

program" had three goals" financial support from the government, more

science in the university curriculum and, to make science policy more

22

OF POOR QU_LSi_"? _
A Look AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

. :.. ,

-)

British National Maritime Museum, London, England

FIGURE 5.--Captain James Cook, Royal Navy, the most accomplished navigator

and explorer of the eighteenth century.

uniform, creation of a Ministry of Science with Cabinet rank (ref. 21).

But scientists had to contend with the reluctance of officials to extend

their spheres of influence or to initiate any policy that might mean some

increase in expenditure or staff, no matter how trivial. The government's

conservatism extended to providing scientific and technical education.

Before 1870, there was no provision even for universal elementary

education, although there was nothing in it inconsistent with a

philosophy of economic liberalism. More important, no system of

secondary education (let alone advanced scientific instruction) was

possible until elementary education had been provided for.

23
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

Put differently, in Britain (unlike Germany) the industrial revolution

preceded the educational revolution. To the extent that Britain did train

scientists for industry, it was emphatically not because of pressure from

manufacturers. Few industrialists understood either the value of planned

research or the relevance of a scientific discovery to industrial production.

The facts were public and notorious: the discovery of aniline by an

Englishman, Perkin, in 1856 and the transfer of the industry to Germany

within a dozen years; the total dependence of British industry on

Germany for scientific instruments; the fact that the crucial inventions in

the mass-production of steel were made by Bessemer, an independent

inventor, Siemens, a German resident in England, and Gilchrist Thomas,

a police-court clerk. The difference between British and German industry

was between one based on planned innovation and another based on rule

of thumb and non-standardized production. It is hardly surprising that few

university graduates chose scientific careers. Jobs were few, salaries

miserable, advancement unlikely. In 1900, there were only 200 scientists

in govemment service, rising to 300 on the eve of the First World War.

We have examined the origins of applied research in Britain because

the British approach to the organization of scientific research has been

extremely influential. We can go even further: The technology

development laboratory, at least in the United States, is the offspring of

the German research laboratory and quasi-public scientific associations

modeled on the Royal Society. On the eve of industrialization, the states

comprising the German Empire (after 1871) had an educational system

superior to Britain's. Education tended to last longer, to cover a much

higher percentage of children of school age, and to link elementary

classes with the middle and secondary classes where technical education

began. And while in Germany rigorous scientific research began in the

universities (with Liebig's laboratory at Giessen in the 1820s), by the

1860s industrialists had begun to perceive that progress in the sciences

opened a variety of alternative paths for economic development. As

Ben-David notes, "An original idea with practical implications could now

be explored and exploited within a short period of time by a group

working in concentrated fashion." The most striking examples of such

applied work were the development of aniline dyes building on

Perkin's discoveries and immunizing vaccines. Both "led to the

establishment of nonteaching research laboratories employing professional researchers who were not professors." (ref. 22.) In Germany, but not in

Britain, it was possible, not only for a university graduate to pursue a

scientific career, but to move into the ranks of the managers and directors

of the giant enterprises (BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, AEG, etc.) made

possible by research.

Thus by 1900, most of the elements of the technology development

laboratory were in place. These were, first, the existence of a pool of

24
A Look AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

-. r

university-trained chemists, physicists,and engineers; second, an understanding of the process by which research could be transferred from the

laboratory to the factory; third, a system by which government could

draw on quasi-official learned societies for unbiased advice; and fourth,

an educational system which produced the technicians and administrators

who supported the scientific enterprise. How these processes worked

themselves out in the United States up to the eve of the Second World

War comprises the rest of this chapter.

Research and Development Institutions in the United States

The United States did not have a formal research establishment

supported by the Federal Government until well into the country's

history. While there were learned societies established before and during

the Revolutionary War, like the American Philosophical Society

(founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743) and the American Academy of

Arts and Sciences (1780), they had very limited funds and supported no

development institutions. In fact, the first academy supported by the

government, the National Academy of Sciences, was not chartered by

Congress until 1863.

In the United States most, if not all, of the research institutions

supported by Federal funds originated as the result of war or a crisis

perceived by the public as major. The first of these institutions was the

U.S. Naval Shipyard in Washington (1798). Here as in England,

maritime technology set the pace for publicly-funded applied research,

owing to the importance of warships and fleets in keeping ocean trade

routes open. During the Revolutionary War the U.S. Navy had no ships

designed from the keel up as warships; all the warships used were

converted merchant transport ships mostly procured from foreign

shipyards. When the Navy was disbanded after the war, U.S. flag vessels

were at the mercy of Barbary Coast pirates, as well as England and

France, both of whom took American ships almost at will during the

Napoleonic Wars.

These conditions drove the United States to establish and develop a

Navy. The Navy Department was established in 1798 as the first

"regular" service. From then until the Civil War, the Navy sponsored

many important technical developments. Beginning with the construction

of the Washington Naval Shipyard, the Navy undertook to build warships

that no private shipyard would build, because there was no profit in

building them for a nearly bankrupt government. Under Joshua

Humphreys, who was appointed "Naval Constructor" in 1799, the Navy

designed and built the famous heavy frigates that dominated the War of

1812. These ships_the "Constitution" (fig. 6), "Constellation,"

"President," and "United States"_were the most advanced of their time.

25
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

FIGURE 6.- The U.S.S. "'Constitution, ""one of the class of heavy frigates designed

and built by Joshua Humphreys that were so technologically superior that they

dominated single ship actions with the Royal Navy during the War of 1812.

Because they were built of pine rather than oak, they were much faster

than similar ships and carried more guns. During the War of 1812 they

proved superior to any ships the Royal Navy could muster against them.

The War of 1812 confirmed the Navy's importance. Between the

Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war, and the outbreak of the Mexican

War in 1846, the Navy sponsored several important developments" the

construction of the first "slide" or "ways" (1821), so that ships could be

hauled out of the water for scraping, painting, and general maintenance;

the building of the first steam engine intended for a ship (1826); and, most

important, the use of steam for the propulsion of ocean-going ships and

the replacement of wood by iron in their construction. The first steam

warships were built at the Washington Yard in 1842. These ships were

sidewheelers and, as such, were involved in the lengthy controversy over

the best means of using steam propulsion. At the time, the Navy was

experimenting with steam propulsion and especially with propellers for

large ships--experiments which led to the steamships employed in the

Mexican War (1846-1848). This war first saw the large-scale use of

steamships by the U.S. Navy and, with it, the problems of keeping

steamships at sea. Among the latter were:

_G_L_.__I_..'_.:_::: i_....7/... i._
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

• Boilers. It is well known that boiler scale is deposited inside hot

water boilers and pipes. The maintenance of boilers and pipes at sea

was a major problem for the Navy.

• Metal fatigue. Little was known as to why metals became brittle

with use and broke.

• Gaskets and glands. No one knew what were the best materials for

sealing rotating shafts to the glands in the hull through which the

shafts passed.

These problems were not solved during the war, but had to await the

more leisurely approach possible during peacetime. The attack on these

problems was made by Commodore Matthew C. Perry who, after serving

in the Mexican War, became commandant of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

He persuaded the Navy to subsidize construction of six iron steamships,

which were built for commercial services but could be converted to

commerce raiders in the event of war. The ships were leased to a private

shipping line, which proceeded to use them as packets in the North

Atlantic service. In this way, many of the problems Perry encountered

during the war were studied and solved. This represents one of the earliest

examples of the transfer of technology from military to civilian

applications.

The other major consequence of the Mexican War was that

something was done about the dismal state of the ordnance. Guns were

both inaccurate and dangerous. In 1844, for example, a gun burst and

killed the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Navy as they were

inspecting the frigate "Princeton." During the war, in 1847, a young

lieutenant named John Dahlgren joined the staff of the Washington Naval

Shipyard. Dahlgren was one of the most innovative of American

engineers. He was the first to apply systematically important new

scientific principles to the construction of guns. He successfully

developed and constructed rifled cannons and built first-class foundries,

laboratories, and test facilities. Without question, his work as Chief of the

Ordnance Department of the Washington Naval Shipyard contributed

greatly to the favorable position of the Union Navy during the Civil War.

When he died in 1870, he had turned the Naval Shipyard from an

institution that was primarily a shipbuilding establishment into a

technology development center. As Dupree notes" "Thus the Navy in the

Civil War came to terms with every important phase of the technological

revolution that affected it. Under constant criticism from outside and

riven by internal controversy, the department nevertheless managed to

find officers well qualified to handle the new research technology and put

them in positions where they were able to act. In no important way did

they further the naval revolution, but to keep pace with it was a major

accomplishment which hinted at government's potential ability to apply

scientific procedures to technological problems." (ref. 23.)

27
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

The Civil War spawned three other important developments of a

technological nature. The first was the encouragement of railroad

technology, particularly the standardization of the gauge of American

railroads at four feet eight inches (or 1.42 meters) and the devising of new

methods for the rapid laying of tracks. The second was a concurrent

improvement in civil engineering techniques. At the end of the Civil War,

there were several institutions for technical education loosely modeled.on

the example of France's Ecole Polytechnique founded in 1794" the U.S.

Military Academy at West Point (1802), which was also the nation's first

engineering school; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York

(1824); the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute 1854); and the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology (1865).

Yet the two most important structures of the immediate postwar

period the Eads (1867-1874) and Brooklyn Bridges (1869-1883)

were designed by men who received their training elsewhere. James

Buchanan Eads made his fortune by developing a method of salvaging

boats that had gone to the bottom of the Mississippi; during the war he

built a fleet of armor-plated boats to defend the waterways for the Union.

His great bridge (fig. 7) over the Mississippi at St. Louis was unique in

the number of innovations it embodied: It was the first large structure

anywhere to use steel for the structural members; the first in America to

use pneumatic caissons to found the piers; the first arch bridge to use

cables to cantilever the arches out from the masonry in order to keep the

channel open while the bridge was under construction; and finally, it was

one of the first bridges in America where each part was manufactured and

tested to the most rigorous specifications. John Roebling, on the other

hand, had studied in Berlin under Hegel and after immigrating to the

United States for political reasons, farmed before turning to engineering.

The Brooklyn Bridge, which Roebling designed but did not live to build,

embodied all of the basic elements of the modem suspension bridge. It

was also, when it was completed, half again as long as the next longest

span Roebling's bridge over the Ohio at Cincinnati.

But the single most significant event of the period, so far as it

affected American.technology, was the enactment of the Land Grant Act

of 1862. This farsighted legislation, introduced by Congressman (later

Senator) Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont, provided for Federal subsidies

for the support "'of at least one college (in each state) where the leading

object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies

and including Military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are

related to agriculture and the mechanic arts in such manner as the

Legislature of the states may prescribe . . ." The Morrill Act, as it is

often known, accompanied the Homestead Act of 1862, which made it

possible for many Civil War veterans to migrate westward and farm what

had been public land. The institutions of learning constructed under the

28
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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Morrill Act concentrated on agriculture and engineering, those fields vital

to the rapid development of the new lands. In 1890, Morrill secured an

act which appropriated for each land-grant college an annual sum

gradually increasing to $25 000; in 1900, this support became permanent.

Smithsonian Institute, Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.

FIGURE 7.- The bridge over the Mississippi River at St. Louis built by James B.

Eads, 1867-74. An example of "'high technology" in the nineteenth century.

Great as the impact of the two Morrill Acts has been on American

education, their impact on science policy has been greater still. The 1862

act, as well as the creation of a Department of Agriculture the same year,

marked the first time that Congress implicitly recognized that its

constitutional duty to provide for the general welfare included sponsoring

some scientific research. When the Hatch Act was passed in 1887 as an

addition to the Land Grant Act, it required the establishment by each of

the land-grant colleges of agricultural and engineering experiment

stations which were to "acquire and diffuse useful and practical

information on subjects connected with agriculture." At a stroke, the

Hatch Act (in Dupree's words) changed the Department of Agriculture

"from a single central agency into a nexus of a system of semiautonomous

research institutions permanently established in every state." (ref. 24.)

This system, supported since 1934 by the Agricultural Research Center at

29
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

Beltsville, Maryland, has done much to give the United States the

preeminent position in agriculture it enjoys.

Yet it must be conceded that until the Second World War, scientific

research was a rather peripheral activity of the Federal Government. In

addition to its arsenals and shipyards, the government had several

bureaus engaged in scientific research. Beginning with the Coast Survey,

founded in 1807, the most important included the Public Health Service

(1818),* the Naval Observatory (1842), the Geological Survey (1879),

the National Bureau of Standards (1901), and the National Advisory

Committee for Aeronautics (1915), as well as the Smithsonian

Institution, chartered by Congress in 1846 as an independent establishment which, nevertheless, received congressional appropriations. When

we consider that such early Presidents as Jefferson, Madison, and John

Quincy Adams followed the progress of science with the keenest interest,

it seems surprising that they and their successors did so little to promote

scientific research. Don Price, in his Scientific Estate, has provided a

clue" "One half of Jefferson's theory defeated the other half. Jacksonian

democrats were quite willing to follow Jefferson in opposing

establishments and class privilege, and relying on applied rather than

theoretical science. But they were not interested.., in building up...

scientific institutions that would bring America up among the leaders of

science." (ref. 25.)

There was, then, no possibility of a centralized scientific

establishment, no Department of Science, such as the National Academy

of Sciences advocated. Indeed, until the First World War the Academy's

role as science advisor to the government was negligible. Not until 1916,

when the National Research Council (NRC) was created to serve as the

Academy's operating arm (the NRC was made permanent by executive

order of the President in 1918) did the Academy have the mechanism to

stimulate research contributing to the national welfare.

In the post-Civil War period, there was a notable growth of "private"

research institutions _ those sponsored by industry, universities (especially those, like Johns Hopkins, modeled on the German graduate

school), and the great foundations. It is important here to distinguish

technology development from product development. The point is that

private investment without government sponsorship (directly or through

subsidies and tax credits) had insignificant impact on technology

development before 1900. In product development almost all investment

has been private, and there it has been exceedingly important. The great

* Although the Public Health Service was not formally established until 1912, 1818

marks the establishment of the Surgeon General's Office and the Army Medical

Department, with authority to prevent and treat disease. See Appendix II for details.

30
ORIG,-_ o ...........

OF POOR QUA _ _"_"_

A Look AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

research establishments of E.I. DuPont de Nemours in the Brandywine

Valley of Delaware, those of General Electric in Schenectady, New York

(fig. 8), and the Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey

(founded in 1925) dominated applied product-oriented research in the

United States well beyond the Second World War.

General Electric Company, Schenectady, New York

FIGURE 8.- The Corporate Research Laboratory of the General Electric Company

at Schenectady, New York.

.: . .. •

Consider the development of electrical technology in the United

States. American entry into electrical technology came relatively late.

The Americans--Morse, Bell, Edison, Westinghouse, and others---

tended to be brilliant amateurs, while the Europeans (for example, the

Siemens brothers) were professionals. A generation later, rationalization,

sustained by a supply of newly-minted engineers and Ph.D.s (most of

whom got their degrees in Germany), set in. Charles P. Steinmetz,

founder of GE's Laboratory, is shown in figure 9. GE played a prominent

role in advancing radio technology, with Alexanderson's work on the

alternator and Langmuir's (fig. 10) on the vacuum tube and the feedback

circuit. At Bell Labs there was Davison's work demonstrating the wave

nature of electron beams, which led to L.H. Germer's method of studying

the crystal structure of surface films, Harold Black's principle of negative

feedback as applied to amplifiers and, in 1947, the work of Bardeen,

Brattain, and Shockley in developing the transistor. Yet neither GE's

Schenectady laboratory nor Bell Labs were by any means centers for

31
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

General Electric Company, Schenectady, New York

FIGURE 9.--Charles P. Steinmetz, founder of the General Electric Company's

Laboratory and the man responsible for much of the technology development in

the early days of the electrical industry.

theoretical research. Team-work dominated Bell Labs, most projects

required prior approval by the laboratory director, and very few scientists

enjoyed Davison's liberty to follow his research wherever it led him (ref.

26). The industrial laboratory was oriented, overwhelmingly, toward

goals set by corporate management.

Where government collaborated with industry, the former tended to

become a service agency responding to specific problems set by the latter.

A classic example of this relationship was the history of the National

Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. In contrast to electrical technology, aviation was something that began in the United States. The U.S.

military saw advantages in aviation and in 1908 awarded the Wright

brothers their first military contract. However, this did not represent

continuing sponsorship of aeronautical research. The United States did

not create an aeronautical technical organization until the First World

War, when the major European powers quickly developed a number of

sophisticated combat aircraft. This event did not go unnoticed in the

United States, and in the 1915 Naval Appropriations Act a rider was

attached establishing the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics

(NACA).

The NACA was empowered to conduct research and development in

aviation, as well as to advise the President on how best to develop

32
• 1i,:

OF POOR Q_AL__ A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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General Electric Company, Schenectady, New York

FIGURE ]0.--Irving Langmuir, one of the distinguished scientists who worked at

General Electric Laboratory. He received a Nobel Prize in ]932.

aviation technology. The Langley Memorial Laboratory was established

in 1917, followed by the Ames and Lewis Laboratories in 1939 and 1940.

After dropping its advisory role in 1926, NACA concentrated on

conducting aeronautical research, with emphasis on the needs of industry

and the services. Yet the relationships engendered made it difficult, if not

impossible, for NACA to do the kind of long-range research implied by

its charter. In certain critical areas, like boundary layer research, NACA

took no official interest until research had been underway in Europe for

almost twenty years. In effect, NACA ended by becoming captive to the

interests of its sponsors. "Pressed by the need to get the next generation of

fighter aircraft into operation or the next prototype into production, both

the services and industry tended to focus.., on immediate problems, on

incremental advances in the state of the art, on refinement of the

equipment at hand." (ref. 27.)

33
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

Conclusions

By 1939, the organization of Federally-sponsored research and

development had taken on many of the features it still retains. The system

was strongly pluralistic and decentralized, with no central department for

science confronting some nonprofit organization representing a united

scientific community. The government operated through a network of

research bureaus, laboratories, and research stations, down to the level of

the county extension agent. In contrast to what was soon to follow, the

role of the government contractor was mostly limited to supplying

specific kinds of equipment; the Federal Government had not reached the

point where it would delegate to industry the management of entire

installations, supervision of huge R&D projects, and responsibility for

monitoring thousands of subcontractors. The work of the pre-1939

research bureaus, whether it involved setting product standards, testing

airplane models in wind tunnels, or mapping the United States, was either

repetitive or so long-term in effect that it never would come to a definite

end.

Yet the system, such as it was, was exceedingly flexible. From the

modest beginnings of the Washington Naval Shipyard and the Coast

Survey, the Federal Government had gradually assumed responsibility in

many other areas impinging on the general welfare. What was more,

there was no hard and fast division between basic and applied research,

between the university and industry, or between the scientist employed by

the Federal Government and one whose research was subsidized by a

land-grant college. Competition was the order of the day: state

universities competing with private universities, and Federal research

bureaus competing with each other for funds. Finally, within the

constraints of a Federal bureaucracy, most of the requirements for

research in government service conditions formulated by Ferdinand

Hassler (the first director of the Coast Survey) as far back as

1842 _ were partially met: need for long-term support, need for

flexibility in objectives, freedom to publish, access to the international

scientific community (ref. 28), and improvements in the position of the

professional scientist. How the system was transformed under the stress

of war into the nodes of mission-oriented scientific agencies, depending

heavily On the private sector for contract services, is the theme of our next

chapter.

34
.._,

CHAPTER !!!

The Technology Development Laboratory

From the Second World War to the Early

1 970s

The United States' entry into war after Pearl Harbor did much to

shape the organization of science and technology development. Put

simply, because of the exigencies of war, the government was now

prepared to spend almost unlimited amounts to achieve a single

technological objective. Where scientists in and out of government had

had little political influence, their chief spokesmen now had direct access

to the President; and where the government contract had been at best a

clumsy device for procuring research and technology development, it

now became a flexible instrument, once freed from the restraints of

competitive bidding. Much depended on the timeliness of the principal

administrative decisions. The entry into war was preceded by more than a

year-and-a-half of careful planning, based on the knowledge that: The

United States was being drawn into war on the side of Britain; that,

lacking some mechanism to coordinate relations between government and

scientists, the United States would be ill-equipped to use the most

advanced military technology; and that Germany had the potential to

develop a nuclear bomb far more powerful than any conventional

weapon.

The prime mover in the creation of a wartime scientific organization

was Dr. Vannevar Bush (fig. 11). In 1940, he was President of the

Carnegie Institution of Washington, Chairman of the National Advisory

Committee for Aeronautics, and a former Vice President of the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Bush numbered among his

friends some of the most influential scientists in the country, including

Frank Jewett, President of the National Academy of Sciences, Karl

Compton, President of MIT, and James B. Conant, President of Harvard.

All of them were disturbed at the United States' lack of military

preparedness, especially since they believed that the next war would be

highly technological (ref. 29). They also believed that to mobilize science

and technology a new Federal agency, rather than a reconstituted

National Research Council, "was needed. Bush eventually met with

President Roosevelt, who (on June 27, 1940) approved the establishment

35

ir . ..

• .,.
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

FIGURE 11.--Vannevar Bush. An early pioneer in computer research, he later

became one of the great organizers of technology development during the Second Worm War when he headed the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD).

of the National Defense Research Committee, with Bush as chairman.

One year later this was expanded by executive order into the Office of

Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), again with Bush as head.

The establishment of the OSRD marked a radical break with earlier

science-based agencies. It operated no laboratories and did not take over

projects already underway. Rather, it sponsored whatever research and

development from theoretical work to development of weapon

systems was deemed necessary to the war. The contract was the

OSRD's favorite instrument. Between 1940 and 1941, most of the

obstacles to procuring research and technology development were

removed. The National Defense Expediting Act of 1940 authorized the

36

OE POOR
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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services to buy through negotiated contracts involving either fixed price

or cost-plus-fixed-fee, while the War Powers Act of 1941 freed the

services "of most legal restraints and restrictions in the way of speedy

procurement; the sole consideration was whether the action proposed

would facilitate the prosecution of the war." (ref. 30.) The OSRD broke

down the compartmentalization between public and private universities,

and "for the first time in the nation's history, substantial federal funds

were going to university laboratories" (ref. 31) outside the field of

agriculture. The OSRD also began to emphasize functional distinctions in

its own staff which were to become important in post-war sponsorship of

science and technology development: between the contracting officer,

who was responsible for the fiscal aspects of the project, and the scientific

officer, who was responsible for the substantive aspects.

In essence, the OSRD established the framework within which

mission-oriented research and technology development could be carried

on. And of all the missions originally sponsored by the OSRD, the most

far-reaching was the program to build a nuclear weapon. It was the largest

Federally-sponsored technology development program to that time; it led

directly to the post-war programs in weapons development and the

peaceful uses of atomic energy; and it created institutions like the Los

Alamos National Laboratory and the Argonne National Laboratory which

are still among the nation's foremost technology development laboratories today. Because the nuclear weapons program is the prototype of one

kind of Federally-sponsored technology development, the facts deserve to

be retold.

The Manhattan Project

During the 1930s, major advances were made in the study of the

atomic nucleus. The neutron was discovered by James Chadwick in 1932.

In 1938, two German chemists, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, in order

to explain the results of experiments involving the bombardment of

uranium with neutrons, advanced the radical hypothesis that after

capturing a neutron, the uranium nucleus may break up into two or more

large fragments each fragment being the nucleus of an atom of

intermediate mass. When these results were published in 1939, the

German theoretical physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch speculated on

the fracture of the uranium nucleus, which they called "fission." From the

known dependence of the binding energy of nucleons within the nucleus

as a function of the nuclear mass, they predicted that a large quantity of

energy would be released by each fission event and that neutrons, perhaps

more than one for each fission event, would be released. Thus a "chain

reaction," in which each fission event emitted neutrons which in turn

induced fission events in other uranium nuclei, might be possible.

37
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

By 1940, the established scientific facts justified assuming that a

nuclear chain reaction could be achieved. The Second World War began

with Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939. The scientific

developments mentioned above had been carried out 'in Germany at a time

when the possibility of creating a chain reaction possibly one of

violent, explosive force was freely discussed between scientists of

many nations. It could only be assumed therefore that Germany would

attempt to be first in producing such a device a nuclear bomb.

During the 1930s, many of the most outstanding European scientists

came to America to escape dictatorial regimes. More than most American

scientists, they were aware of the dangers of National Socialism and

undertook to awaken American officials at the highest levels to that

danger. In July 1939, the emigre scientists, Eugene Wigner, Edward

Teller, and Leo S zilard persuaded Albert Einstein to write a letter to

President Roosevelt, alerting him to the danger of Germany developing a

nuclear bomb of far greater explosive power than any other conventional

bomb. As a result, the Advisory Committee on Uranium was established

and held its first meeting in October 1939, with Lyman Briggs as

chairman. The committee reported to the President's military aide,

General E.M. Watson. The first funding for the committee was $6 000

for the purchase of enough uranium to investigate the feasibility of

designing a nuclear explosive.

The task became more urgent when, early in 1940, it became known

through intelligence channels that the Germans were indeed working on

the problem of the fission bomb (table 1). After June 1940, the American

uranium program expanded rapidly. The Uranium Committee became a

section of the National Defense Research Committee, and also

established a working relationship with the British, who had independently started work on the uranium problem.

During 1940 and 1941, under the guidance of the Uranium

Committee, several projects were begun, primarily in university

laboratories. The most important results of these projects were the

following:

• Uranium fission process. Experiments conducted at Columbia

and Princeton Universities confirmed the model of nuclear structure

developed by Niels Bohr and John Wheeler in Copenhagen (ref. 32). In

particular, it was demonstrated that slow-neutron fission of uranium-235

produces, on the average, nearly three neutrons per fission.

• Chain reactions. In principle there are two types of chain

reaction the fast or explosive type and the moderate type, in which

a "moderator" is used to slow down the neutrons to speeds more likely to

cause fission reactions in uranium-235. Enrico Fermi proposed the use of

low-atomic-number materials with low neutron absorption properties as

38
A LooK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

.:i!:i.:/i ̧

Table 1. U.S. and German Research on Building a

Nuclear Explosive, 1939 to 1943

Time United States Germany

1939 Einstein Letter

(July)

Uranium Committee

(October)

Discovery of uranium fission

German program established

(August)

September 1, 1939

War starts

1940

1941

Section I of NDRC organized

Plutonium experiment in

Berkeley

Isotope separation research

Theoretical work

National Academy Study.

Positive Feasibility (November)

OSRD organized to take over

the work

Distinguished German scientists

brought into Program

Feasibility report positive.

Either carbon or D20

moderations.

No isotope separation

Pu 239selected as best potential

fuel. D20 selected as moderator.

Many small-scale reactor

experiments. Technical

difficulties and administrative

problems.

December 7, 1941

Pearl Harbor

1942

1943

Manhattan District organized

(September)

First reactor (December)

Oak Ridge, Argonne, Los

Alamos, and Hanford organized

Heisenberg successfully makes

subcritical assembly (October)

British destroy Norwegian D20

plant (February)

Plant returned to full production

(June)

American bombers attack D20

facility (November).

German military officers

discontinue production, causing

Germany to abandon effort to

build nuclear weapon.

39
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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moderators. Heavy water (water containing only the heavy isotope of

hydrogen, deuterium), beryllium metal, and graphite were regarded as

prime candidates. But the time needed to build a separation plant and

produce enough heavy water for a pilot chain-reacting "uranium pile" was

too great; and beryllium was too scarce and required a level of

purification beyond what existing technology could provide. Graphite

was soon identified as the material of choice; fairly pure graphite was

already in production for other purposes, so that improvements-in existing

industrial processes were believed feasible (ref. 33).

In 1939 and 1940, experiments on the slowing down of neutrons in

graphite were carried out at Columbia University (ref. 34). Concurrent

theoretical studies based on diffusion theory made it possible to predict

the results to be expected in various arrangements of uranium and

graphite moderator, including the number of neutrons that would escape

from lattices of various designs and dimensions. At about the same time,

Enrico Fermi and his colleagues at Columbia University hit on the

concept of arranging separated chunks of uranium in a matrix of graphite

moderator. Their idea was that, by separating the uranium into small

chunks, the neutrons would escape into the surrounding moderator and be

slowed down below the uranium-238 resonance capture range (i.e.,

discrete velocity ranges at which atomic nuclei absorb neutrons) before

entering another chunk of uranium. The result would be to set the

proportion of neutrons lost by capture in uranium-238 and that available

for fission of uranium-235. The essential features of the chain-reaction

"uranium pile" were thus produced and the first nuclear chain reaction

was carried out in December 1942 (ref. 35).

• Plutonium. In 1940, Edwin McMillan, Philip Abelson, and

Glen Seaborg, working at the University of California in Berkeley,

bombarded uranium with neutrons and high-energy deuterons using

Ernest Lawrence's newly constructed cyclotron. I.n so doing, they

produced the first two transuranic elements, neptunium and plutonium

(ref. 36). Both plutonium-238 and plutonium-239 were important

discoveries. Plutonium-239 had slow-neutron fission properties similar to

uranium-235 and could be used to produce a chain reaction. In May 1941,

Emest Lawrence suggested to the Uranium Committee that if a controlled

chain reaction could be achieved with natural uranium, it might be

possible to produce plutonium-239 in large amounts by neutron capture in

uranium-238. The plutonium could be separated from the uranium by

chemical means a far simpler process than that of separating the

uranium isotopes. The product would be a highly concentrated form of

fissionable material with which a violently explosive device with less

total weight could be built than with imperfectly separated uranium-235.

The committee immediately incorporated Lawrence's suggestion into the

program.

40
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

.

.....

_..

-_...

• Isotope separation. The separation of the uranium iostopes to

obtain weapons-grade uranium-235 was one of the key technical

constraints in the uranium program. In 1940 to 1941, three techniques

were considered" the gaseous diffusion of uranium hexafluoride through

porous barriers; the separation of isotopes by the centrifuge method; and

the electromagnetic separation of isotopes. Under the emergency

conditions of wartime, all of these methods were pursued and enormous

investments were made in the construction of pilot plants. As things

turned out, only the gaseous diffusion method was practical at the time.

By late 1941, work on the uranium project was far advanced. In its

report of November 6, 1941, the National Academy of Sciences, which

reviewed the project periodically, concluded that a bomb of superlatively

destructive power could be made by bringing a sufficient mass of

uranium-235 together quickly; that the mass required for explosive fission

was between 2 and 100 kg; that the energy released by such a device

would be equivalent to 300 tons of TNT; that the separation of uranium

isotopes in sufficient quantity to devastate Germany's military capability

could be achieved; and finally, that if an all-out effort were undertaken,

fission bombs could be produced within three to four years.

This report to the President led to the complete reorganization of the

uranium program. With the attack on Pearl Harbor and American entry

into the war a month later, the urgency of the program greatly increased.

Until the end of 1941, the uranium program was carried out under

the OSRD. In March 1942, Bush predicted that the fission bomb could be

completed in 1944, and recommended to the President that the Army

Corps of Engineers be brought in for the construction of full-scale plants.

A new district of the Corps of Engineers was formed in August 1942 to

carry out the "DSM Project" (Development of Substitute Materials), as

the fission bomb project was designated. In September 1942, Brigadier

General Leslie R. Groves was appointed head of the new "Manhattan

Engineering District" (so named because its head office was then in New

York) and given full responsibility for DSM, under the guidance of a

Military Policy Committee chaired by Bush. The OSRD Uranium

Committee continued to act in an advisory capacity, but responsibility for

all research activities and production plant design, construction, and

operation was rapidly transferred to General Groves and his Manhattan

District staff. The intensified research and development effort was

concentrated in several major organizations, in part by expanding existing

laboratories, in part by setting up new facilities.

While a detailed account of the Manhattan Project is beyond the

scope of this chapter, its efforts on the nature of American science and

technology development were profound. The Manhattan Project created

(or assigned new responsibilities to) research and development facilities

which survived the project and played a critical role in post-war science

41
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

and technology development. The most important of them were the

Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago, where Enrico

Fermi and his group produced the first controlled chain reaction in

December 1942; the Argonne National Laboratory, which became the

center for the study of reactor designs of all types; Ernest Lawrence's

Laboratory at Berkeley, which was assigned responsibility for developing

the electromagnetic method of separating uranium isotopes and designing

a production plant for the large-scale separation of uranium-235; the

Clinton (Tennessee) Engineering Works, originally built for the

production of uranium-235 by the gaseous diffusion method, which

became the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and played a major role in the

development of atomic power reactors; the Hanford (Washington)

Engineering Works, at which the first great reactors to produce plutonium

were located, and most importantly, the Los Alamos (New Mexico)

Scientific Laboratory. Located at the top of an isolated mesa some 50

kilometers from Santa Fe, the laboratory was established in March 1943,

with J. Robert Oppenheimer as director. At Berkeley, Oppenheimer had

been carrying forward the theoretical work on fast-neutron chain

reactions, and his job now was to achieve the ultimate goal of the

Manhattan Project. (The key personnel in the Manhattan Project are

shown in figures 12 through 14.)

The goal was to produce fission bombs. As other tasks of plutonium

and isotope separation were transferred from scientific to plant

engineering personnel, top-flight scientists from the various segments of

the program were brought to Los Alamos to solve the ultimate problems

of designing the bomb" in particular, determining the optimal method for

detonating the critical mass and figuring out how the critical mass of

uranium or plutonium would behave in the interval between the chain

reaction and the explosion. By the spring of 1945 there were well over

two thousand scientific and technical personnel at Los Alamos (ref. 37).

Their efforts culminated in the test explosion of a plutonium implosion

bomb in the New Mexico desert near Alamogordo, on July 16, 1945,

followed by the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki a

few weeks later.

The Manhattan Project created an operating philosophy a set of

standard operating procedures ---- that was to be adopted for a variety of

purposes, including the development of space and weapon systems during

the post-war years. The project had shown, in Richard Nelson's words,

what could be done where there was "a willingness to make large early

bets on particular technological options and force these through, or

engage in parallel efforts at very high cost." (ref. 38.) The nuclear bomb

development program followed several paths simultaneously" plutonium

or the separation of the uranium isotopes; electromagnetic or gaseousdiffusion separation of the uranium isotopes; alternative designs of

42
OF POOR QUALi_-_Y A Look AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

FIGURE 12.- Three leaders of the effort to build nuclear weapons during the Second

World War. From left to right, J. Robert Oppenheimer, who headed the Los

A 1amos Laboratory where the first atomic bomb was built; Enrico Fermi, who

supervised the achievement of the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction;

and Ernest O. Lawrence, who invented the cyclotron. (Both Fermi and

Lawrence won Nobel Prizes.)

nuclear bombs. It was the concurrent approach, as much as anything, that

enabled the United States to produce a nuclear weapon before Germany

did.

The crucial error the Germans made in their effort to develop a

uranium bomb was to reject graphite as a neutron moderator in favor of

heavy water. It tumed out that the graphite samples used by Walter Bothe

and his group to determine the neutronic properties of the material had

impurities that resulted in larger than acceptable values of the neutron

capture cross sections. Thus, the Germans would have to employ the only

other available moderator, heavy water, in order to build their plutonium

producing "uranium piles." Once the German effort came to depend

entirely on heavy water, it was probably doomed. There was only one

plant, in Norway, that made heavy water, and it was vulnerable to raids

by the British, who destroyed the plant in February 1943, and by the

Americans, who put it out of commission for good the following

November.

43
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

FIGURE 13. -- Major General Leslie R. Groves, U.S. Army. Groves headed the "'Manhattan District" during the Second Worm War. This was the organization

established to produce the first nuclear weapons.

A second feature of the Manhattan Project which was to influence

post-war American science and technology development was the

tendency to locate govemment-sponsored research in the private sector

rather than in government arsenals. Bush and the other OSRD members

quite deliberately decided to circumvent the problems of'working through

civil-service establishments with little experience in large-scale development projects. Once the decision was made to build production facilities,

their operation was assigned to some of the largest firms in the country.

Thus for the Clinton Engineering Works, Westinghouse and General

Electric were selected to manufacture the mechanical and electrical

components and Tennessee Eastman to manage the facility; DuPont

operated the Hanford Works; while until recently Union Carbide operated

Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

44

OF POOR QUAL[_
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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FIGURE 14. _ Three physicists who have had major influence on technology development and on public policy. Edward Teller provided the ideas for the first

thermonuclear weapons, Arthur Holly Compton did the design calculations for

the first successful nuclear reactor, and Eugene P. Wigner made important contributions to nuclear theory. (Wigner and Compton both won Nobel Prizes.)

45
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

This emphasis on research and development conducted by the

private sector had important repercussions over the next three decades.

For many large weapons programs, project managers tended to avoid

"in-house" arsenals and laboratories except where no qualified

commercial sources were available. In the 1960s, the National

Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Defense let

enormous base operation contracts, by which companies provided

support services for entire installations everything from trash

collection to computer programming to mission control. The rationale

was that this was the only way to assemble quickly the manpower needed

to accomplish goals of national importance and (in theory) to disperse it

when those goals were accomplished.

The Post-War Period- Origins of Government by Contract (1946 to

19s7)

In 1945, very few people expected that American science and

technology would return to its pre-war state. The genie had been let out of

the bottle, and there was little inclination, even had it been possible, to

put it back in. In his July 1945 report to the President, Science _ The

Endless Frontier (published in the same month as the Alamogordo test

explosion, which it did not mention), Bush sketched an ambitious

program of Federal support for basic research. For our purposes, the

post-war period from 1946 to the launching of Sputnik in October

1957 can be taken as the period in which the basic institutional

arrangements of American science came into being, some by act of

Congress, some by executive order, some by agency regulations, and

some by informal agreement between the sponsoring agencies and what,

for lack of a better word, may be called their clients. Important long-term

changes occurred in" Federal policies toward the support of basic

research; Federal procurement policy; use of captive research organizations; policy regarding the uses of atomic energy; and philosophies of

project management, especially in the larger weapons programs.

First, the Federal Government would continue to support basic

research, and would do this through several agencies. Although the

National Science Foundation was chartered by Congress in 1950 with the

mission of supporting basic research, it was clearly understood (and

affirmed by executive order in 1954) that this in no way preempted the

research sponsored by other agencies. In 1946, the Navy had taken the

initiative in sponsoring research when Congress created the Office of

Naval Research, with the aim of sponsoring free, non-directed research,

almost none of which was classified. In the same year General Dwight

Eisenhower, as Chief of Staff of the United States Army, drafted a

memorandum which was a blueprint for a continuing relation between the

46
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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services, civilian scientists, industry, and the university. The principles

set forth in this document have dominated Federal research policies to this

day"

"(1) The Army must have civilian assistance in military planning as

well as for the production of weapons . . .

(2) Scientists and industrialists must be given the greatest possible

freedom to carry out their research . . .

(3) The possibility of utilizing some of our industrial and

technological resources as organic parts of our military structure in

time of emergency should be carefully examined... There appears

little reason for duplicating within the Army an outside organization

which by its experience is better qualified than we are to carry out

some of our tasks . . .

(4) Within the Army we must separate responsibility for research

and development from the functions of procurement, purchase,

storage and distribution ... The inevitable gap between the

scientists or technologist and the user can be bridged, as during the

last war, by field experimentation with equipment still in the

development stage . . .

(5) Officers of all arms and services must become fully aware of the

advantage which the Army can derive from the close integration of

civilian talent with military plans and developments... In general,

the more we can achieve the objectives indicated above with respect

to the cultivation, support and direct use of outside resources, the

more energy will we have left to devote to strictly military problems

for which there are no outside facilities or which for special security

reasons can only be handled by the military." (ref. 39.)

Implied in Eisenhower's memorandum was the distinction between

basic theoretical research and development which was at the heart of the

Manhattan Project. Without the theoretical research on the structure of

the atomic nucleus and the applied research devoted to isotope separation

and the creation of transuranic elements, the production of weaponsgrade material would have been impossible.

Science, then, was to be more closely integrated with national

technology development goals than at any previous,time. But this meant

that the legal framework within which research and development was

pursued would have to be overhauled. In 1947, Congress passed the

Armed Services Procurement Act which, while affirming the principle

that contracts for services and supplies were to be let by advertising for

bids, listed seventeen exceptions; the most important of these were

47
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

services purchased from educational institutions and services for experimental or developmental work (ref. 40). In 1948, Congress further

authorized long-term research and development contracts, and provided

for indemnifying contractors for losses incurred in certain kinds of

developmental work. In 1949, many of these powers were delegated to

civilian agencies. In the same period Congress did something to enable

Federal agencies to compete with industry for the best engineers. In 1947,

Congress authorized the Secretary of Defense (and subsequently, certain

civilian agencies) to fill forty-five scientific and professional positions at

salaries from $10 000 to $13 000, a range then equivalent to that of the

highest ranking government officials. Congress intended these "Public

Law 313" positions to be used for recruitment rather than retention, and

each agency head was empowered to determine the appropriate salary

within the bounds set by legislation.

Yet to officials in the new Department of Defense (DOD) and the

Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), even these institutional arrangements

did not go far enough in giving the agencies the expertise they needed.

Particularly in weapon system development, where one firm might design

the system and then bid on the hardware, there were serious

conflict-of-interest problems. What DOD and the AEC attempted was,

for quite different reasons, to create "captive" non-profit contract research

organizations working for one sponsor. The best known of the

defense-oriented centers are the RAND Corporation (which began as a

contract between the Army Air Corps and Douglas Aircraft in 1945) and

the Institute for Defense Analyses. The idea underlying these

organizations was that they could provide disinterested advice to their

sponsors; that individual researchers, freed from routine administrative

tasks, could conduct research well in advance of the sponsoring agency's

current needs; and that, by their existence, they would serve as catalysts

for innovation in the client agency (ref. 41). Although practice did not

always conform to theory, an organization like RAND could play a

significant role in shaping agency programs at the earliest, the

conceptual, stage.

The AEC, on the other hand, created a different kind of captive

organization. Established by Congress in 1946, the AEC was charged

with three different, and not entirely compatible, tasks" to produce

weapons-grade nuclear materials for the Department of Defense; to

develop and then transfer reactor technology to the private sector; and to

regulate commercial reactors, once they came on line. The AEC

deliberately chose not to operate its own laboratories, although the

Atomic Energy Act of 1946 specifically provided for Federally-conducted

research and development. Instead, the AEC contracted with private

organizations universities and for-profit firms to operate its

laboratories" Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, Argonne, Hanford, Lawrence's

48
A Look AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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Radiation Laboratory, and the rest. The universities received almost

two-fifths of the funding for R&D contracts (ref. 42). AEC managers

were aware of the role played by university-managed laboratories in the

Manhattan Project; and they assigned to the universities functions

performed by other agencies in their own laboratories.

The first success of the new Atomic Energy Commission was the

creation of the first thermonuclear weapons. Under Edward Teller's

leadership much of the basic conceptual work had begun during the war.

When the war ended, there was great pressure to dismantle the nuclear

weapons complex, and many people involved in nuclear weapons work

returned to their pre-war pursuits. There were a few, however, among

them Norris Bradbury who succeeded J. Robert Oppenheimer as Director

of Los Alamos, and a group of people around Ernest Lawrence in

Berkeley, who recognized that the nuclear weapons complex created by

the Manhattan Project would have to be maintained and expanded. In

their post-war work on thermonuclear explosives, Teller and his

collaborators drew on the people and the facilities of Los Alamos and the

other institutions of the old Manhattan Project that became part of the new

Atomic Energy Commission. The Commission retained the institutional

arrangements under which the Manhattan Project operated, and the

University of Califomia stayed on as the contractor that operated the Los

Alamos Laboratory.

Because the nuclear weapons complex remained more-orless in existence at the end of the war, it was possible to verify Teller's

brilliant theoretical insight quickly and show that it would indeed be

possible to create thermonuclear explosives. However, the political

controversy surrounding the decision to develop these weapons also had

another consequence relevant to the management of technology

development. Teller and some of his collaborators felt that in the effort to

spawn new technologies that were highly classified and politically

controversial, it would be important to introduce an element of

competition within the govemment-contractor community. Accordingly,

they proposed that another nuclear weapons development laboratory be

established with roughly the same functions as those carried out by Los

Alamos. As a result of their proposal, a branch of Ernest Lawrence's

Berkeley-based Radiation Laboratory was established at Livermore,

Califomia (about 65 kilometers east of Berkeley) in 1952. In due course,

the new laboratory became independent of its parent (it is now called the

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) and it has, along with the Los

Alamos Laboratory, made vital contributions to the development of

nuclear weapons (fig. 15). The competition that Teller felt was necessary

has proved to be very beneficial and indeed, other agencies have found it

worthwhile to build "internal" competition of this kind into their

programs.

49
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

University of California, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

FIGURE 15.--An aerial view of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory which

was established in 1952 to develop thermonuclear weapons technology. The

Laboratory's administrative building is in the corner near the bottom of the

photograph.

The policy of contracting out technology development was

compatible with as much or as little technical direction as the AEC

considered desirable. At one end, the basic research carried on at the

national laboratories was almost entirely free of technical control, except

where the quality of the scientist's work was being evaluated. At the other

end, the AEC was heavily involved in project-type work, notably in the

development under Captain (later Admiral) Hyman G. Rickover (fig. 16)

of reactors for the propulsion of submarines and other naval vessels. The

important point, as far as Rickover was concerned, was that although he

was a military man, he was forced to work through a civilian agency to

achieve his ends. Rickover succeeded by inventing a unique organizational method. He had himself appointed to two jobs" one as head of the

AEC's Naval Reactors Program, and the other as Director of Nuclear

Propulsion in the Navy's Bureau of Ships. Rickover saw that by

occupying similar positions in both agencies, he could cut the usual red

tape, allowing him to justify the program for military reasons in his

capacity as a naval officer and then using his position of authority in the

AEC to organize the development laboratories needed to create the

reactors. Once the reactors were developed by the AEC, the process of

transferring the technology back to the Navy had to occur. This

arrangement proved to be highly effective and it remains in force to this

day. Rickover also adopted Teller's idea of competitive technology

50

ORIGINAL PP::_a_ u_i

OF. POOR QUALI_
ORIG{N_.L P;_?C2:_2,.i,_.

OF POOR QUALi'F_ A LooK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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Official U.S. Navy Photo

FIGURE 16.--Admiral Hyman G. Rickover. Rickover led the development of nuclear powered submarines.

development centers by using both of the major contractors with whom he

worked to establish such institutions. He provided the resources to build

the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (General Electric) and the Bettis

Laboratory (Westinghouse), and both have been extremely important in

providing basic technology for nuclear reactors for military as well as

civilian purposes.

From the very beginning, the joint Navy/AEC nuclear program was

oriented toward transferring the technology of nuclear reactors to the

civilian sector. The president of Westinghouse, Gwilym Price, had to

overcome the attitude of company officials that "Westinghouse made its

profits on conventional products and that the company should give them

first priority... Price realized that such an attitude would never give the

company competence in radically new technology like atomic energy.

Price and others . . . saw that Rickover was offering an opportunity that

the company dare not miss. Westinghouse not only needed Navy

contracts but also had to be in a position to enter a future civilian market

for power reactors." (ref. 43.) It is no accident that all of the power

reactors currently in use in the United States are either pressurized water

51
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

reactors or boiling water reactors of the type developed by Westinghouse

and General Electric for the Navy. It may be that other technologies, such

as the high temperature gas cooled reactor, might have been further

developed but for the technical decisions reached early in the nuclear

propulsion program. The point is that both contractors were strongly

encouraged to think about and develop ideas for commercial power

reactors, and that the present nuclear power industry is a product of the

nuclear submarine program.

This account of the nuclear propulsion program raises a broader

question: To what extent did the major development programs of the

1950s and early 1960s represent a change, if not an improvement, over

the techniques used in the Manhattan Project? As Sapolsky notes, the

atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was the first of the modern weapons

and the last of the old. For all its technical sophistication the bomb was

developed "apart from the ancillary equipment upon which its

effectiveness depended ... The physical size of the bomb was

determined not by the limits of technology, but by the dimensions of the

bomb bay doors of a B-29, an aircraft designed several years before the

bomb." (ref. 44.) As weapons came to be seen as complex systems of

interrelated components for instance, the airframe, guidance system,

warhead, engines, and so on of a cruise (air-breathing) missile two

systems development philosophies evolved: that of the Air Force's

Western Development Division, which managed the Air Force

Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Program, and the Navy Special

Projects Office, which oversaw the development of the submarinelaunched Polaris missile.

Specifically, by 1953, RAND Corporation scientists and an Air

Force Strategic Weapons Evaluation Committee chaired by John yon

Neumann had concluded independently that an ICBM was technically

feasible. In early 1954, the von Neumann Committee recommended that

the United States undertake an ICBM program on a highest-priority basis.

On the basis of this recommendation, the Air Force established the

Western Development Division under then Brigadier General Bernard

Schriever to direct and coordinate its ballistic missile programs. The

Western Development Division was a blank-check outfit set up to run a

crash program to close the missile gap. Under Schriever's philosophy of

concurrency, production and operations were telescoped together, even

while research and development were proceeding. Concurrency meant

"simultaneous work on basic and applied research, vehicle design,

component design, test facility design and construction, component and

system testing, the creation of production facilities, and the design,

proof, and test of launch site facilities without which the missile would be

impotent." (ref. 45.) In this sense, Schriever perfected the methods first

pioneered by the Manhattan Project.

52
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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Schriever's approach to program management was equally radical.

The case for hiring systems contractors to manufacture and integrate the

components was not open and shut. The Army, at its Huntsville Arsenal,

was capable of developing weapon systems (for example, the

Jupiter intermediate-range missile) as complex as the Air Force's Thor

intermediate-range missile. In essence, the Air Force turned to private

contractors because it had neither the depth of competence found in Army

laboratories nor the time to recruit engineers. In addition, the Air Force

preferred to foster a civilian aerospace industry in peacetime. The

research and development capabilities were there, ready to be exploited.

Moreover, many Air Force weapons managers believed that, in contrast

to the Army's arsenal system, their relations with industry significantly

shortened the time period necessary for weapons systems development.

While retaining ultimate responsibility for its programs, the Air

Force delegated to civilians every aspect of the research and development

cycle. In several cases the Air Force selected a prime contractor for

technical integration, testing, assembly, subcontracting, and the like; this

was how the Bomarc missile and the B-58 bomber were developed. In its

ballistic missile programs, the Air Force worked through several

associate contractors for components and subsystems and hired a separate

organization, the Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation (subsequently TRW,

Inc.), to serve as technical director of the program. Excluded from

hardware production, Ramo-Wooldridge was both line and staff; the

former, insofar as it did systems engineering and provided technical

direction for the Western Development Division, and the latter, inasmuch

as it also did long-range planning studies for the Air Force. There is no

doubt that Schriever's brilliant and inventive approach to pioneering new

organizational arrangements has profoundly affected the management of

technology development in the United States.

The Navy's Special Projects Office was like the Air Force's Western

Development Division in that it was at the farthest remove from the

pre-war arsenal system. But to a much greater extent than the Air Force in

its ICBM program, the Navy provided the technical direction for Polaris.

This did not mean that the Special Projects Office had any special design

capability. Rather, it was the design preferences of the Special Projects

Office, and not those of its contractors, that dominated Polaris. Unlike the

Air Force's missile programs, '"the technical alternatives were not the

product of a single organization, nor were they filtered through a single

organization. The Special Projects Office dominated because it was

dependent technically on many contractors, not one . . . Always in the

boundary areas between subsystems, but often also within subsystems,

the Special Projects Office branches and, most importantly, the Technical

Director, had the opportunity to compare competing proposals." (ref.

46.)

53
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

r

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1958 to 1970)

Despite the sophistication of the research and development we have

described, the United States was unprepared for the Russian announcement, on October 4, 1957, that a satellite Sputnik _ had been placed

in near-earth orbit. Sputnik, which was Russia's contribution to the

1957-1958 International Geophysical Year, seemed to represent the

greatest threat to national security since the German nuclear weapon

program became known. So far-reaching an event was perceived and

acted on in different ways. It led President Eisenhower to appoint James

Killian of MIT as Special Assistant to the President and to transfer the

Science Advisory Committee from the Office of Defense Mobilization to

the Executive Office of the President. Reconstituted as the President's

Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), it gave the scientific community

greater access to the White House than at any time since the OSRD. With

the Special Assistant as Chairman of PSAC and, in 1959, of the newly

created Federal Council for Science and Technology, Eisenhower hoped

to obtain a body of politically neutral technical experts to provide

disinterested advice at all levels of the government.

But the most important consequence of Sputnik was the decision by

the President and Congress to consolidate and make more effective an

American space program. This decision led to the 1958 Space Act and the

creation of a new agency, the National Aeronautics and Space

Administration. NASA would be a civilian agency, with the National

Advisory Committee for Aeronautics as its nUcleus; it would be headed

by a strong administrator, rather than a committee; it would have

authority to let large development contracts; in a vaguely-defined way, it

would coordinate its programs, especially those having military value or

significance, with those of DOD; and it would acquire certain

installations (in addition to those inherited from the National Advisory

Committee for Aeronautics) and projects needed to carry on its work. In

late 1958, by executive order NASA acquired the Jet Propulsion

Laboratory, a government-owned facility operated under an Army

contract by the California Institute of Technology which ultimately

acquired the role of developing unmanned spacecraft to explore the solar

system. In 1960, NASA acquired from the Army the rocket team headed

by Wernher yon Braun located at the U.S. Army's Redstone Arsenal in

Huntsville, Alabama. Von Braun and his colleagues were already

working on the Saturn rocket and, after President Kennedy's May 1961

decision committing the United States to land a man on the Moon and

return him safely before the end of the decade, the Marshall Space Flight

Center (of which von Braun became the director) was placed in charge of

large launch vehicle development. Additionally, NASA established the

Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in 1959 to direct

54
OF POOR QUALITY

A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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the agency's unmanned earth orbiting satellite programs. Prominent

NACA and NASA leaders are shown in figures 17 through 21.

The lunar-landing decision was the real turning point for NASA.

Under T. Keith Glennan, the first NASA Administrator (1958 to 1961),

the agency had grown in a steady, undramatic way. Under his successor,

James E. Webb (1961 to 1968), NASA exploded, with a budget of $5.5

billion (1965 dollars) and 36 000 government employees supervising

400 000 contractor employees by 1965 to 1966. In considering NASA's

success in accomplishing the lunar landing, we must ask what, in

organizational terms, allowed NASA to get the job done. Five features

seem noteworthy (ref. 47)"

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FIGURE 17.- Orville Wright who, with his brother Wilbur, achieved the first sustained powered flight in 1903. Wright later served as a member of the government's National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.

55
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

_'_:,_!_'__.; __:-_..,_"

FIGURE 18.- Three leaders of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics:

Jerome Hunsaker, a member (and chairman) of the Committee; James H.

Doolittle, the last Chairman of the Committee; and Hugh Dryden, for many

years the Staff Director of the Committee.

56
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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FIGURE 19. -- The first two Administrators of the National A eronautics and Space

Administration, T. Keith Glennan and James E. Webb.

57
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS OF POOR Q_A:ua ;_._

FIGURE 20. -- Wernher von Braun, whose team led the development of the Saturn

rocket that put the Apollo astronauts on the Moon, was also one of the early

pioneers of rocket technology in the 1930"s.

58
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THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

1. NASA in the early 1960s had an organizational flexibility

unmatched by any agency of comparable size. In this period NASA had

no formal agencywide long-range plan; no general advisory committee of

outside scientists, such as those established for the AEC and DOD; no

centralized range structure for tracking, data acquisition, and mission

control; no inspector-general, chief scientist, or chief engineer; no central

planning staff attached to the Office of the Administrator. These functions

were handled in other, much more decentralized ways. Moreover, the

absence of a plan or general advisory committee rescued NASA from

becoming captive to policies which might cease to be relevant. To

maintain this flexibility and to adapt the agency to change, there were

frequent reorganizations, notably in 1961, 1963, 1965, and 1967. But

they were not ends in themselves. They were designed, rather, to turn the

agency from one set of programs to those of a quite different sort. For

NASA was quite vulnerable. It had to stake a claim to territory of its own,

rather than become a supporting arm of the military services or, like the

AEC, a supervisory agency with a small in-house staff and contractoroperated facilities.

2. Another element in the success of the NASA organization was the

unusual power of the Administrator. The Administrator could appoint

people to "excepted" positions in the civil service, award contracts

without competitive bidding, reprogram funds within appropriation

accounts and transfer between them, and devise and administer a

custom-tailored entrance examination for new employees, among many

other things. Examples such as these represent influence within the

system, not a departure from it; variances from the norm were allowed by

Congress, the Bureau of the Budget, and the Civil Service Commission.

Without the authority, for example, to negotiate major contracts, it is

unlikely that the lunar landing would have occurred on schedule. It is

hard to imagine Apollo (the lunar-landing program) or a major unmanned

program like the Orbiting Observatories becoming operational, had the

agency been rigorously bound by competitive bidding or other rules that

would have constrained its ability to choose its sources for acquiring

hardware. The power available to the Administrator depended on

congressional willingness to tolerate practices that the legislature might

have challenged elsewhere. And when that toleration ceased, particularly

after the January 1967 fire that killed three astronauts, NASA also fell

victim to red tape. Thus by 1969, it took an average of 420 days to

process a contract involving a procurement plan, 3 months for

Headquarters to review the plan, and 47 days for Headquarters to approve

a negotiated contract.

3. One of the most important aspects of Apollo was the speed with

which the crucial administrative and program decisions were made and

the prime contracts awarded. Except for the decision to go to all-up

60
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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testing (the testing of all the major Apollo components together), the

major Apollo program decisions were made between August 1961 and

July 1962. Had they been stretched out over a longer period, it seems

unlikely that they would have received the support that they did. In

contrast, it took almost four years to reach the decision to build the

Shuttle and to decide on the final configuration of the system. The first

serious conversations about the Space Shuttle were conducted in 1968 in

connection with then-Administrator Paine's call to start thinking about a

"post-Apollo" program for NASA. The Shuttle program itself was not

finally approved by President Nixon until January 1972.

4. The NASA leadership has, for the most part, recognized the

political importance of the space program. There is no doubt that the

space program that NASA operates has strong political content and

popular appeal. The planetary exploration program and the spectacular

pictures it has provided of new worlds in the solar system, the Apollo

program, and, of course, the Space Shuttle have all been used as

demonstrations of American national competence in technology.

Generally, the nation's political leadership has been sensitive to the

political advantages of a strong space program and has provided the

necessary support to carry it through.

5. As mentioned before, NASA was and is remarkably decentralized

for so large an agency. Authority was, and is, delegated to the centers to

negotiate contracts up to a specified amount, to transfer funds between

programs, to start new research tasks without seeking specific

authorization, and to shift manpower from one division to another. The

strategy of senior management was and is, to give the centers what they

need to get the job done, but not so much that their work would lose its

relevance to the agency's mission. During the 1960s, the "research" and

"development" centers* tended to become more like each other; centers

with a mixture of projects weathered the budget and manpower cuts at the

end of the decade better than those with one or two large development

programs that were phasing down.

By 1969, most of the centers, particularly Marshall, were in the early

phases of a "withdrawal process" brought on by cuts which began in 1967

and were to continue uninterruptedly to the late 1970s. The Electronics

Research Center (ERC) was transferred from NASA to the Department of

Transportation in 1970 and one or two other centers narrowly avoided

closure. The problem of new roles and missions could be alleviated by the

centers, but only in part. NASA officials conceded in principle that a

* The "research" centers are Ames, Langley, and Lewis Research Centers. The

"development" centers are the Johnson Space Center and the Marshall Space Flight

Center.

61
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

less-than-best laboratory might be closed: if it had served its initial

purpose; if there was no likelihood that a new role for the laboratory could

be found; and if the closing down of the laboratory would not leave a

significant gap in the national capability to do technology development

work. But most of the centers were adaptable and many had gone through

at least one reorganization in the late 1950s, moving from aeronautics to

launch-vehicle development, or from development work on guided

missiles to lunar and planetary probes, as with the Jet Propulsion

Laboratory. By 1969, another cycle of reorganization was underway. Yet

the more subtle changes in a center's mission could only occur very

gradually.

To summarize, NASA prospered during the early 1960s, because of

its administrative flexibility, the political skills of its senior officials, the

delegation of program management to the field, and the timeliness with

which the important decisions were made. But the same elements were

not enough to enable NASA to weather the severest test to which any

mission-oriented agency can be put" namely, how to react to the

completion of the mission. And this, as we shall see, is not NASA's

problem alone.

Epilogue- The 1970s and After

In retrospect, the early 1960s were the golden age of Federallysponsored, mission-oriented technology development. Beginning in

about 1967, the budgets of the three largest mission-oriented agencies

DOD, AEC, NASA _ accounting for 90 percent of all Federal research

and technology development outlays, began to decline (ref. 48).

Part of this decline was due to specific developments such as the

Vietnam War, skepticism over the future of commercial nuclear power

(confirmed, for many, by the Three Mile Island incident in 1979), and the

phasing down of Apollo. Yet the decline was general, part of systemic

changes in the American economy which continue to the present. Where

spending on all kinds of research and technology development from all

sources amounted to 2.9 percent of the gross national product in the

mid-1960s, it had fallen to 2.2 percent by 1978. During that period,

Federal spending, especially on applied research, prototype, and

demonstration programs fell from 1.9 percent to 1.1 percent of the gross

national product (ref. 49). Clearly, such a continued trend has major

implications for American economic growth or lack of it. We cannot

enter into so enormously complex a subject here, but we would like to

examine briefly the efforts of the technology-based agencies to adjust to

cutbacks.

The fate of the AEC was the most dramatic. It disappeared. In 1974

to 1975, its regulatory functions were transferred to the newly-created

62
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its other activities were given to the

newly-created Energy Research and Development Administration. In

1977, the Department of Energy was created, assuming overall

management of all Federal programs related to energy. The AEC

laboratories tried to adjust. As early as 1964, the AEC had issued

guidelines for laboratories wishing to perform non-nuclear work for other

customers" The proposed work should not lead to an increase in the size

of AEC or contractor staff, should not require new facilities, should not

be subcontracted, and should be done only if the other sponsoring

government agency could not get the work done as conveniently by

private industry (ref. 50). Within these guidelines, the laboratories

worked for a variety of clients; Oak Ridge has worked for DOD, NASA,

the Office of Saline Water in the Interior Department, and the Public

Health Service; while the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has

carried out non-classified work, most recently in the area of

superconducting materials. Whether such work is a holding action or will

turn into a new missiqn remains to be seen.

Defense technol_g_ development was hit particularly hard in the late

1960s. Basic academic research _ a precondition for certain kinds of

defense technology _ fell from $137 million in 1965 to $108 million in

1974 (ref. 51). Only 4 percent of the total was classified, as universities

began to withdraw from certain defense projects. Nor were matters

improved by the "Mansfield Amendment" attached to the 1970 defense

authorization act, which forbade the use of DOD funds to finance any

research unless, in the opinion of the Secretary of Defense, it had "a

potential relationship to a military function or operation." (ref. 52.) The

case of NASA is particularly interesting. Apollo and its successor,

Skylab, were completed by 1974. Long before then, it was apparent to

agency officials that to maintain a manned spaceflight program, NASA

would have to confront the problem of deciding upon the next major

thrust in space technology. The answer to that problem was the Space

Shuttle. The main lines of the Shuttle program were drawn up by NASA

task forces in 1968 and 1969, modified in 1971, and approved by

President Nixon in January 1972. Briefly, the Shuttle is a partially

reusable launch vehicle, consisting of an orbiter, two recoverable

solid-fuel, strap-on boosters, and an external fuel tank, which is

jettisoned shortly after the main engines have used all the fuel. The

orbiter is designed to be launched like a rocket, operate in near-earth orbit

for up to several days and, returning to Earth, land like a glider (fig. 22).

It is designed for a variety of functions" to conduct experiments in zero

gravity, place communications or weather satellites in orbit, and

eventually, to supply an orbiting space station.

The Space Shuttle system, then, is radically different from Apollo.

For all its sophistication, Apollo was simple and its principles were well

63
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

FIGURE 22.--A landing of the Space Shuttle "'Columbia. "

understood. No new technology was required in most instances. The

theory of rocket propulsion was worked out in detail by Konstanin

Tsiolkovsky, Hermann Oberth, and Robert Goddard between 1900 and

1920, and the atmospheric entry problem had been solved in the 1950s in

connection with the ICBM program. Perhaps the only application of new

technology in the Apollo program was in the area of guidance and control,

since the lunar landing module required a completely automatic electronic

control system. The Space Shuttle is very much more complex and did

require the development of new technology. The orbiter must survive the

shock of launch and reentry and then, given one opportunity, make a

"dead stick" landing. Moreover, the management of the Shuttle program

brings with it problems more like those of a commercial enterprise than of

a government agency. These include how to market the Shuttle and

attract paying customers; how to set user fees so that NASA will at least

recover direct costs; how to screen proposals for manufacturing

operations in a zero-gravity environment; how to improve the orbiter's

ability to operate beyond near-earth orbit. With most expendable rockets

to be phased out, NASA has staked a great deal some would say,

almost everything on the success of the Shuttle.

In this chapter we have discussed the most important development in

Federally-sponsored technology development over a span of 30 to 35

years. It would be presumptuous to extrapolate from that period to the major

programs of the 1980s and beyond. But certain features of Federallysponsored technology development can be discerned. Three are especially

important"

1. The role of new technology, especially in information processing, will continue to increase. Along with the revolution in

64

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A Look AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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microelectronics, there has been a major change in how we process

information. Small electronic components make it possible to construct

compact and powerful computers that can now perform analysis and other

decision-aiding functions which once required hours or even days of

work, in a few seconds. Since the size of electronic components can be

reduced further, up to a factor of a thousand, the upper limit of this

technology has not yet been reached (ref. 53).

2. At the same time, the need for a standard programming language

to replace the dozens of languages now used by DOD has never been

greater. Thus the Army has a major project, VIABLE, to standardize all

of its data processing activities, while the Air Force, in January 1983,

awarded a contract to Sperry Corporation to replace all its computers.

Most important, DOD has sponsored the development of a single

language, ADA, which is intended to replace all of the languages now

being used for military systems. This trend towards standardization is

certain to continue and will spread to other areas for example, to the

creation of knowledge-based systems, the automatic assembly of

software parts, the development of programs which can be built from

existing parts, and the creation of very high-level languages with their

own control and data structures (ref. 54).

3. Finally, the role of the government laboratory is likely to change.

Given the need of many laboratories to broaden their missions, to

maintain their current sponsors or else find new ones, they will have to

become more flexible than they now are. Consider that few laboratories

do any production work and that increasing numbers of installations rely

on contractors for base operations. The laboratory's function becomes,

more than ever, that of generating new ideas leading ultimately to

operating systems. In the remainder of this book, we will look at the

problems involved in the absolutely crucial role of the research

installation as generator of new ideas, and we will suggest some

improvements in the way this role is handled.

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CHAPTER IV

Features of Technology Development

Laboratories

On Being the Right Size

In the preceding chapters we discussed the history of research

institutions and some of their accomplishments. It is important to

recognize that the institutions with which we are dealing are not new and

have, in fact, evolved over some three hundred years. The merit of the

historical approach is in demonstrating the provisional, time-bound

nature of any institution organized to do fundamental or applied research.

What we will attempt in the remainder of this book is to analyze in detail

how contemporary research and development institutions are actually

managed, and to suggest how the management can be improved.

We touched earlier on the achievements of modem research

institutions. Nuclear technology, space technology, and electronic

technology such as transistors and integrated circuits have been

developed in laboratories of the kind that are the subject of this book. It

might also be worthwhile to talk about some failures. Paradoxically, one

cannot say that there have been any failures in the development of a

particular technology once its physical principles became known. But

while technology developments tend to be successful, certain technology

development institutions have failed, especially in the Federal sector.

Failures in the commercial sector are also known, but in that case we have

measurable failures of products rather than of laboratories. In many

cases, fully-developed products were brought to the marketplace and for

one reason or another price, inefficiency, supersession by more

efficient competing technologies turned out to be commercial

disasters. Some of the best-known of these failed technologies include the

rotary engine, Corfam, a synthetic material developed by DuPont, the

electronic facsimile transmission system developed by Xerox, and

fluidics, a technology using liquids or gases to perform functions

ordinarily pelformed by electronic devices (ref. 55). Despite intensive

marketing research and advertising campaigns, these products or

technologies were things for which there was either no demand or not

enough to justify mass production.

67

Pz-EC_DtNG P_GE BLANK-NOT FULMED
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

Failure also means the closing of a specific institution after the

objective for which it was first organized was achieved.* A good example

is the U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory once located at the

Naval Shipyard in San Francisco. Its mission was to apply modem

methods of nuclear safety technology to decontaminating naval vessels

subject to nuclear attacks. The laboratory was established in 1946 to

1947, and during the next decade achieved most of its goals;

decontamination techniques for ships now exist that are probably

adequate for what needs to bedone. Why, then was the laboratory shut

down? Probably because management recognized too late that its mission

was completed and that the organization had to find new problems

sufficiently important to justify its continued existence. Either there were

no such problems or they were not pursued vigorously enough. The

laboratory finally closed in 1968 on the ground that there simply was

nothing left for it to do. The laboratory had made its contribution to

resolving an important technical problem. That was not enough to save it.

In the private sector, technology development laboratories also

occasionally fail. During the 1960s, the Northrop Corporation felt that it

had an important future in space technology. Accordingly, a corporate

space laboratory was established. Unfortunately, the timing of the step

taken by Northrop was not very auspicious. The company's space

laboratory was started just as spending on space technology by the

Federal Government was beginning to decline. Despite the quality of the

people Northrop hired, the management of the company finally concluded

that the space laboratory could not be sustained and closed the institution.

Let us take the analysis a step further. Why are some laboratories

closed once their missions are accomplished and why do others remain

* Some reviewers wondered why a laboratory which completed its mission should be

considered a failure. They would argue that it is not failure, but success, if an agency

successfully solves a problem or carries out an agency mission, even if in so doing it

works itself out of a job. For two reasons we disagreed. The first is that it is inherently

inefficient to create a separate institution, staff it with scientists and engineers, and spend

perhaps several millions of dollars on equipment, only to shut it down at a certain point.

The same objection would hold for a contractor-operated facility, even if the cost to the

govemment were partially concealed. We concede that special circumstances might

justify such an arrangement, although the creation of a new division within an existing

laboratory might be less costly.

The fundamental objection to regarding the completion of a mission as a criterion of

success is that, in such cases, "mission" is construed too narrowly. A laboratory set up to

develop one kind of catalytic converter or guidance system could probably make

contributions in other aspects of pollution control or navigation technology. By closing

the facility after its original mission or rather, assignment is completed, the

corporate or govemment sponsor forecloses the possibility of building on the experience

gained. Successful laboratories are able, again and again, to reinterpret their missions in

light of changing conditions and that is really what we mean by success.

68
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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open? What is it, for example, about a laboratory such as the NASA

Langley Research Center or the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory that

makes them productive organizations long after their original reasons for

being have been forgotten? Both of these institutions are in their seventh

decade and yet they have managed to retain their vitality. What, in fact,

are the correct ways of evaluating the performance of a technology

development institution? One way might be to use past achievements and

then make small extrapolations from them. A laboratory that can

successfully produce nuclear warheads capable of working from ballistic

missiles, another that can develop reentry systems for the Apollo

program, and a third that can develop the swept wing principle for

high-speed subsonic aircraft probably will continue to make important

contributions. But such an argument is often not enough. The authorities

within the agency who are in charge of preparing budgets will ask, "What

have you done for me lately?" A research facility cannot survive on its

record of achievement, by serving as a job shop for other agencies, or

even by modest departures from its original mission.

Successful research and development laboratories share certain

features that are apparently independent of the particular technology they

are pursuing. Three seem to be particularly important:

1. Cost. The cost of operating a technology development institution is (in 1983 dollars) about $75 000-$100 000 per employee. This

number, multiplied by the number of employees, is the institution's

budget, and it tends to hold good independently of what the laboratory

does or whether it is public or private. The probable explanation is simply

that research and development is labor intensive, and that the dollar figure

cited equals salary plus overhead, plus some funding for equipment

needed to carry out technology development.

2. Professional and Support Personnel. The ratio of direct

program people to support people in technology development institutions

is between one to one and one to two. On the average, in order to keep

one person busy in a technology development task, it takes one support

person meaning a secretary, technician, librarian, and the like who

does not work directly for a single scientist or engineer. Those institutions

that are more test-and development-oriented tend to have more support

people for each direct professional than those oriented toward basic

research.

3. Size. Almost all permanent research and development institutions range in size between 1 000 and 7 000 people. There are very few

operations that are smaller and very few that are larger. The reason for

this range of sizes is something like this" The lower limit is determined by

the fact that if the institution is too small, there will be too little flexibility

for a few people to strike out into new territory, or for new ideas to spill

over into research work. Thus the U.S. Naval Radiological Defense

69
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

Laboratory mentioned earlier had a total staff of about 800. There were

not enough groups of two or three or four people delving into areas

unconnected with the laboratory's curre.nt mission but that might lead to

new missions. Institutions seemingly must have more than about 1 000

people before the kind of flexibility that makes for the institution's

survival exists. The upper limit in size is determined by the difficulty, for

management, of staying intellectually on top of an institution having

more than 6 000 to 7 000 people. (Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore

Laboratories, with just over 7 000 employees apiece and budgets of $421

and $515 million, respectively, are near the upper limit. The Sandia

National Laboratory, operated by Western Electric for the Department of

Energy, has 8 000 employees at three locations and a budget of $738

million (ref. 56).) Although laboratory directors should not attempt

management of research in detail, they must nevertheless understand

thoroughly the objectives of work in progress. This is difficult in the

largest laboratories; hence a certain creaking of institutional joints,

resulting from too many communication channels and not enough

feedback. The existence of organizations like Bell Labs, with 19 000

employees, does not disprove this; such organizations are best thought of

as federations of semi-autonomous installations of 1 000 to 5 000 persons

each.*

Problems of Research Diversification

In the Federal sector, every research installation is always "under

judgment" by a variety of groups. The performance of each institution is

reviewed annually for budget purposes at the very least. However, there

are also a great many other reviews, ranging from those performed by

committees of the National Academy of Sciences or Engineering under

contract to the agency being reviewed, to those carried out by the General

Accounting Office. When a technology development institution gets into

real trouble, there are usually a number of special reviews before a

decision is finally reached to close it or to make significant changes.

Nevertheless, changes do happen fairly rapidly in the Federal technology

development establishment. In 1968, the year the Naval Radiological

Defense Laboratory closed, the Defense Department also:

• Consolidated several Air Force activities with elements of the Army,

Navy, and NASA into the Eastern Test Range (Cape Canaveral,

Florida), the Western Test Range (Vandenberg Air Force Base,

California), and the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico;

* As a result of the divestiture of AT&T at the end of 1983, some 3 000 of Bell Labs'

22 000 employees were transferred to Bell Communications Research, owned and

operated by and for the divested telephone companies.

70
A Look AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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• Established the Naval Weapons Center at China Lake, California, by

combining the Naval Ordnance Test Station and the Naval Ordnance

Laboratory;

• Established the Naval Ship Research and Development Center at

Carderock, Maryland, by combining the David Taylor Model Basin in

Carderock with the Marine Engineering Laboratory and the Mine

Defense Laboratory;

• Approved a plan to reduce the number of Army medical centers from

14 to 6; and

• Closed out the Research and Technology Division of the Air Force

Systems Command (ref. 57).

There have been similar instances with other agencies. In 1970, for

example, the Electronics Research Center of NASA in Cambridge,

Massachusetts, was transferred to the Department of Transportation even

before work on the facility was completed. In this case, the rationale for

the transfer seems to have been three-fold" With NASA continuing to face

budget cuts and layoffs, it seemed preferable to "spin-off' the agency's

newest center, where the sunk costs were much less than for the other

centers; the work that the center was designed to do was already being

done efficiently in the private sector; and the Department of

Transportation had requirements that could be fulfilled by the center.

In fact, few laboratories present so clearcut a case for closure as did

the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory a small facility with one

narrowly-defined mission. On the other hand, a facility may be the

"fight" size and have the "fight" mix of support to professional personnel

and still be in danger. The policy considerations that lead a sponsoring

agency to close a facility, maintain it in its current mission, or encourage

it to seek new clients while continuing to work for its sponsor, are

complex. One consideration is obviously cost. The long-term savings

from closing a facility may be outweighed by the closeout costs. When

the Navy decided in 1977 to "disestablish" the Naval Electronics Systems

Engineering Center in Washington, DC, it estimated annual cost savings

of $47 000, annual manpower savings of $450 000, and "anticipated,

one-time costs" of closing the facility as $818 000 (ref. 58). There are

also the long-term costs of losing skilled personnel or paying for their

transfer elsewhere, or of losing a capability which the agency may later

need. Sometimes the agency can cut its losses by finding another

organization to take over the installation; thus NASA transferred the

Electronics Research Center and many of its personnel to the Department

of Transportation and, in so doing, cut its closeout costs.

Another consideration, where the agency has more than one research

facility, is how a decision affecting one laboratory will affect the others.

This problem has different aspects, depending on whether the laboratory

71
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

is contractor- or government-operated. A facility like the Jet Propulsion

Laboratory or Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has somewhat

greater freedom to seek new clients when work slackens than a facility

staffed by government employees. However, that freedom is usually

circumscribed to a degree by the original sponsor.

In this respect, the case of ORNL is unusually revealing. Beginning

in 1961, ORNL director Alvin Weinberg sought to diversify, while

maintaining good relations with the Atomic Energy Commission and the

congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. The need for

diversification arose when two of ORNL's biggest projects, the

nuclear-powered airplane and the homogeneous nuclear reactor, were

canceled. With the encouragement of AEC chairman Glenn Seaborg,

Weinberg looked to government agencies for additional work. Between

1962 and 1964, ORNL took on new work in desalting water, cancer

research, and civil defense; in each case, Weinberg's criteria for new

projects were that they be "big, expensive, strongly in the national

interest and . . . not be ready for commercial exploitation." (ref. 59.)

Each of these projects was presented to the AEC as something ad hoc,

"rather than as part of a general laboratory strategy for broadening the

base of sponsor support." (ref. 60.) It was only when ORNL sought to

become a model laboratory for environmental research that the Joint

Committee on Atomic Energy dropped the other shoe, denouncing

(without naming) ORNL for "empire building" and for expanding into

areas unrelated to atomic energy programs. Moreover, new clients, like

the Interior Department's Office of Saline Water, were ambivalent about

sponsoring the research efforts of an organization many times their size.

Rather than sponsoring the coherent program Weinberg desired, the

Office of Saline Water "divided the research effort into small segments,

which its program managers could supervise, rather than provide a single,

sizable chunk of money to Weinberg for his management . . . ORNL's

own ambitions, while couched in ideals and technical jargon, inevitably

were rooted in a desire to survive, grow, and serve important needs. The

new sponsor knew it and sought to use ORNL, rather than being used for

the lab's . . . aggrandizement." (ref. 61.)

It was not precisely that ORNL failed to diversify. By late 1973,

when Weinberg left ORNL, outside work accounted for 20 percent of the

laboratory.'s $100 million budget and even had its own title

"work-for-others." The point is not that Weinberg failed in broadening

ORNL's mission but that at a certain point and the same observation

might apply to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory vis-a-vis NASA the

laboratory fell out of step with its original sponsor. From the sponsor's

point of view, there is "good" and "bad" diversity. Good diversity means

diversity within the agency's mission. Thus the Department of Energy,

like its predecessor the Atomic Energy Commission, has elected to

72
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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operate two national weapons development laboratories, Lawrence

Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory,

and has as we have seen, built competition into its weapons programs; the

Director at Lawrence Livermore, Roger Batzel (fig. 23), has stated flatly

that "it would be a major mistake to have only one lab." (ref. 62.)

Similarly, NASA in the 1960s encouraged (or accepted) diversity within

the agency; there were two centers engaged in launch-vehicle

development, four in aeronautical research and briefly, no less than five

in supporting research and technology. We shall return to the implications

of this diversity-within-unity in the next section.

University of California, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory

FIGURE 23.--Roger Batzel, the Director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory since 1971.

73
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

All three of the large mission-oriented agencies DOD, the

AEC/Department of Energy, and to a lesser degree, NASA have tried

to enunciate policies for evaluating their laboratories. Mention was made

in Chapter III of AEC's 1964 guidelines for laboratories desiring to take

on outside work. AEC also drafted requirements for appraising contractor

performance (ref. 63). But AEC laboratories, as contractor-operated

facilities, are in a different category from those of the other two agencies.

The staff of AEC/Energy laboratories are not Federal employees; and the

AEC has justified its use of contractor employees as being more flexible

for institutions which predominantly employ scientific, technical, and

management personnel.

For DOD and NASA, on the other hand, the problem has been to

justify the continued existence of laboratories staffed mostly by Federal

employees. Both agencies have argued that such laboratories are needed

to provide a basis for assessing technical alternatives; to develop a body

of information leading to design definition; to develop intramurally the

skills for selecting contractors and directing their work; and to maintain a

continuity of effort, free from commercial pressures. Additionally, since

both agencies have more than one laboratory, they have had to face the

question of how each laboratory can contribute to the agency's total

mission. Should they be organized around a technical discipline, around

acquired expertise, or around projects requiting a variety of disciplines?

One concept which was considered, but never completely

implemented, by DOD was to convert its larger laboratories into weapon

centers. This concept, which dates from a report by the Defense Science

Board in 1966, marked a turning away from a state of affairs where

competence in a given mission, such as anti-submarine warfare or

guidance and control, was dispersed among a number of laboratories at

different locations. What the Board recommended was the establishment

of large centers, each embracing "a broadly conceived technical program

concentrated on a particular military problem associated with generalpurpose warfare." (ref. 64.) Among the features of a weapons center

singled out by the Board were"

• Size to achieve "critical mass," the center should have 1 000 or

more scientists and engineers;

• That it function as a self-contained organization performing research

and technology development, with feasibility models as the end

product;

• Its ability to set aside about 70 percent of professional personnel for

fundamental development engineering;

• Involvement in determining military requirements and in the initial

procurement of equipment; and

• Periodic evaluation of the center to ensure that it maintained high

performance standards (ref. 65).

74
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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The Board argued that, by combining the capabilities of several

laboratories engaged in subsystem work, each weapons center could

concentrate on identifying critical military problems and could arrive at

optimal solutions independently of technical biases. The task force also

concluded that the center's performance would be more easily evaluated,

since end products that were clearly the center's responsibility could be

tested and evaluated.

DOD could only partially implement the Defense Science Board's

recommendation. As we saw, DOD closed or consolidated several of its

laboratories in 1968. It also assigned important military missions to its

larger laboratories, encouraged installations belonging to one service to

work for the other services, developed a program to evaluate those of its

contractors engaged in R&D, and created a special category of "in-house

independent research funds" -- a fraction of the annual laboratory budget

set aside without need of prior approval and to be used for work judged by

the laboratory director as promising (ref. 66). But the transformation of a

number of smaller units into weapons centers was never completed,

partly because of political pressures to keep smaller facilities open, partly

because of the open-ended, changing nature of the defense missions

themselves.

It would be a mistake to close this section without mentioning the

evolution of the laboratory itself as it interacts with its sponsoring agency

and with other clients that make use of its capabilities. Almost all of the

successful large modem technology development centers began with a

single mission which changed and multiplied as the original objectives

within the original mission were accomplished. The solution of the

problems associated with the original mission inevitably led to the

development of techniques that could be applied to other missions and it

is most important to understand that this happens quite independently of

missions that the sponsoring agency might have in mind. Part of the

organic development of the laboratory is that it constantly redefines its

own missions and therefore also its reason for being.

The original mission of the Lawrence Livermore National

Laboratory was to develop thermonuclear explosives. Yet, today, the

laboratory has one of the most important capabilities for the in-situ

recovery of oil from shale deposits and gas from coal deposits. How this

happened is shown in figure 24, which illustrates how the various

"missions" executed by Lawrence Livermore today evolved from the

original purpose of the laboratory. The mission development shown in

this diagram was not mandated by the Atomic Energy Commission (later

ERDA and the DOE) in Washington. It came about because of actions

taken by the staff and the management at the laboratory itself. The Ames

Research Center of NASA (fig. 25) began life in 1939 with a mission to

explore high-speed flight and yet in 1977 it was designated as the primary

75
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Reactor

Design

Pluto

Nuclear

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Computer

Development for

Weapons Design

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Organization TN Reactions

New Underground Super Conducting Accelerator

Weapons Testing Magnets Development

Systems

Magnetic

Arms Laser Laser Confined

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In Situ Coal

( and )

FIGURE 24.-Mission Development of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

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FIGURE 25.--Aerial view of the NASA-Ames Research Center near Mountain View,

California. The large, horn-shaped structure at the left side is the new, full-scale

wind tunnel.

helicopter and vertical take-off and landing machines (V/TOL)

technology center of NASA. The mission development diagram for Ames

is shown in figure 26, which shows how the logical connection from one

to the other came about. Once again, the intemal workings of the

institution in the field shaped the decisions that were later made (or

perhaps ratified is a better word) at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The case of the helicopter development evolution is sufficiently

interesting that it will be described in detail in the next section.

A Case Study: The NASA Helicopter Program

For NASA, the problem of devising a policy for evaluating its laboratories was different from that facing DOD or AEC. During the past

twenty years the number of NASA centers, including the Jet Propulsion

Laboratory but excluding supporting facilities, has fluctuated between

eight and ten. For NASA management, the problem has been to

strengthen each center's sense of its own mission while making its

77
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Theoretical

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Life

Sciences

Flight

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Space

Exobiology Biology Biotechnology

Design Using

Simulators and La

Scale Testing

FIGURE 26.-Mission Development of the NASA-Ames Research Center.

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resources available to the rest of the agency. Where, as mentioned earlier,

several centers are working in aeronautics or supporting research and

technology, it becomes that much more difficult to avoid a certain degree

of duplication. Although never made explicit in a single policy document,

NASA has proceeded on the assumption that all but the smallest centers

should combine open-ended and discrete projects.* NASA's one attempt

to organize a facility around a technical discipline _ the Electronics

Research Center _ failed. Instead, since the early 1970s, NASA has

adopted an "area of emphasis" philosophy, that is, assigning work to each

center based on the existing facilities and expertise at the center. An

account of the consolidation of NASA's helicopter program at the Ames

Research Center at Moffett Field, California, will show how this

philosophy affected one center. More important, the helicopter program

consolidation is a textbook study in demonstrating how one research

laboratory adjusted to shrinking budgets, how Headquarters' need to

spread work around dovetailed with the center's need for new clients, and

the importance of the center's taking an active role to ensure its survival

(ref. 67).

The Ames Research Center was established by the National

Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1939, primarily to test and design

high-speed fighter aircraft. The tradition of high-speed aerodynamics that

began with this enterprise continued until the laboratory became a center

for the development of: first, subsonic jets, rocket and Scout launches at

Wallops Island, Virginia; subsequently of atmospheric entry systems; and

more recently still, of planetary entry probes. Another kind of mission

grew out of the need to develop very sensitive controls for high-speed

aircraft. These efforts led to work in flight simulation and the life

sciences, since it was necessary to establish physiologically that flight

simulators did, in fact, accurately mock up flight conditions. This, in

turn, generated strong interest in computers, since high-fidelity flight

simulators require very high-speed computational devices to drive them.

The work in the life sciences expanded to include space biology after the

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics became the core of NASA

in 1958.

An important and independent set of missions emerged in the 1950s

around large-scale test facilities originally designed for flight aircraft. It

transpired that helicopters and V/TOLs required full-scale testing before

they could be flown reliably, owing to the very complex interactions

between aerodynamics and vehicle structure. These interactions simply

could not be scaled and, thus, full-scale testing was essential. The same

* The Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, is an exception, since its

mission is to support all of NASA's launches, except for the sounding rocket and Scout

launches at Wallops Island, Virginia.

79
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

40-by 80-foot wind tunnel originally designed to test fighter aircraft

during the Second World War was used later in the design of the most

modem helicopters and V/TOL machines.

At Ames, work on rotorcraft research and technology began in 1954,

when the Air Force requested tests of two advanced rotorcraft (the

McDonnell XV-1 compound helicopter and the Bell XV-3 tilt-rotor

airplane) in the 40-by 80-foot tunnel. From this point onward, Ames's

involvement in rotorcraft technology increased" In 1956, a rotary-wing

research group was formed; in 1958, testing of the Bell XV-3 began; and

in the early 1960s, Ames carried out an important series of tests on the

UH-1 and H-34 rotor systems. But the key event in Ames's rotorcraft

program was the establishment by the Army, in 1965, of an aeronautical

research laboratory at the center. In NASA's estimate, the creation of the

Army laboratory had significant benefits for both agencies" It led to the

refurbishing of an inactive 7-by 10-foot tunnel for small-scale testing

alongside the full-scale testing capabilities of the 40-by 80-foot tunnel; to

the development of capabilities in noise research and rotor dynamics; to

the creation of other Joint Army Research Groups at the Lewis and

Langley Research Centers; and above all, to the creation of the Army Air

Mobility Research and Development Laboratory in 1970, with

headquarters at Ames. This, in turn, caused a rapid expansion of

rotary-wing research at Ames; in 1971 a joint NASA-Army agreement to

develop a tilt-rotor research aircraft was signed. Thus Ames acquired

another sponsor, one that could buffer funding cutbacks in the parent

agency.

For reasons that have already been described, it was also true that by

1970 Ames needed all the outside support it could get. When NASA was

created, Ames had taken on important new assignments in life sciences

and space science. In the early 1960s, NASA built a life sciences research

facility at Ames, and assigned responsibility to the center for systems

management of the Pioneer series of interplanetary probes. But by their

nature, these programs were not likely to grow. There were seldom more

than one hundred professional employees working full-time on Pioneer

and the early retums on life sciences research for example, the

B iosatellite program for investigating the effects of weightlessness on

various organisms were inconclusive. Also, Ames, in common with

other NASA centers, was beginning to feel the pinch of funding cutbacks

and layoffs. In mid-1967, there were 2 176 government employees at

Ames; three years later, that number had fallen to just under 2 000 a

drop of about 11 percent (ref. 68). Without new programs or sponsors,

Ames was in danger of closing or, at best, losing that critical mass of

engineers and scientists, without which innovation could not occur.

What permitted Ames to survive was the decision by the center's

leadership to concentrate on those areas where it was both strong and

80
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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likely to attract support from other funding agencies as well as NASA.

When one of the authors (Mark) became the Ames Center director in

1969, there were already proposals to shut Ames down. Something had to

be done immediately; and one of the author's first acts as director was to

establish a Strategy and Tactics Committee consisting of rank-and-file

employees as well as managers to work out Ames' view of its mission. In

essence, the committee selected certain areas of emphasis for the center to

concentrate on: computational fluid mechanics, V/TOL, flight simulation, airborne sciences, and life sciences. What these areas had in

common were a high degree of interdependence and the availability of

unique test facilities, such as the 40-by 80-foot tunnel, the Flight

Simulator for Advanced Aircraft, and later the ILLIAC IV supercomputer, to support them; the rapid growth of rotorcraft technology for civil

and military applications; and the existence of sponsors outside as well as

within NASA. Thus Ames used the Army to get funds for V/TOL

research and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to procure

the ILLIAC IV, operated jointly by DOD and NASA and capable of

performing 300 million calculations a second and storing one trillion bits

of information at a time (ref. 69). Ames' areas of emphasis were, in a

sense, the best horses to fide. New uses for helicopters were being

identified in areas as diverse as energy exploration, logging, shipping,

and heavy construction; and the Army was considering using the

helicopter as an offensive weapon in addition to its traditional support

role. As DOD funds became available in the early 1970s, Ames

management planned to develop its rotary-wing research capability in

ways described in an internal NASA paper as "explosive"" repowering the

40-by 80-foot tunnel to increase its maximum speed from 200 to 300

knots, putting the vertical motion simulator into operation, and accepting

delivery of an advanced tilt-rotor experimental aircraft.

There was, then, at least as much "push" from Ames as there was

"pull" from NASA Headquarters for the center to chart its own course.

Indeed, Ames had a long-range strategy in place two years before NASA

began an "institutional assessment" of its centers. As it happened,

Ames's strategy fitted in well with NASA's strategy of consolidating

aeronautics and space technology around areas of emphasis. In late 1975,

NASA officials decided to consolidate long-haul aviation at the Langley

Research Center in Virginia and short-haul aviation at Ames. From

Headquarters' point of view, consolidation would enable the agency

to tap Ames's unique test facilities, exploit its contacts with the Army and

the Federal Aviation Administration for example, supporting the

latter's air traffic control simulation project and bring about a division

of NASA aeronautical research among the Ames, Langley, and Lewis

Research Centers. NASA recommended a consolidation in three phases,

beginning with the incorporation of Langley programs for which Ames

81
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

had available personnel, followed by the transfer of equipment and key

personnel, the transfer to be completed by the 1979 fiscal year. An

important point about the program consolidation was NASA's insistence

that Ames involve industry to the maximum extent, both for procuring

test hardware and in the actual wind tunnel, simulation, and flight test

programs. The transfer of the program was executed as planned although

very few people were actually persuaded to move from Langley to Ames,

a circumstance that caused some program interruptions. Today, five years

later, the helicopter research and development program is more active

than ever, because of the effective application of facilities and the close

collaboration between the Army and Ames.

Conclusions

The consolidation of NASA's helicopter program, the partial

redeployment of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the setting aside of

independent research funds by Department of Defense laboratories

represent in different ways the attempts of Federal research installations

to avoid becoming captive to a single program or sponsor. The principal

lesson to be derived from these case studies is the importance, for the

laboratory director and his staff, of honing the entrepreneurial skills

needed to get new "business." A center's existence cannot really be

justified on the grounds that it is a "national resource"; by the time that

argument is trotted out, the game is probably over. There is seldom

anything self-evident about the assignment of roles to one laboratory

among several; management must build networks and enlist allies, as

Ames did with industry, the Army, and the Federal Aviation

Administration, or as Lawrence Livermore did with the Office of Coal

Research in the Energy Department.

There is a misconception that organizational self-perpetuation is

somehow bad or even sinister. But this is not so. If it were, there would

scarcely be a major corporation or nonprofit organization that could

outlive its original reason for being and find other uses for its resources

and experience. This drive to persist and grow exists in private and public

institutions alike. Many of our most successful corporations long since

outgrew their original businesses. DuPont no longer manufactures

dynamite; the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (better

known as 3M) has had no connection with mining for decades; IBM's

primary business has nothing to do with selling keypunch machines to the

Census Bureau; while the Singer Company has staked its future far more

on aerospace and electronics than on sewing machines.

It is impossible to regard this kind of self-perpetuation as anything

but beneficial. The _important distinction is less between_good and bad

self-perpetuation, than between the process as it occurs in private and

82
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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public institutions. In the eyes of stockholders, the private institution has

a single genetic objective _ profits. As long as a laboratory contributes

to a flow of investment opportunities, its perpetuation is in the

stockholders' interests. By contrast, Federal research institutions are

created and supported as tools to achieve a mission, not to develop

technology in any area as an end in itself. The successful Federal

laboratory is most often the one whose mission is both open-ended and

attainable. Nobody now cares what standards for machine tools were

drafted by the National Bureau of Standards in 1910. But the Bureau's

mission _ to maintain a national measurement system is almost

inexhaustible.

The laboratory director must also know how to redeploy people who

are between projects, a skill that some agencies take a long time to

learn and some never do. At NASA, for example, until the late 1960s,

few of the centers had much experience in closing out large projects. The

usual procedure was for staff to move to a new project or feasibility study;

at Langley much of the Lunar Orbiter staff moved to Viking, while at the

Goddard Space Flight Center, personnel moved to new projects (Orbiting

Astronomical Observatory, Earth Resources Technological Satellite) after the Advanced Orbiting Solar Observatory was cancelled in December

1965. But even in the mid-1960s, and certainly by the 1969 to 1971

retrenchments, NASA experienced serious problems in absorbing project

staff, difficulties described in a National Academy of Public Administration study commissioned by NASA: "A number of project staff were left

floating without a specific assignment. Others had to take positions

considerably subordinate to the ones they previously held or felt that they

were employed in make-work tasks. Periods of temporary assignment

lasted for periods of six months to a year in some instances ...

dislocation fostered feelings that career progress was being severely

stunted, and that technical competence was being dulled by seemingly

meaningless assignments." (ref. 70.) It would seem that attracting new

clients, working up a portfolio of promising research ideas, and

redeploying professionals as projects close down are tasks which must go

on simultaneously, if any of them is to succeed.

A second conclusion derives from the complex relationship between

personnel and laboratory facilities. Good people come first, with the

maintenance of an excellent staff being management's first priority. But it

should also be recognized that an excellent staff will generate good

facilities and that eventually the facilities will take on a life of their own

(figs. 27 to 31). People tend to generate new programs around the

facilities, so that when a research and development organization is

mature, its roles and missions primarily depend on the facilities available.

This is because facilities have a longer "half life" than people. A facility

like the 40-by 80-foot wind tunnel at Ames might be used for forty years,

83
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

LN2 STORAGE

COOLING TOWER

FOR AiR OPERATION

VENT STACK

FIGURE 27.--The National Transonic Facility, a large cryogenically cooled wind

tunnel designed to provide the capability to test at very high Reynolds numbers.

while an individual researcher will change his interests every three or four

years and move on to something new. Thus a vigorous research and

development program demands an efficient facilities development staff,

more particularly where one facility serves a number of projects.

The importance of facilities development is so little understood

outside the laboratory that something more needs to be said. A major test

facility, such as a wind tunnel, serves many purposes. It attracts the best

scientific and engineering talent, frequently because it is the only facility

of its kind available; certain research questions can scarcely be posed, let

alone answered, without the right facilities; and a major facility itself

represents an important but little-appreciated form of technology

development. In common with other sophisticated test facilities, the wind

tunnel is one of three ways by which discoveries are validated; in the case

of aircraft, the other two are theoretical analysis and actual flight testing

(ref. 71). As aircraft have become more complex, the demands on wind

tunnels at the NASA research centers have grown enormously. As shown

in figure 32, the number ofwind tunnel tests has grown by several orders

of magnitude since the days of the DC-3. What is more interesting, the

introduction of high-speed computers and improvements in instrumentation have made the average tunnel-hour much more productive than it was

a decade ago.

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84 OE POOR QUA_._%
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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FIGURE 28.--An anechoic test chamber at the NASA-Johnson Space Center, This

chamber is used to measure the electromagnetic properties of space vehicles,

such as the Shuttle shown in this picture.

Thus improvements in test facilities must precede and accompany

improvements in the objects being tested; in wind-tunnel technology,

improvements over time make it possible to envision a tunnel able to

provide a more complete flow simulation of airflow over an entire aircraft

(fig. 33) with the correct Reynolds Number, or close to it, to simulate

flight conditions.*

* The closing of a major facility or the cancellation of a half-completed facility may

have a severe impact on the laboratory housing it. In the summer of 1983, an advisory

panel recommended to the Department of Energy that a half-completed particle

accelerator at Brookhaven National Laboratory be scrapped, although $200 million had

already been spent on it. The panel's recommendation came shortly after European

physicists discovered the particles that the Brookhaven machine was being built to

discover. This recommendation imperiled one of the Laboratory's main missions. Such

are the perils associated with Big Science. Phillip J. Hilts, "Energy Department Urged to

Scrap Half-Built Atomic Accelerator," Washington Post (August 18, 1983), p. A3.

OF POOR Q_ °,_ ,_'_'_=:_

85
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

University of California, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

FIGURE 29.- The 184" Cyclotron at the University of California's Lawrence Berkeley

Laboratory. The magnet of this cyclotron was used during the Second World

War to separate isotopes electromagnetically.
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FIGURE 30.--The Flight Simulator for Advanced Aircraft at the NASA-Ames Research Center. This simulator is used to defined the handling qualities of new

aircraft for many purposes ranging from FAA certification to aircraft carrier

landings.

87
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

U.S. National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, Maryland

FIGURE 31.-- The Automated Manufacturing Laboratory at the National Bureau of

Standards.

Another point has to do with the differing perspectives of a research

center and agency headquarters. An organizational shift or realignment at

the field level may be invisible to Headquarters. Our account of rotorcraft

research at Ames may appear to make the process more dramatic than it

really was; what actually occurred was a series of small, incremental

actions that, cumulatively, gave Ames the dominant role within NASA

in research on short-haul systems. To a degree, Headquarters in

Washington neither encouraged nor discouraged these developments; in

many cases, changes in research tasks at Ames never quite rose to the

level of awareness of Headquarters officials. As Herbert Kaufman

observed, certain organizational .changes are the products "of a series of

developments so small they are hardly noticed individually as they occur.

Collectively... these insignificant changes could transform administrative structures without anyone ever having made a single, major

deliberate decision to alter them." (ref. 72.) In effect, many changes in a

center's research agenda occur in just so inconspicuous a way.

One final point pertains to what constitutes productivity in a research

and development environment. Defining productivity calls to mind the

perplexity of the philosopher in defining time: "I know well enough what

it is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to

explain, I am baffled." Of course, there are measurable things reports,

88

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89
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

papers, meetings, presentations, various engineering achievements

which can be used as a yardstick. In the case of reports and patents, what

matters is that the papers are actually read and the patents actually

employed. Responding to an inquiry from the Office of Personnel

Management, NASA attempted to measure productivity in its R&D

programs. NASA cited productivity improvements in applying new

technology within NASA, as well as productivity increases from

management initiatives. Among the improvements cited were developing

a computer-based, interactive library system at the Johnson Space Center

to prepare and disseminate Space Shuttle payload integration documents;

computerizing wind tunnels and other test facilities; automating NASA's

logistics system; improving facilities management; installing wordprocessing systems, and the like.

Yet an agency can be "productive" in a certain sense without being

productive in any sense that really matters, a point obliquely

acknowledged by the authors of the report from which these examples are

taken: "Within an R&D agency, only some of the traditional methods of

measuring productivity are valid. Analysis of NASA's experience

indicates that only about 20 percent of its total civil service effort is

amenable to traditional techniques of measuring productivity. These are

in areas of general services and technical support where outputs are

reasonably structured, routine, and repetitive." (ref. 73.) The major

difficulty faced by research managers in justifying their budgets is the lag

between the employment of a research result and its development in the

laboratory. The funding agency must, to some extent, take it on faith that

the results generated in the laboratory will actually be employed in

other words, be productive. This unresolved dilemma has led to a

situation in which research and development is almost impossible to

justify prospectively. The solution of this problem of justifying

research for which there is seemingly no payoff is of the utmost

importance, and we will return to it in our final chapter.

90
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CHAPTER V

The Structure of Technology

Development Laborator ies

Obstacles to Technical Innovation

The laboratory is the linchpin of technology development. To

understand where and how (or if) innovation occurs, one must begin here.

With certain significant exceptions, the organizational structures tend to

be quite similar for all research and development organizations,

independent of the organization's functions. This is so because all of

these institutions live with the built-in conflict between flexibility and the

organization's formal mission. Professional people need the flexibility to

start new projects or terminate existing ones; change the distribution of

effort between in-laouse staff and contractors; transfer funds between

tasks or projects without the need for prior approval by the laboratory

director; or encourage people involved in fundamental research to

communicate with those doing applied research, and even to transfer

from one group to the other. Indeed, at the project level the most

important function of the manager may be to motivate the project team,

rather than to make decisions which are both unilateral and final (ref. 74).

Yet there is a limit easier to sense than to define precisely to

the flexibility a laboratory director will allow his professional staff. The

laboratory is constrained (or driven) by its mission, by its budget, by the

particular skills it needs, and, paradoxically, by that need to innovate

which tends to destroy its stability. In a laboratory without a strong sense

of mission, flexibility may degenerate into a situation where professionals

all '"do their own thing.". But in a laboratory where every research task is

yoked to an overriding agenda, there may be no room for that relatively

modest amount of basic research needed to keep the organization abreast

of the state of the art, to prepare for new goals and missions.

Thus the burdens of research management-are imposed by the nature

of the organization. There is, first, the problem that once any organization

attains a certain size, coordinating the work of the various divisions

consumes much of senior management's time. Different departments are

sealed off from each other; the paperwork needed to process (say) a

procurement action increases; and routine tends to drive out innovation.

91
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

But our second point innovation may be regarded (and quite

accurately) as a threat to the status quo.* Where innovation is perceived

as a threat, management can deal with it in a number of ways" allowing

the effort to continue, but isolating it from the rest of the organization;

reducing the level of effort, so that innovation never attains critical mass;

compartmentalizing innovation, so that it occurs in one part of the

organization, but not in the others; laying down development criteria so

stringent that no research effort can ever satisfy them; or converting

radical innovation into routine, incremental improvements in existing

systems (ref. 75).

In large organizations, whether corporations or government

agencies, a major program, one with long lead times and a large budget,

acquires enormous momentum. While corporations are more likely than a

government agency to cancel an unsuccessful project, the contrast is

usually overdrawn. True, even on the most optimistic projections, the

hydrogen fusion research sponsored by the Department of Energy will not

lead to commercial production until well into the next century. On a

smaller time scale, it took the Boeing B-47 bomber 7.8 years and the

Boeing B-52 bomber 9.4 years to attain operational capability in the late

1940s and the early 1950s. Other Federal development projects not only

met schedules, but surpassed them. The nuclear submarine is only the

best-known example; it took the Thor and Atlas ballistic missiles only 3.5

and 5.2 years, respectively, to go from program approval to first

operational squadron, instead of the 6.8 years first projected (ref. 76).

There are also commercial projects which require extremely long lead

times. Consider one current example" Exxon's research and pilot-testing

of a surfactant (detergent) method to coax more oil out of the ground.

Research on an enhanced surfactant process began in the mid-1960s and

led to a pilot project in 1969 to 1971. In turn, the results of the project led

to research to develop a process to reduce the salinity content in the test

reservoirs. A pilot test of the process began in 1980 and was considered a

technical success in 1981. It will take another ten years before field

testing for commercial viability will make a decision to proceed with

full-scale development possible (ref. 77).

* In this connection, Jacques Gansler's observations about the defense industry are

worth citing. "The relative inelasticity of... demand is a particularly interesting factor in

defense R&D; it implies that if you come up with a new idea for, say, a better airplane,

you will simply be replacing the old design (which may well have been your own), with

very little likelihood of being able to create increased demand, since the number of

airplanes to be procured is a function of the force structure, not of cost or performance.

Thus, technological advances that originate in the civilian sector are likely to be

immediately applied in that sector, with very little thought given by the firm to military

application. Only much later is it likely that a defense-oriented firm might pick up the idea

and perhaps begin to apply it." Jacques Gansler, The Defense Industry (Cambridge,

Mass.: MIT Press, 1980), pp. 304-305.

92
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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Whether government or commercial, projects such as these tend to

force innovation into narrow channels. In a large research organization

some, and in a smaller one, most professional staff, may be working on

small, carefully-defined areas into which the research effort is parceled.

Of course, as work continues, the researchers will be further down the

learning curve. But the danger in these larger projects is that once an

all-out commitment is made, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to

admit that the organization is on the wrong track. As Donald Schon has

noted, "Large-scale developments of the kind undertaken by supercorporations or the military may proceed for months or years beyond the

point where they should have stopped; they continue because of massive

commitments to errors too frightening to reveal . . . In these cases, the

personal commitment of the people involved in the development, the

apparent logic of investment, and the fear of admitting failure, all

combine to keep the project in motion until it fails of its own weight."

(ref. 78.)

It is not that laboratory directors and the officials to whom they

report are unaware of these problems. Some Federal agencies have tried

to control the development process, whether by stimulating competition

between laboratories or by introducing management-decision points at

important stages of a project. In the 1960s, NASA, for example,

instituted "phased project planning," whereby management could

intervene at four stages in the life of a project. The project, so the theory

went, would begin with a study of alternative approaches (Preliminary

Analysis), followed by the selection of one of them (Definition). This

would lead to a Design stage, culminating in the development of a

mock-up or "breadboard" of project hardware. In the final stage

(Development/Operations), the contractor, in cooperation with NASA

scientists and engineers, would prepare the final hardware design, leading

to development, fabrication, testing, and operation. While phased project

planning was a successful management method for controlling a

well-defined project, it did not help at all in determining whether or not a

project should be terminated. Projects have occasionally been terminated

in NASA but these terminations have little relation to the "phase" in

which the project was in at the time of cancellation. In any case, for so

complex a project as the Space Shuttle, it is often impossible to state

accurately at what "phase" the Shuttle as opposed to its subsystems

has arrived.

In sum, the pressures on research laboratories are generated

externally and from within. The external dangers stem from having to

hew strictly to one narrowly-defined mission. The pressures generated

within the laboratory are toward routine and conservatism. Where a

laboratory is one of several within an agency, it is imperative that one of

them, or divisions within all of them, do some basic research beyond their

93
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

current mission. Technical innovation is a somewhat mysterious process,

one easily swamped by the conservatism of a large organization. In The

Sources of Invention, perhaps the most thorough investigation of the

subject, the authors conclude that "the forces which make for innovation

are so numerous that they are not fully understood." (ref. 79.) It is

disconcerting, but true, that important discoveries are as likely to be made

for aesthetic reasons "craftsmanship for craftsmanship's sake" as

for economic or military reasons. This was the case in aeronautics, in the

development of wing flaps, streamlining, and stressed skin metal

construction (ref. 80). It is even more disconcerting that some important

inventions taken up by govemment agencies originated outside

govemment laboratories or the industries from which the invention might

have been expected to come. The development of the jet engine is a

classic example: The pioneering work was done in two countries (Britain

and Germany) by men who were either unconnected with the aircraft

industry or were specialists in airframe design; no significant

development originated with the aircraft engine manufacturers; despite

the engine's military value, governments were reluctant to support it; and

not until the engine manufacturers awoke to the significance of the jet

engine was its development assured (ref. 81).

Innovation in the laboratory is never a foregone conclusion. Yet

some laboratories have been remarkably productive, and it is important to

understand why. We shall briefly consider the formal organization of

technology development centers, although the only justification for any

organizational scheme may be fairly arbitrary and tailored to the

particular individuals who work in the organization. We shall then

examine three cases of technology development in search of clues

perhaps the nature of certain test facilities, the freedom of researchers to

bypass the organizational structure, the coupling of the researcher with

the ultimate user as to what generates new ideas, new hardware, new

technologies. Finally, we shall consider at length how one agency,

NASA, manages its research and technology program and, in particular,

how it reconciles centralized control with discretionary research at the

field centers.

Organizational Structure of Research and Development Institutions

Most, if not all, technology development centers are organized at

four levels" the branch or group level, the division, the directorate or

department, and the office of the director and his staff (fig. 34). A group

working in basic research or the early stages of technology development

is generally quite small somewhere between five and twenty people, or

ten to forty if support personnel are included. What distinguishes a branch or

group or section is that it generally has one and only one research objective.

94
A Look AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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FIGURE 34.--Typical schematic organization of a large research institution. The

actual technical work is done at the branch or group level. The division tends to

be the most important organizational element because it is still close to the

technical work yet has enough resources to manage that it can claim management attention.

The next organizational level is the research or technical division,

consisting of two to five research groups working on related topics. Thus

division-level organizations tend to have 50 to 200 people and form the

first organizational unit whose leader has formal financial relations with

the headquarters financial office. It is normally the lowest administrative

level at which business with the sponsoring agency is transacted. A

division-level organization may also be responsible for one or more of the

laboratory's research and test facilities" a large particle accelerator at one

of the former Atomic Energy Commission laboratories, a major wind

tunnel at one of the NASA research centers, or a contractor-operated

computer facility supporting all of a laboratory's operations.

At most research installations with 1 000 or more people on the

staff, the next level is the directorate or department. A department will

normally have 200 to 500 people and will be organized according to

function, to discipline, or--where the laboratory is responsible for a

large project _ to project. This, for instance, was the case with the

Viking project, which led to the successful landing of two probes on Mars

in 1976, Viking was run out of the NASA-Langley Research Center, and

the project manager reported directly to the center director. A directorate

or department may also be organized according to discipline, as in the

case of the Chemistry Department at the Lawrence Livermore National

Laboratory. This department coordinates the laboratory's work in various

areas of chemistry as well as providing the support for chemical

diagnostics of nuclear explosions. The individuals heading departments

95
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

form what might be called a corporate board of directors for their research

institutions. An institution of the size we are discussing will typically

have between three and seven departments.

The final level of organization in a research center is the laboratory's

management. This consists of a director, in most cases a deputy director

who is formally designated as the director's second in command, and a

supporting staff including the legal office, public affairs, health and

safety operations, and perhaps a planning and financial staff.

Figure 34 shows the formal basis of authority in a "typical" research

laboratory. In general, supervisors at each level are responsible for

technical programs in their organization; an important part of this

responsibility is personnel development, including hiring and setting

salaries. In most laboratories certain supporting functions fiscal

management, libraries, machine shops, data processing, and the

like _ may be located in one directorate designated as a support

organization. The remaining directorates or departments are then the

functional line organizations. But while the formal organization outlined

here is quite common, it must be stressed that very often things get done

in any organization outside normal channels. While most laboratories

have, of necessity, adopted the kind of organization just described, it is

essential that any organization remain sufficiently flexible to prevent

routine from driving out innovation, and that bright and energetic young

people be able to bypass it.

Innovation in Technology Development Centers

How do laboratories get into new fields? This is an important

question and deserves a detailed answer. Advanced development,

fundamental research, and exploratory engineering are all terms used to

describe ways in which innovative new things may be done in a research

and technology development center. There are essentially two ways in

which such work can be organized in a large research institution:

1. Independent Advanced Research and Development Division or

Department. In this approach (fig. 35), all of the basic research or

advanced development for the entire organization is placed in one

division or department.

2. Integrated Advanced Development Groups. Here, each of a

research center's functional departments or directorates has its own

basic research or advanced development group (fig. 36).

Each of these organizational methods has its advantages and

disadvantages. An independent basic research department gives stature to

people engaged in work of this kind, and sometimes makes it possible to

get better people into the department. The main disadvantage of an

96
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

independent unit is that the work tends to become uncoupled from the

functions of a technology development center. The most common method

for developing relationships between the basic research directorate and

the remainder of the laboratory is to make certain that people transfer in

and out of the basic research directorate to other units in the course of

their careers. The difficulty with the "people transfer" method is that the

"stature" argument becomes less important if, in fact, people are too

mobile within the organization. Additionally, it is often difficult to

transfer people, owing to various personnel rules operating within the

organization.

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large research institution as an independent unit.

For integrated basic research groups, the major advantage is, of

course, that the research agenda is directly related to the laboratory's

functional organizations, and can be more readily utilized by those

responsible for carrying out the laboratory's mission. The method's major

disadvantage is that since the laboratory's functional departments must

put out a product, functional group managers tend to be unsympathetic

toward the longer term work that basic research implies.

Both of these systems can be made to work it is really a matter of

choice for the management of the laboratory to decide which one to

employ. But whatever system is chosen, there are some general rules

regarding the number of people in the various research groups. Where a

functional technology group consists of a few hundred persons, there may

be twenty or thirty doing basic or advanced research. Roughly speaking,

ten percent of the people in the organization are (or should be) devoted to

long-term work. If such research is concentrated in one directorate, then

97
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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once again such a group tends to represent about ten percent of the

laboratory's total work force. There is no a priori reason why there

should be a ratio of one full-time researcher to every ten laboratory staff,

but this is approximately the size of the basic research effort in many

technology development centers.

Whatever institutional arrangements a research center adopts, the

important thing is that they lead to innovation, whether in research

concepts, hardware, the design of facilities, or the way in which the

laboratory is managed. It may even be (as some people have claimed) that

the only productive work in a technology development laboratory is done

outside the normal organizational channels. A new development usually

requires a concentration of the laboratory's facilities and people outside

the normal organizational structure. There is no more famous example of

a small, quasi-independent research organization embedded within a

larger one than the Lockheed Corporation's "skunk works" directed for

many years by Clarence (Kelly) Johnson. Johnson's team, which has

never numbered more than 200 to 300 people and operated as an

independent unit, has designed some of the most advanced military

aircraft, including the F-104, the U-2, and the SR-71.

Again, in 1960 to 1961, when NASA had to decide on the method

for executing the lunar landing, there was strong sentiment in the agency

for direct ascent to the Moon using a giant booster, or for earth-orbit

rendezvous, assembling a lunar-landing vehicle in earth orbit and _:i

sending it on to the Moon. Wernher von Braun and his collaborators at

the Marshall Space Flight Center favored earth-orbit rendezvous because

98
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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they recognized that it would require the construction of an earth orbiting

space station that would have many other uses beside the one for which it

was intended. But in late 1961, it became apparent that there would not

be enough time or money to use the method von Braun preferred. A group

of engineers from the Langley Research Center, led by John Houbolt,

proposed lunar-orbit rendezvous, which involved launching the Apollo

spacecraft into lunar orbit, detaching a small landing vehicle the lunar

module and providing it with an ascent engine so that the astronauts

could return to the parent ship for reentry. Houbolt was able to sell

lunar-orbit rendezvous to NASA management by demonstrating that it

was technically feasible and that it would be the least expensive and most

rapid way of achieving the objective of reaching the Moon before 1970.

But to make his case, Houbolt had first to go outside channels and get the

attention of Associate Administrator Robert Seamans; once Houbolt

managed this, it became a question of gradually winning over the major

technical elements within NASA, a process consummated in July 1962,

when NASA announced that it had selected lunar-orbit rendezvous as the

mission mode for going to the Moon (ref. 82).

The same organization that brings skilled personnel together may

also, through conservatism, inertia, or the compartmentalization of

research, make generating new ideas difficult. After all, it is easier to

decide to do nothing than to strike out in directions which may imperil the

laboratory's existence. There is also, especially among government

laboratories and their sponsors, a tendency to persist in a particular line of

research long after evidence has accumulated that it would be

unproductive; examples of such failed systems would include the B-70,

nuclear powered aircraft, and the Manned Orbiting Laboratory. To

illustrate just how innovation does occur in the Federal laboratory, we

have selected three examples of successful research successful in the

sense that the research proved a concept or led to new instruments for

acquiring basic scientific knowledge. These are" the "area rule" in

aeronautics, the alternating gradient synchrotron, and the laser program at

Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.

The Area Rule. The Area Rule is a formula for minimizing the

drag of an airplane at transonic speeds (fig. 37). The so-called "coke

bottle" shape of high-performance aircraft results from applying the area

rule. The idea of the area rule that drag is minimized if the rate of

change of the area of the vehicle is a linear function of distance along the

center line of the aircraft was first proposed by Dr. W. Hayes in his

doctoral thesis submitted to the California Institute of Technology. It was

buried in the thesis without attracting attention for several years, until the

concept was picked up independently by Dr. Richard Whitcomb of the

NACA's Langley Memorial Aeronaiatical Laboratory (as it was then

called) in 1951. Using the center's new 8-foot, slotted wall high-speed

99
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

FIGURE 37.--An F-106 aircraft showing the "'coke bottle"fuselage shape demanded

by transonic area rule.

wind tunnel, Whitcomb performed a series of exquisitely planned and

executed experiments to prove the concept. His tests demonstrated that

bulletlike aircraft, such as the F-102 fighter being developed by the Air

Force, would not attain supersonic flight; that the prototype's streamlined

fuselage should be redesigned so that the total cross-sectional area of the

plane, and not simply the fuselage, was that of an ideal streamlined body;

and that the fuselage should be constricted at the wing attachments and

expanded at their trailing edges. When the Air Force made these changes,

a new version of the F-102 called the F-106 easily reached supersonic

speeds (ref. 83).

This account of the area rule illustrates certain features of the

integrated basic research group. It underlines the importance first, of

good test facilities in enabling the investigator to develop an idea once it

seems the right thing to do. Dr. Whitcomb later used this same transonic

pressure tunnel to prove the concept of the supercritical wing, as well as

to design small vertical airfoils or "winglets" capable of reducing drag

over an entire aircraft by 4 to 8 percent (ref. 84). Relations between the

research sponsor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, and

the user in this case, the Air Force were particularly close; and

once tests made clear that the F-102 in its original form would never go

supersonic, the Air Force promptly within 117 working days

redesigned the aircraft according to the area rule. Perhaps most

important, Whitcomb's basic research branch was integrated into a larger

functional directorate at Langley dealing with the technology of

high-speed aircraft. In effect, the directorate structure built a bridge

between those doing the basic and applied research on aircraft

100

OF. POOR QUALITY
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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drag and note that the same people who hit on the area rule also

proposed the redesign of the F-102 the user agency, and the senior

managers within their own organization. There was, in short, a close

coupling of the people involved in research, development, and

production.

The Alternating Gradient Synchrotron. Like the cyclotron, the

synchrotron is a device for investigating the structure of the atom by

bombarding it with high-energy particles accelerated by electromagnetic

fields. But the synchrotron differs in two respects" It accelerates particles

with velocities very close to the speed of light, and while the orbit radius

of the particle and the rotational frequency remain constant, the magnetic

field increases. Since there is a practical upper limit to the magnitude that

can be produced, the particle energy ultimately depends only on the

radius of the machine. The problem in building a synchrotron is to get

larger and larger radii, while minimizing the use of iron in building the

magnets of the machine. The solution what became the alternating

gradient synchrotron was hit upon independently by Dr. Nicholas C.

Christofilos and Dr. Stanley Livingston. Christofilos began to study the

problem of accelerator design in Greece during the Second World War,

when the development of hardware would have been completely out of

the question. In 1947, he sent a proposal for an alternating gradient

synchrotron to the University of California Radiation Laboratory, then

headed by Ernest Lawrence. After an evaluation by Laboratory staff, the

proposal was rejected because Christofilos had not explained his ideas

using the conventional mathematical notations. This is an example of the

"not invented here" syndrome, a lack of interest by research professionals

in new ideas originating outside their organization.

Quite independently, in 1950 to 1951, Livingston, who was then

finishing work on the first truly high-energy accelerator at Brookhaven

National Laboratory, the "Cosmotron," accidentally hit on the same idea.

He was trying to get the beam of particles out of the Cosmotron and

suggested that one of the C-magnets of the ring should be turned around

so that the beam would be free to leave if it were properly steered. He

asked two of his theoretical collaborators, Hartland S nyder and Ernest

Courant, to calculate the effects on beam focusing if one of the magnets

were indeed turned around. Courant and Snyder quickly discovered that

the gradient set up by this method of arranging the magnets would

actually focus the beam into a tighter bundle and would thus lead to the

alternating gradient focusing principle. Snyder, Livingston, and Courant

published their results and, in the normal course of events, discovered

that a U.S. patent on the principle had been taken out by Christofilos (ref.

85). Accordingly, Christofilos was invited to join the staff of Brookhaven

National Laboratory in 1955, where he worked on the development of the

first large alternating gradient synchrotron. He then transferred to the

101
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he was one of the most

productive researchers until his untimely death in 1972.

As with the area rule, the alternating gradient synchrotron was

developed by a small group of theoretical researchers operating in a

functional organization. Here, what began as theoretical research

eventually reshaped the agenda of the sponsoring laboratory. The work of

Livingston, Snyder, Courant, and Christofilos led, not only to the

creation of a large new functional group at Brookhaven the

department that operates the alternating gradient synchrotron but to

an entirely new national laboratory, the Fermi Accelerator Center in

Batavia, Illinois, where the country's largest and most powerful particle

accelerator is located. What began as a problem in engineering design

ultimately led to improved research tools which, in turn, made it possible

to investigate atomic structure in entirely new ways. But unlike the area

rule case study, where basic research in aerodynamics fed directly into

aircraft design, in this case theoretical work on synchrotron design led to

a machine embodying that design. But at all stages the work being done

was basic research; in the whole of physics, there is no research more

"basic" less applications-oriented, if you like than the work carried

on at the great particle accelerators.

The Laser Program at The Lawrence Livermore National

Laboratory. This case illustrates two features of "big science"" the

desire of researchers to get into areas that appear technically ripe, and (as

with the alternating gradient synchrotron) the influence of a basic

research department separate from the laboratory's operating or

functional groups. In 1962, shortly after Theodore Maiman built the first

laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation), two

researchers at Lawrence Livermore, Drs. Ray Kidder and Charles Violet,

became interested in lasers and their possible application. One of the

authors (Mark), who headed the Laboratory's Experimental Physics

Division at the time, went to Dr. John Foster, then director of Lawrence

Livermore, to ask if Kidder and Violet could set up a small section to

work on lasers in the division. Foster agreed. The Experimental Physics

Division had the mission of performing basic research that might be

important to the Laboratory's major mission. What happened then was

that a number of researchers decided that lasers, because of their

extremely constant frequency and sharp concentration of radiation into a

beam, would become important to the weapons business and

Lawrence Livermore is primarily a weapons laboratory. There was, so to

speak, a "gut feeling" that research into high-energy pulses might be

important.

And so it proved to be. Kidder and Violet established their laser .

research group and it grew rapidly. By 1965, enough progress had been

made to convince the Laboratory's management that high-energy pulsed

102
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lasers might be important in initiating fusion reactions for both civil and

military purposes. Once this was established, the laser group, which by

then numbered 15 to 20 people, was removed from the Experimental

Physics Division and given organizational stature of its own, with Kidder

as director.

Since then the laser fusion program has expanded further. A few

years later, Dr. John Emmett was brought in to lead the program. The

Laser program came to employ about 500 people, had an annual budget

of approximately $30 million, and was at the department or directorate

level (fig. 38). It also stimulated research elsewhere" Los Alamos set up

its own laser division, using gas lasers, rather than pulsed-glass lasers, as

at Lawrence Livermore. The case of lasers at Lawrence Livermore

illustrates two things" how an organization within a laboratory devoted to

basic research can spawn a small group that then grows into one of the

laboratory's programmatic efforts; and the importance, for every large

laboratory, of making a place for small, non-mission-oriented research

groups.

The starting of new work is crucial, but it is equally important that

work that is no longer productive be stopped. How are research and

development groups disbanded? The easiest way is simply to stop funding

the project. This was the case, for instance, With the B iosatellite group at

Ames Research Center. This function was basically a contract

management operation which was shut down once the contract money

disappeared. Because the group had no facilities associated with it, the

shutdown procedure was fairly straightforward. It is more difficult to shut

down those research and development groups that have facilities, since

facilities acquire a momentum of their own. Normally, a technical

requirement generates a certain facility to carry on the project. Once the

project is completed, the existence of the facility may generate new

projects. This is perfectly legitimate; in fact, in many cases the new

programs are better and more useful than the ones for which the facility

was constructed. But it is important not to be trapped into a condition

where the facility generates new projects simply to keep the facility

alive.* Once this happens, it is unlikely that anything of importance will

emerge from the research group operating the facility.

In the case of a large project, the shutdown can cause serious

dislocations merely because of the enormous number of people involved,

as in Apollo. What mitigated the damage in this case was that by the time

* This does not really contradict our observations in the final section of Chapter IV

concerning the importance of facilities. The situation discussed here refers to a facility

which was: set up to support one project, rather than to provide support across the board;

or was overtaken by new technology; or was underused, during or subsequent to the

project for which it was designed.

103
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

University of California, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory

FIGURE 38. -- The large-scale "Shiva" laser at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

• _

___ _ _;
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Research and Technology encompasses means knowing the structure of

Headquarters-center relations.

There has been an almost cyclical rhythm to Headquarters-center

relations in NASA. From 1961 to 1963, the centers reported directly to the

NASA Associate Administrator in Washington; from 1963 to 1974, they

reported to associate administrators for each of the substantive program

offices; in 1974, the centers were placed, for administrative purposes,

under an Associate Administrator for Center Operations; in 1977, another

change led to the center directors reporting directly to the Administrator;

while currently NASA has returned to the post-1963 arrangement, by

which each center is under a separate program office (ref. 87). There are

three substantive program offices" the Office of Space Science and

Applications; the Office of Space Flight, which manages the Space

Shuttle program; and the Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology,

which (among other things) carries out much of NASA's basic research.

These reorganizations have not been arbitrary. It made sense to have the

centers report to one very senior official when all of the agency was

expected to pull together on one major program in one case Apollo, in

another, the Space Shuttle. But once these programs were underway and

it became clear that there were separate programs within the larger

mission, it made equal sense to place each center under its own program

office, while making it possible for the center to do work that would

contribute to all of NASA.

Part of the problem is that there is a certain antagonism between

project work and long-term research, Projects have precise goals and

schedules; therefore, project staff will tend to avoid large risks and settle

for small advances in the state of the art. Project success often involves

the selling of the project idea, to the point where the supporting research

and technology is often overwhelmed by the need tO push the project

through the bureaucracy (ref. 88). Thus Headquarters officials, from the

Administrator down, cannot simply take a permissive attitude toward

Research and Technology; they must actively promote it, if it is to

accomplish anything. Headquarters cannot very well monitor everything

going on at the section level; what it needs is some document at a low

enough level to provide Headquarters with an understanding of what is to

be accomplished and at a high enough level to provide the flexibility the

centers need _ in short, a system that is partly self-regulating.

In NASA, this document is the Research and Technology Operating

Plan (RTOP). The RTOP system was created in 1970 to replace an

earlier system by which discrete "workunits" were the level at which

reporting occurred. This was far too detailed for Headquarters program

planning. Instead, as will be seen, the RTOP is organized around a

technical discipline; in the Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology

(OAST), for example, some 500 RTOPs replaced over 4 000 work unit

106
A LooK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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the last Apollo mission (Apollo 17) flew, in December 1972, NASA had

already received the charter to develop the Space Shuttle (President

Nixon had made the decision in January 1972). Thus, many of the

engineering development people who were leaving the Apollo program

were immediately put to work solving the technical problems presented

by the creation of a fully reusable spacecraft.

A Case Study- NASA's Management of Its Research and Technology

For the purposes of these case studies, we treated the laboratory as a

closed system. This is far from being the case. The sponsoring agency has

to defend its mission before Congress and the Office of Management and

Budget. There may also come a time when it appears to headquarters

officials that a particular installation no longer justifies continued support;

in that case it may be cut back, closed, or merged with another

installation. But there is a range of activities which are neither projects

nor routine administrative operations, but which set the terms for future

development work. In NASA these activities are grouped under

"Research and Technology" (R&T), and are a crucial part of the agency's

mission. As an internal report put it, NASA's Research and Technology

program: "encompasses basic research, provides both a near and far term

technological base for the future, creates essential capabilities for the next

project or mission, provides options for future mission selections, serves

to strengthen American industry, and assists other agencies of

government. It helps to support universities, educate students, and

develop new markets for technology. It contains the 'corporate memory'

in science and technology and maintains a scientific and technical

institution in government, industry, and universities that is a basic

national strength." (ref. 86.)

NASA has invested heavily in its R&T; it accounts for about ten

percent of average annual expenditures some $600 to 700 million

and involves some 10 000 professionals spread about among NASA, its

contractors, and the universities. Yet, as the excerpt above illustrates,

the importance of research and technology is even greater than the figures

indicate. At the same time, the Research and Technology program raises

the kinds of vexing questions that a mission-oriented technology

development agency confronts" Can basic and applied research coexist

within the same installation? How can basic research tasks support the

agency's mission or missions without becoming applied research? How

can research tasks be evaluated, that is, what are the criteria for success or

failure? Finally, how can Headquarters monitor thousands of research

tasks, while giving center directors freedom to explore new areas? To

begin to answer these questions, a description of the way the Research

and Technology program is organized is needed; and to understand what

105
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

,.!."i" .

.,,

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Research and Technology encompasses means knowing the structure of

Headquarters-center relations.

There has been an almost cyclical rhythm to Headquarters-center

relations in NASA. From 1961 to 1963, the centers reported directly to the

NASA Associate Administrator in Washington; from 1963 to 1974, they

reported to associate administrators for each of the substantive program

offices; in 1974, the centers were placed, for administrative purposes,

under an Associate Administrator for Center Operations; in 1977, another

change led to the center directors reporting directly to the Administrator;

while currently NASA has returned to the post-1963 arrangement, by

which each center is under a separate program office (ref. 87). There are

three substantive program offices" the Office of Space Science and

Applications; the Office of Space Flight, which manages the Space

Shuttle program; and the Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology,

which (among other things) carries out much of NASA's basic research.

These reorganizations have not been arbitrary. It made sense to have the

centers report to one very senior official when all of the agency was

expected to pull together on one major program --- in one case Apollo, in

another, the Space Shuttle, But once these programs were underway and

it became clear that there were separate programs within the larger

mission, it made equal sense to place each center under its own program

office, while making it possible for the center to do work that would

contribute to all of NASA.

Part of the problem is that there is a certain antagonism between

project work and long-term research, Projects have precise goals and

schedules; therefore, project staff will tend to avoid large risks and settle

for small advances in the state of the art. Project success often involves

the selling of the project idea, to the point where the supporting research

and technology is often overwhelmed by the need tO push the project

through the bureaucracy (ref. 88). Thus Headquarters officials, from the

Administrator down, cannot simply take a permissive attitude toward

Research and Technology; they must actively promote it, if it is to

accomplish anything. Headquarters cannot very well monitor everything

going on at the section level; what it needs is some document at a low

enough level to provide Headquarters with an understanding of what is to

be accomplished and at a high enough level to provide the flexibility the

centers need _ in short, a system that is partly self-regulating.

In NASA, this document is the Research and Technology Operating

Plan (RTOP). The RTOP system was created in 1970 to replace an

earlier system by which discrete "workunits" were the level at which

reporting occurred. This was far too detailed for Headquarters program

planning. Instead, as will be seen, the RTOP is organized around a

technical discipline; in the Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology

(OAST), for example, some 500 RTOPs replaced over 4 000 work unit

106
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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statements (ref. 89). The RTOP is an agreement between Headquarters

and a center to perform the described research and technology within a

specified time and using specific resources; it includes the center's

technical approach and contracting plan; and it normally has finite life of

one to three years. Under the system, center directors are given enormous

flexibility, not only to start new research but also to reprogram funds

across approved RTOPs. The RTOP is the product of negotiations

between the center director and Headquarters program offices; the latter

defines the broad objectives of the office's Research and Technology

program, and the former drafts a proposal setting forth how and with what

resources the work will be done. The RTOP is, at least in theory, at the

lower end of an integrated budgetary system. As one ascends from one

level to the next, one goes from the particular to the more general, from

the RTOP to a subprogram or discipline, to a unique project, to a budget

line item.

Suppose, for example, that OAST issues an RTOP for work on

actively cooled structures. An ascending sequence might look like this

(table 2)"

Table 2. Research and Technology Objectives and Plans Structure

Level Budget Structure Examples of Program Work

V RTOP

IV Specific Objective

Actively Cooled Structures

High Temperature Material

III Subprogram/Discipline Materials

. . .

II Unique Project or Program

Budget Line Item

Aeronautics Research and

Technology Base

Aeronautics

Thus the RTOP system was designed so that senior NASA officials

could determine that the centers had measurable goals within the agency

mission; that these goals were subsumed within a variety of research and

development activities not tied to specific projects; and that these

activities had been properly scheduled and costed out. Yet within a few

years of the introduction of the RTOP, it became apparent that the system

was not working precisely as intended. Thus OAST, which for many

years had overall responsibility for coordinating the Research and

. Technology program, was unable to do this well, partly because OAST

was not working closely with the "using" program offices, and partly

.i: because these offices saw OAST as a competitor for funds (ref. 90).

107
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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There was, then, little transfer of technology from those developing it to

those who could use it.

But there were more general problems as well. First, the system did

not adequately support the budgetary process, since the budget request

had to be formulated before that year's RTOPs were drafted. An

unfortunate byproduct of the budgetary process was NASA's tendency to

justify its R&T program in terms of future benefits rather than past

accomplishments.

Second, almost all of the centers complained of the level and detail

of control exercised by Headquarters. With over 1 100 RTOPs in force at

any time, they appeared to be not so much contracts between

Headquarters and the centers as "agreements between specific people at

Headquarters and specific research groups within the centers ... In

nearly all cases, the center Directors felt that they should be more a part

of the management process." (ref. 91.) There was consensus among

center Directors that the number of RTOP's needed to be reduced to the

point where each RTOP stood for one specific objective per center.

What the centers wanted, and Headquarters could concede only to a

limited degree, was greater flexibility" whether in starting new work,

reprogramming funds, or making changes in the scope of approved work.

NASA in the 1970s was making a slow, painful transition from being an

agency dominated by a few very large projects to one of many smaller

interdependent tasks; to a blurring, a running together, of aeronautics and

space technology, so that the same test facilities were being used for both;

and to a greater interdependence among the centers themselves, so that

centers were supporting program offices other than those to which they

formally reported. (Unlike Apollo, whose goal involved landing on and

exploring the Moon, the Space Shuttle was a vehicle intended to provide

more effective support for a variety of other programs.) Because the

transition was so difficult, and because the research and technology

program would play a crucial role, NASA created a task force in 1976 to

consider how the centers could retain a certain autonomy while remaining

accountable to Headquarters for the ways programs were conducted.

Two of the task force's findings were especially interesting. Its

members concluded that the very complexity of NASA's Research and

Technology work made it difficult to reduce the number of RTOPs by

more than thirty percent. As the authors of the final report noted:

"Spanning basic research into fundamental processes of nature, of

fundamental space sciences, of applied research into high risk endeavors,

of developing new instruments and sensors, of demonstrating the worth

of a new technology, of building the capability for new missions, the

array of activities . . . is truly large. Any significant reduction in the

number of RTOPs would be damaging to the visibility and communications between Headquarters and the Field Centers . . ." (ref. 92.)

108
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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The task force also noted that the freedom of center directors was

limited to approved programs. The members wanted centers to have the

freedom to start new probably high risk work, without the need for

prior approval by Headquarters. This, it will be remembered, was what

the Defense Science Board had recommended for DOD laboratories in

1966. Under this concept, NASA would create a "Center Directors'

Discretionary Fund" as a source of seed money for establishing new

product lines or for bringing a center to a level of technical excellence in

new areas; no task would run for more than two years; and the fund would

be used neither "to bail out on-going projects that may be in trouble nor to

meet deficiencies in construction, operation and maintenance or for

laboratory equipment funds." (ref. 93.)

Yet the task force members were unwilling to overhaul a system they

regarded as fundamentally sound. Nothing could better illustrate the

difficulties in doing technology development than the efforts of the task

force to reconcile the centers' need for the freedom to pursue research

wherever it might lead with the agency's need for accountability. The

task force's recommendations might be described as a series of

injunctions to both sides" Reduce the number of RTOPs and, where

possible, use a one-or two-page RTOP that references project

documentation that serves the same purpose as an RTOP; encourage the

Headquarters program directors to visit the centers once or twice a year

for a comprehensive program review; set up a discretionary fund so that

centers may start new projects; select a small number of goals to provide

guidance to the centers; remove the job of coordinating the Research and

Technology program from the Office of Aeronautics and Space

Technology and give it to a special assistant within the office of the

Associate Administrator.

Underlying the task force's conclusions was the sentiment that

Research and Technology work must be supported for its own sake and

not as something ancillary to a project. The problem facing NASA was

this" How could the agency coordinate a number of small-scale efforts

and organize them in related fashion, yet not tie each research task to a

specific mission or completion date? This is not NASA's problem, so

much as it is a problem inherent in any organization trying to discover

new knowledge about physical phenomena.

" Conclusions •- ._

• /.. •

r The more complex the task of technology development becomes the

.... harder it is to assert that there is one best form of organization to get the

. : job done. Compared to the 1960s NASA is a much less "projectized"

j agency now; there are fewer big, discrete flight projects like Apollo or

Skylab, more of a give-and-take involving all of the centers. As Sayles

.

_,_ 109

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and Chandler observe" "... it would appear that the greater the inability

to define interfaces, the more the agency must rely on relatively

decentralized coordination . . . the locus of control has shifted from the

field level to the headquarters level and back again as technology has

become more complex." (ref. 94.)

The RTOP case study bears this out. Headquarters oscillates

between giving the centers great discretion in beginning new work and

asking for a full accounting of work completed; between making one

program office responsible for coordinating research and technology and

spreading that responsibility among the other program offices; between

demanding detailed statements of what the centers intend to do or settling

for brief summaries. The fact is that there are many ways of doing

research and technology development and all of them may be appropriate,

depending on what is to be done. An organization appropriate for a

manned lunar landing may be the wrong one for bringing about a

revolution in microelectronics.

What one can do is lay down some general rules which, with the

greatest of luck and support by the sponsoring agency, may lead to some

worthwhile research and development. The first rule might be called,

with a touch of cynicism, the Law of Grantsmanship" "Innovation" is a

very useful point in selling a project to the potential sponsor. Much of

what goes by that name is really a kind of fundraising. Consider, for

example the history of the Air Force's Office of Scientific Research.

From the official history of this organization, it appears that the only way

to get funding was to call things by other than their proper names. The

director of Air Force Research and Development made it clear that the

Office "could not hope to get any money unless it accepted a certain

amount of semantic perversion in its programming . . . Basic research

and applied research were dropped from the programming idiom,

replaced in turn by exploratory research and supporting research..."

The more practical a category sounded, the better (ref. 95). What is

more, this approach worked. The Office of Scientific Research "talked of

applications, and the Bureau of the Budget loosened the purse strings."

One official could justifiably brag that "we sold them the sizzle, not the

steak." (ref. 96.)

The second rule is to know when to move from research to

development. Here, timing is everything. In NASA, virtually every flight

project from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s was conceived in a brief

period- from mid-I958 to the end of 1961. It was not that NASA

scientists and engineers ran out of ideas; rather, it would have been

self-defeating to remain in the conceptual phase much longer. In many

ways the ultimate test of a good research idea is its incorporation in a

discrete project with a definite beginning and end. Even for a new

agency, the quality and quantity of ideas for NASA flight projects were

I10
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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remarkable. But large Federal agencies are not, as a rule, the best place

for generating new ideas. The Atomic Energy Commission explicitly

recognized this when it turned over its research and development work to

contractor operated facilities. Without going so far, NASA officials have

conceded that many of the most creative ideas for its programs will come

from outside, from contractors, universities, and advisory committees.

The point is that the seminal ideas the capital off which the sponsoring

agency will live for a generation _ may be generated in a short span, but

their working out is a complex, lengthy, and very expensive process that

only a large organization can manage.

Our third and final point is that a research installation of the right

size (see Chapter IV)should always do some research in advance of current

needs. Defensive research, such as NASA's Research and Technology

program, serves many purposes" It provides the agency with a portfolio of

ideas which may reach the development stage in some cases, 20 to 25

years after they were first conceived (the orbiting Space Telescope is an

example); it is a way of making effective use of young engineers and

scientists just starting their careers; and as our case studies illustrate, it

may reshape the entire installation so that its mission coincides with, or

becomes part of, those disciplines which appear to be at the leading edge

microelectronics or artificial intelligence as opposed to civil

engineering. The more formal a management system is, the more

time-consuming the review process becomes and the less likely it

becomes that anything genuinely new will emerge from the organization.

Basic research not tied to a specific project is one of the ways by which a

technology development organization stays alive.

•:, " .. }

111
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CHAPTER V!

Projects: The Ultimate Reality

Definition of the Subject

In the past five chapters, we have described the process of

technology development in some detail and we have tried to define the

features of the institutions in which it is practiced. We have stressed that

the process of technology development in the end should lead to some

"practical,' application of the technology that is being created and

developed. In the institutions that we are concerned with we do not study

solid-state physics for its own sake but rather to create (say) small light

sensitive detector elements that ultimately will be used to take better

pictures of the planet Mars, or perhaps of Russian ICBM installations to

monitor arms control agreements. The application of the technology

being developed requires that it be used in some kind of a "system"

designed to accomplish some end. The creation of this system is usually

accomplished by carrying out a project. The word "project" itself is quite

neutral and can mean anything from building a bridge or a group of tract

houses to creating a Broadway show. In the context of technology

development, however, it has come to mean something special, with

sometimes unfortunate results.

The use of project methods is nothing new in facilitating the

application of new technology, and history abounds with good examples

such as the construction of the "Monitor" in about six months in 1862

under the leadership of John Ericsson. The Manhattan Project and Apollo

were much more complex and the results were apparently so much greater

than anything heretofore attempted that some people began to believe that

there was something magical about the project approach, independent of

the technological substance of the project. Indeed, many government

officials believed that the project approach could be transferred bodily to

the solution of hitherto intractable social problems. The project approach

was to be adapted to developing modular, low-cost, factory-built

housing; to transferring available technology to municipal and county

governments; to starting a Dial-a-Ride program intended to combine the

advantages of urban mass transit with the convenience of an automobile;

and even to building a "Personal Rapid Transit System" (with the Jet

113

PRECEDING PAGE _ B_ANK NOT FiL_,IED
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Propulsion Laboratory as prime contractor), a guideway with small cars

which could pick up and discharge passengers on demand (ref. 97). None

of these projects was an unqualified success and some (the Personal Rapid

Transit System in particular) were, frankly, white elephants.

Despite these reservations, we regard the project approach for

applying new technology to be of central importance. That is why we are

devoting a chapter to it. But to understand the advantages and limitations

of projects better, we must begin with some definitions. Whatever else

may be said about them, all projects have the following four features"

They are planned to have a definite beginning and end; they have a

specific goal; there is a fairly precise limit to the number of people, below

which the activity is a research task, above which it becomes coextensive

with the agency's mission; and they all involve more than one science or

engineering discipline, so that the larger the project, the greater the need

for coordination.

It is rarely the case in a large project that the manager will be

accountable to only one official in one organization. In a NASA flight

project, for example, the manager will interface _ to use a horribly

technocratic but useful word _ with the Headquarters program manager,

representatives of the prime contractors, principal investigators who

design and develop experiments to be flown, subsystems managers,

contracts officers, and, of course, the management of the laboratory at

which the project is located. Thus a project of any complexity leads to a

systematic, continuous review of all the elements, as they move from

conception to hardware; to a breaking down of organizational barriers, so

that the manager may draw on the requisite skills, wherever in the

organization they may be located; to a sharing of authority; and to a

constant flow of communication among all the managers in the project

organization (ref. 98).

Having defined a project, the question we would ask is, What are the

advantages and disadvantages of the project approach? The principal

advantage is that, in the words of a National Research Council report,

"projects often provide the ultimate reality." (ref. 99.) It is one thing to

originate a concept for a new aeronautical vehicle, nuclear reactor,

computer, ship, or spacecraft, another to "prove" the concept, in NASA

jargon. As the report notes, "Projects are practical demonstrations. New

equipment must function well, performance is measured against the

previous experience, and success needs to be achieved."

By bringing together people in many technical disciplines, the

project may lead to interactions that could occur in no other way.

Another, quite different, advantage of a large project is that it builds

political constituencies willing to support the agency's mission. A

project, even a small one, has a visibility that a technology development

task lacks. And when the project is very large, as with Apollo, it may

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even bring in research and technology development work on its coattails

that might never have been funded on its own.

Yet the project approach sometimes entails heavy penalties when it

is pushed to the exclusion of other approaches and becomes a brute force

effort to achieve a goal, or freezes technology prematurely. The tendency

of large projects to close out options is one of the hidden costs associated

with this approach. There is no better example of this effect than the

choice of the mission mode for the lunar landing. In the preceding

chapter, mention was made of the events leading to NASA's selection in

1962 of lunar-orbit rendezvous for Apollo. On strictly technical grounds,

lunar-orbit rendezvous was a great success, since the lunar landing was

achieved on schedule. But it also ensured that Apollo would be a dead

end. By 1969, it was apparent that there was no logical sequel to the lunar

landing, and that the agency would have to redeploy its resources in a

radically different direction. Had NASA selected earth-orbit rendezvous

instead, the lunar landing could still have been achieved and NASA

would have had at least a ten-year start on deploying an orbiting space

station, rather than waiting until 1982 to let study contracts for its design.

Another example of premature commitment to a Certain approach

refers to several of NASA's more advanced scientific satellites. As we

shall see, there is considerable (although not conclusive) evidence that the

Orbiting Astronomical Observatories launched by NASA between 1966

and 1972 represented too great a forcing of the available technology.

Several of the agency's scientific advisors argued unsuccessfully in favor

of cheaper, less ambitious satellites that might have returned data earlier.

What is more interesting, some senior NASA officials came to believe,

after the fact, that their advisors had been fight.

It may be that what was wrong with these decisions if, in fact,

they were wrong was the decisions and not the project approach itself.

But we would argue that the decision to select one method to the

exclusion of others is inherent in the project approach to technology

development; that it is usually neither possible nor even desirable to

attempt all feasible alternatives simultaneously; and that it is precisely the

business of an institution's or agency's senior management to study the

long-range implications of projects that the line organization wants.

Whatever the merits of a phased project approach, it becomes

exceedingly difficult to alter the design, as opposed to the purpose, of a

project, once it goes beyond the advanced study stage. Once the decision

to proceed with (say) Apollo had been made, a projectized approach was

inevitable. But as a result, the Apollo project, in the words of one

scholar, "could not capitalize on most post-1962 developments, and

therefore placed less relative emphasis on basic development. Advanced

development in the NASA program as a whole had to be a matter of

secondary emphasis." (ref. 100.)

115
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organizations, commercial and governmental, can let new ideas work

themselves to the point where they are ready to be exploited. (For every

Bell Labs or IBM, there are dozens of laboratories of large corporations

that have produced little of importance.) If this view is correct, the

research and technology work carried on in governmental laboratories is

not intended to lead immediately to advanced development. Rather, it

gives researchers the experience they need to evaluate ideas originating

elsewhere; and it enables them to generate their own ideas which, in turn,

may evolve into projects requiring the kinds of outside innovations

already mentioned.

For two reasons, then, the large goals-oriented project is not always

an important source of innovation. Once the commitment of resources

and manpower to a large project has been made, the main consideration

for the sponsoring agency or company is achieving the goal. Any spinoff

of new technology is incidental. The second reason has to do with the

systems approach used by many agencies in their technology

development work. A system may be defined as a series of "complex,

interrelated elements or components working effectively together.., to

yield a single desired result." (ref. 105.) Where the system is defined

broadly, even marginal improvements in the performance of (say) an Air

Force fighter plane may be very expensive. They will be expensive, first,

because the engineers working on the system will make relatively little

use of available components; second, the greater the percentage of the

system to be replaced, the greater the changeover costs will be; finally,

the larger the boundaries of the new system, the greater the amount of

manpower needed to make the tradeoffs inherent in treating a large

number of components as a single operating system (ref. 106).

In sum, there are certain situations which lend themselves to the

project approach. These are where" there are specific, discrete goals;

considerations of costs and scheduling, especially the latter, are

paramount;* and the technology to achieve the goals is available, even if

that technology must be vastly extended. The first two situations may be

independent of the third, since projects can and do occur outside a

• : technology development environment. The combination of severe cost

and time constraints with a definite goal accounts for the popularity of the

: project approach in public works and heavy construction generally.

Where goals are open-ended to the point of continuing through the

* There are differences between government and ordinary industrial projects. For

government, and particularly the Defense Department, it is the reliable achievement of

technical performance that is preserved in a crunch. Schedules slip and costs rise, unless it

becomes clear that a further change in goals imperils the project. In practice, the project

approach as exercised by government rewards well the achievement of technical success,

but does not strongly penalize cost and schedule variances unless they affect that success.

117
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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sponsoring agency's lifetime, there may be less to be said in favor of the

project approach. Whatever else may be said about them, Apollo and the

Space Shuttle represent two very different kinds of missions, if only

because the latter is open-ended and continuing, where the former was

not. In many cases it is no longer possible for NASA to do what it did in

the 1960s" issue a Project Approval Document which tracked the project

from cradle to grave and was revised annually. The Space Shuttle is best

thought of as a vehicle rather than a substantive program. As such, its

connections with NASA substantive programs, with those of DOD, with

commercial users, and with foreign governments are so complex that the

single-mindedness of a conventional project is missing.

Having examined those conditions that militate for or against the

project approach, we turn to the kinds of organizational issues _ how

projects are selected, approved, and implemented---- that can be analyzed

under the head of project management.

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What Project Management Entails

If it were the case that no two projects are alike, nothing useful could

be said about them. However, when research officials -- whether in the

laboratory, at Headquarters, or contractors pursuing independent research

and development---consider starting a new project, the same questions

normally arise. Consider these questions from the perspective of a

laboratory director. At a bare minimum, these are the kinds of

considerations that will enter into the selection of a project:

• What is the relation of the new project to the laboratory's charter, its

traditional missions, and the sponsoring organization's mission?

• Are resources available to do the project? Will it adversely affect other

work? If so, to what extent must the other work be modified to

accommodate the project? Are qualified people available to do the job?

• What are the long-term possibilities of this project? Will it develop a

new capability in the laboratory?

• Does the project really serve some outside user or merely the

laborat O ry ' s interest in maintaining itself?

• Shall the work be done in house, by contract, or by some mixture of

the two?

• To what extent can the laboratory draw technical personnel from all its

operating divisions, or limit itself to that division to which the project

is assigned?

• Shall the project be managed by an autonomous group or by functional

specialists9 Shall the project be structured according to the type oJ

• "lead"

technology or project objectives, or with one center as withir

the sponsoring agency?

118
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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These are only some of the questions which must be faced early in

the life of the project. A method called phased project planning is

normally .employed in NASA., and its four Stages correspond rather well

to the logic of project management (table 3),

Taking table 3 as a schema of a typical large technology

demonstration project, there are several, points to be made. First, the key

project decisions are almost .always made in the first two phases. Even the

decision by a field center or a laboratory (let alone Headquarters) to

authorize an advanced study sends a message to other centers, to .other

agencies with the capability for .doing the work indeed, all the way up

to Capitol Hill. A study contract is normally interpreted by the successful

bidder as an instruction to review means rather than ends. Studies may

examine a proposed project from many angles" A study may be

exploratory, analyzing an idea for a new program or system; it may be an

examination of feasibility, to determine the possibility of accomplishing a

given project within a specified period; it may be parametric, a study of

tradeoffs between the .different elements of a project; it may be a

preliminary design study, which makes detailed assessments of the

assumptions underlying .earlier study .phases; or it may be a detailed

engineering design, in which the design is specified to the point-where

contracts for hardware production could be let (ref. 107). But the point to

stress about advanced studies is that they have an importance out of

proportion to their dollar values or findings. From the laboratories' or

centers' perspectives, advanced studies create a po_folio of ideas, some

of which may be dusted .off years later; where multiple study contracts are

let, the laboratory or center can evaluate the project from many .angles;

and it can also begin a preliminary, informal winnowing of firms which

may be qualified to bid on the big production contracts, except in those

cases where a "hardware ban" is written into the study contract.

.But the advanced study is only part of the broader strategy of the

research center-or laboratory. The center director will attempt to stake out

his territory as early in the project as possible. His concern is to keep the

sponsoring agency at arm's length, to prevent the project from being run

de facto out of Headquarters; to use the know-how of the study

contractor(s), while keeping all major decisions in the hands of his

technical staff; and to signal other operating elements within the agency

that the project, as approved, will be run out of his shop. It cannot be

emphasized too strongly that in a multi-center agency like NASA, almost

all of the ideas for new project.s or programs -everything from sounding

rockets to the Space Shuttle have flowed upward from the line

organization rather than from the top down.

When, in June 1969, the Associate Administrator for Manned Space

•: ..". _.: Flight created a task force to study the possibility of a reusable space

_: vehicle, the internal debate on a sequel to Apollo was already concluded.

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119
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Table 3. Phased Project Planning

Method: Phased Project Planning

Objectives"

1. To create an option-preserving sequential decision process, with four major

management-decision points.

2. To progressively refine project requirements to produce a detailed work statement

that will permit the use of contracts containing appropriate forms of incentives.

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Parties Involved

Project Stages Objectives In-House Contractor

1. Planning and

Definition

Phase A

Preliminary

Analysis

Phase B

Definition

Phase C

Design

Analysis of alternate

overall project

approaches and concepts

Selection of one of

several project

approaches for further

definition and eventual development, if

this seems advisable;

effort may be cut off

here

Definition in detail of

the project approach

selected in Phase B

Final hardware design, development,

fabrication, testing,

and operation

2. Project Implementation

Phase D

Development /

Operations

Primarily an inhouse effort

An analysis role

Support role for university and industry

study contractors (FP

or CPFF contract);

need not be capable of

Phase B, C, or D.

Study contractors develop information (FP

or CPFF contract); not

a competition for

Phase D contract.

Integration and

validation of

contractor data

Monitoring and

review functions

Major portion of work

is contractor conducted (CPFF or incentive contract);

generally two or more

prime contractors

selected; only firms

capable of performin_

through Phase D are

eligible since Phase (

provides competitio_

for Phase D.

Major portion of worl

is contractor con

ducted; restricted t_

Phase C contractors

except in unusua

cases; one prime con

tractor (incentive co_

tract).

Note" FP = fixed-price contract CPFF = cost-plus-fixed-fee contract

Source" Leonard Sayles & Margaret Chandler, Managing Large Systems: Organization

for the Future (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), p. 33.

120
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(The membership of the Task Force consisted mostly of people from the

field centers.) With two-thirds of the agency's budget, the Office of

Manned Space Flight (OMSF) was the most powerful program office in

NASA. And conditions were uniquely favorable for Dr. George Mueller,

who headed OMSF, to take the initiative. The first lunar landing was

anticipated within the next month; the Air Force had just cancelled its

Manned Orbiting Laboratory, the only remotely conceivable contender in

manned space flight; and NASA had a new Administrator brought in from

the outside who did not yet have his hands on the levers of influence. By

then, there was a consensus among OMSF managers that the Shuttle was

feasible, that it would draw on the expertise gained in Apollo, and that

there was enough support behind it to sell it to the rest of the agency and

_ possibly _ DOD. What applies to the Shuttle applies with equal

force to other flight projects. What happened was that the field

organizations Marshall Space Flight Center (headed by Wernher von

Braun) and Manned Spacecraft Center (headed by Robert Gilruth)

took the lead in proposing new projects and convincing the Headquarters

people to go along.

In project work, considerations of substance can (and should)

determine considerations of procedure. The decision on whether work

will be done in house or by contract depends on the nature of the project.

Except in special cases, the option of doing everything in house exists

mainly as a theoretical possibility; most laboratories lack design, test, and

fabrication personnel and the necessary facilities. A more common

approach is for the laboratory to do the conceptual studies and overall

management, with the detailed design and most of the hardware

contracted out. Depending on the laboratory's strengths, one of two

approaches is used"

• The laboratory acts as project manager, designer, and systems

integrator, with specific components, or "black boxes," farmed out to

subcontractors.

• The laboratory acts as project manager, with a prime contractor

handling the complete hardware program from detail design through

delivery.

It is important to understand that, in contracting out, an agency like

NASA is not simply making a virtue of necessity. NASA stands in

relation to its contractors somewhat as an industrial firm like General

Motors stands in relation to its suppliers. Antitrust considerations aside,

General Motors has been in a position to encourage competition among

its suppliers, playing one off against another, as well as seeking (and

getting) the most favorable combination of cost and design" turning to

this firm for tires, to another for suspension system components, to a third

121
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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for engine valves and temperature controls..* Vertical integration could

hardly promise as much, and that only at much greater cost and internal

complexity. Similar considerations have been at work in NASA, the Air

Force, and the Atomic Energy Commission from the beginning. For

reasons discussed in Chapter III, a reversion to the arsenal system after

the Second World War was not politically feasible. But especially since

the mid-1950s (see the Polaris case study later in this chapter), the large

Federal technology development agencies have deliberately encouraged

potential contractors to bid for agency work, to sponsor their own

self-initiated independent research and development reimbursable as a

percentage of overhead, and to submit unsolicited proposals against the

time when they would be incorporated in formal requests for proposals.

Whether the benefits of large-scale technology development carried

out by contractors still outweigh the costs is open to question. The cost of

entry into aerospace technology development in the late 1950s and early

1960s was lower than it is today but it was still large. Today it is

prohibitively expensive for a firm to enter in any capacity other than that

of subcontractor for a federally sponsored program. Some of NASA's

largest contractors in the 1960s, like Boeing and Grumman, have largely

withdrawn" to concentrate on commercial work in the case of Boeing, on

defense work in the case of Grumman. All of this has greatly enhanced

the Federal role in technology development and has made careful

planning and thinking within the government and its advisory structure

much more important than it has been in the past. It has also enhanced the

importance of giving more freedom to contractors and to put as much of

the responsibility for the project management and execution on the

contractor. All of this must be done using procurement regulations that

were written by people who were not always sensitive to these

considerationsContracting out projects has important advantages over doing work

in house, especially where agency personnel ceilings are fixed. In

Chapter VIII we shall consider the use of contractors for support services

everything from trash removal to writing computer programs to

* Indeed, GM may consider it even more important to find suppliers for a variety of

parts than to stimulate competition among suppliers of a single part _ "Firm A for tires

today, Firm B for tires tomorrow." The reason is that GM's overwhelming size vis-a-vis

its suppliers gives it formidable bargaining power. Uniroyal, which manufactures the tires

for many GM cars, needs GM far more than GM needs Uniroyal. Moreover, the recenl

agreement between GM and Toyota will place the original equipment manufacturers whc

supply GM in a position analogous to those defense contractors who are losing business,

As more parts are manufactured overseas, these suppliers will be stuck with exces,

capacity, while coming under pressure from GM to reduce costs still further and improve

productivity.

122
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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managing entire installations. But NASA's philosophy of using

contractors has been based on certain principles which carry over into its

technology development work: The rapid buildup of large projects has

precluded reliance on government employees alone; it is Federal policy

not to develop Capabilities that are already available in the private sector;

and it is better to let the up-and-down swings in manpower take place in

the contractor, rather than the civil service, work force (ref. 108). Also,

contract employees do not normally count against an agency's personnel

ceiling. Within limits, agencies like NASA and DOD have great

flexibility in their use of contractors, even extending to the right, affirmed

by the Federal courts, to lay off their own employees before laying off

contracted personnel (ref. 109).

Thus the final shape of a project will depend on a good deal more

than the availability of funds to get the work done. There are many

interdependent elements" the ability of the lead center or laboratory to

define a mission, the availability of contract support, the particular

capabilities of the lead center or laboratory, and the speed with which the

center or laboratory can move from preliminary analysis to design

definition to a definition in detail of the project approach. Clearly, center

and laboratory managers must be able to "cost out" projects. Project costs

are normally estimated by one of two methods. The first is through

detailed comparison of previous similar projects of known costs; the other

is to generate costs by a complete "from-the-ground-up" work

breakdown, sometimes with the assistance of computer models. This

latter approach, a kind of zero-based budgeting, examines the efforts

involved in every element by the required manhours. Finally, all the

elements are added up to develop the overall cost. The first method is

easier and is as reliable if, and only if, the comparison program really is

similar.

Just how difficult cost estimating of large projects really is, can be

shown by table 4, which reviews NASA's early projects.

Where the agency is buying production-line items, where (for

example) spacecraft and experiment design were established before the

start of the project, accurate estimates of project costs are possible. But

cost estimating is and will remain very much an art, until completely

standardized project hardware with experiments that can be "plugged in"

has been developed. That time probably will never arrive for advanced

technology development projects of the kind considered in this book.

There is considerable variation in project structure, most of it

involving the degree to which the organization is "projectized" versus

reliance on "functional organizations."* Suppose a project requiring 200

* An intermediate approach is known as matrix management. Here, employees are

temporarily assigned to a project, while remaining on the rolls of the parent organization.

123
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people at its peak. In a fully projectized operation, all 200 people would

work directly in the project office and would "get their paychecks" from

the project manager. For example, the office that managed the Pioneer 10

and 11 missions to Jupiter and Saturn was fully projectized (fig. 39).

There were three major groups spacecraft, experiments, and

operations each with its manager. Each person had specific

assignments" to follow the spacecraft subsystem as it was developed by

TRW, the prime contractor, to follow from one to three experiments, or

to follow functions like launch, tracking, and data acquisition.

With the functional approach, a small project office of (say) ten

people would be established. They would control the project, but the bulk

of the work would be farmed out by task order to functional organizations

such as the Mechanical Design Section, the Test Laboratory, the

Electronic Design Section, and the like.

Each of these approaches has certain advantages and disadvantages.

A projectized organization can maintain tighter control of the project,

both technically and fiscally. Personnel can devote all of their attention to

the project; the project office is responsible for a given assignment from

beginning to end; and the organization is tailor-made to fit the job (ref.

110). The principal drawback is the inefficient use of manpower. In the

functional approach, when someone is needed on the project only one day

a week, he can do other work during the remainder of the week. In a

project organization, he tends to sit on his hands the other four days. The

problem with the functional approach is threefold: It conflicts with the

desire of functional managers to build a technical expertise in their

sections; responsibility for a given job is diffused; and only part-time

attention can be given to any one project (ref. 111).

Obviously, no idealized description of a project approach can do full

justice to the range of projects within even one agency. A given project

will be affected by many variables other than those discussed. It may be

affected by a midcourse change of goals by the sponsoring agency; by an

increase in the length of the project approval process relative to the length

of the project; and by the jeopardy to the careers of project managers in

committing themselves to long-term projects running to five or more

years. To examine how goals of a sponsoring organization tend to shape

the kinds of projects sponsored, we have selected three projects for

analysis. One was a large space-flight project sponsored by NASA; the

second was a successful weapons development project; and the third

involved work on several fronts by a leading industrial laboratory.

Case Studies

The Orbiting Astronomical Observatories (ref. 112). One of the

interesting byproducts of the Second World War was that it made space

astronomy possible. With the delivery of captured V-2 rockets, American

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astronomers began to launch scientific instrument packages above the

atmosphere. By the late 1950s, balloons and rockets like the V-2 and the

more sophisticated Viking and Aerobee had returned a wealth of

information" the first photographs of solar spectra from altitudes up to 75

kilometers, the discovery of X-rays in the upper atmosphere, and the

detection in 1957 of ultraviolet radiation from a star.

But rocket-borne astronomy had many drawbacks. Viewing time

was limited to a maximum of 45 minutes, payload weights were

restricted, and stabilization was a problem. Many astronomers believed

that something more permanent, like a telescope orbiting the Earth, was

needed to provide continuous coverage above the atmosphere. When

NASA was established in 1958, that agency, rather than DOD or

industry, became the focus of their hopes. What had once been a

theoretical construct was now being pushed as a national commitment.

But the positions of the scientific community on the one hand and

NASA on the other were considerably more complex. Dr. Homer E.

Newell, who directed NASA's science programs through 1967, wanted

the assistance of the scientific community, more especially the Space

Science Board created by the National Academy of Sciences in August

1958 for that purpose. But he wanted advice on his terms. The Board

sought to be an independent advisory group but Newell, while welcoming

its advice, expected it to respond to tasks "within carefully prescribed

limits ... specified by NASA." (ref. 113). Almost at once, the Board and

NASA disagreed. Many, but not all, Board members thought that NASA

should concentrate its funding on rocket- and balloon-borne observations.

The technology of these instrumented packages had improved remarkably

over the decade; by the late 1950s, a telescope lifted by balloon

(Stratoscope I) was taking remarkably sharp pictures of the Sun (ref.

114). In short, the Board wanted NASA "to use good 'obsolete' vehicles

to send up instruments routinely rather than attempt to develop new

vehicles. NASA answered that it was aware of space science needs, but

that its emphasis on vehicle development was appropriate." (ref. 115.)

Because NASA had the funds and the Space Science Board only had a

shopping list, it was Newell's view that prevailed.

In 1959 and 1960, NASA defined its plans for an advanced scientific

satellite. Based on consultations with leading astronomers, NASA elected

to develop a satellite similar to a ground-based observatory. Because it

would be designed to accommodate a variety of experiments, it would be

considerably larger than the Vanguard and Explorer satellites then being

launched. The primary mission of the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory

• .... (OAO) would be to analyze ultraviolet radiation from stars. As such, the

. .

" OAO would have to meet stringent technical criteria. It would have to

• _ _ "lock on" to those stars that would provide a frame of reference for the

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127
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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platform that could be pointed to any position in the celestial sphere.

Confident that these problems could be overcome, NASA gave overall

management of OAO to the Goddard Space Flight Center, established

coordinating program office at Headquarters, and, in October 1960.

selected the Grumman Corporation of Bethpage, New York, as prim_

contractor.

As NASA's largest and most elaborate satellite, it might have beer

predicted that the development of the OAO (fig. 40) would not be easy

But the actual course proved even more painful than anticipated. Th_

initial estimate of $50 million for the entire program rose to $200 millior

for three missions, and the date of the first launch slipped from late 196_

to mid-1966. Weighing 1 773 kilograms and containing more tha_

440 000 parts and 48 kilometers of electrical wiring, the OAO had t(

undergo rigorous qualification and testing procedures that were no

included in the original plan (ref. 116). As one project official explained

NASA was pushing the state of the art, especially in star-tracking; the

problems of integrating the subsystems were solved as they arose an_

were not postponed to await systems testing, and new parts had to b_

added, owing to the effects of high-altitude, high-yield nuclea

explosions set off by the Atomic Energy Commission in 1962 to test thei:

effects on worldwide communications (ref. 117). Most, but not all, of th_

early technical difficulties were overcome. But even as late as the end o

1964, one of the two principal experiments was dropped from the firs

launch.

Yet the early frustrations of building the OAO were nothing a_

compared to the failure of the first launch on April 8, 1966. Liftoff o:

OAO-1 was perfect, but within a few orbits the primary batter2

overheated (probably because of electric arcing), and by April 10, the

mission was given up as lost. Goddard and Grumman immediately bega_

a review of the mission, and on April 21, Newell created a special reviev

board chaired by Robert Garbarini, one of his deputies, to examine th_

design and management of NASA observatory-class spacecraft. Th_

review board examined every facet of the project_management, system

design, manufacturing, reliability, and quality assurance. Issued iJ

October, the Garbarini report conceded that OAO was conceived durinl

an early period of NASA's history and, therefore, could not takq

advantage of advances in the state of the art.* Even so, it was debatablq

whether "even the best of practices could eliminate all the hazards i_

moving forward into previously unexplored areas." (ref. 118.) The repor

"i

* This does not contradict the remark cited earlier that OAO was pushing the state (

the art. It was, but it was against 1960 technology that the OAO project team was doin

the pushing. Once OAO's design was frozen, it was in fact the case that OAO "could n_

take advantage of advances in the state of the art."

128
OF POOR a__ _°_;" A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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FIGURE 40.- The Orbiting Astronomical Observatory. This spacecraft was launched

in 1968 and was managed by the NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center.

went on to make more than 100 recommendations, most of which NASA

accepted. In the area of management, the report recommended that

NASA assign a full-time technical representative to each prime

contractor, centralize all testing at Goddard, and apply the Program

Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) to tracking all phases of the

project.

Based on the Garbarini report, NASA did a "ground up" evaluation

of the OAO design. It replaced the Atlas-Agena launch vehicle with the

more powerful Atlas-Centaur, doubled the Goddard project staff,

redesigned the OAO power system, doubled the computer memory of the

data storage system, and added a special backup system to prevent the

spacecraft from being lost. All this caused the OAO to go from the initial

1 773 kg to 2 000 kg for OAO-2 (launched December 7, 1968) to 2 227

kg for OAO-3 (launched August 21, 1972).*

* Another OAO failed, in November 1970, to reach orbit, because the nose fairing of

the launch vehicle failed to separate.

129
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These changes probably saved the project. OAO-2 and OAO-3

operated for several years, the former from 1968 to 1973, the latter from

1973 to 1981. Both returned vast amounts of data concerning the

composition of interstellar clouds, the relative abundance of different

elements in the interstellar gas, and the existence of stellar winds flowing

from very hot stars. Up to a point, then, the OAO was highly successful.

No doubt, a great deal more could be said about a project as large

and complex as the OAO. But three observations are in order. First, the

OAO is almost a classic model of the technology demonstration program

with long lead times, high uncertainty, and cost overruns. But aside from

the difficulties that dogged the program in its early stages, OAO shows

the ability of a large organization to move quickly down the so-called

learning curve. OAO-2 and OAO-3 were replicas neither of each other

nor of OAO-1. OAO-3, named Copernicus, had a spectrographic

resolution down to 0.005 nanometer and its mirror, which was twice the

diameter of the OAO-2 mirror, could stay pointed toward a star for

several minutes with a maximum deviation of 0.02 arc-second (ref. 119).

Because of the program's complexity, the experimenters, or principal

investigators, could not take a purely passive role. In OAO, for example,

the data acquisition system was so complex that, as one principal

investi ator acknowledged, the task of the astronomer _aSstn°ac;;lrea_tt

g _. • _:..... -_ -,_nerate exneriment cummanu_ _-_ .... v

spacecratt poln},mg.b ,.m!u_,_ ...... ,_._ _tronomical observing program

for execution. "It is nKeLy mat no uu_,_ • ,,o ° ° o _

n lanned in as great a detad over as sustained a period of t_me. has bee p • • "neers talk and

• 20 NASA insisted that sclentlsts and engx (ref 1 .) • " " the most literal

understand each other's language and that scientists, in

sense, master the nuts and bolts of projects.

Second, NASA managers refined, if they did not invent, certair

techniques for controlling these very large projects. One was the adoptior

of reporting systems like PERT and the agency's Managemen

Information and Control System; a second was to pair scientists ant

engineers at each level of the space science program, so that where thq

head of one division was a scientist, his deputy was an engineer; a thir_

was to make a formal distinction between the project manager, who wa

the chief line officer, and the program manager, who developed th

Headquarters guidelines under which the project was run. Man

•technology development agencies have implicitly recognized th!

distinction, but only NASA made it formal. A program, for NASA, is "

related series of undertakings which continues over a period of time .

and which is designed to accomplish a broad scientific or technical goal

NASA's long-range plan..." (ref. 121 .) Thus there was no anomaly in

program manager having only one project to supervise, as was often tl

case. His responsibility was to ensure that the project was not pushed

130
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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the expense of broader goals, while concurrently defending the project at

Headquarters.

Third, the recovery that took place after the OAO-1 failure shows

what could be accomplished by an agency with strong in-house technical

capabilities. Goddard's physical proximity to Headquarters cut both

ways" It may have made access to senior NASA officials a little easier,

but it made it easier for those same officials to find out what had gone

wrong. In the end, what mattered was, as one Goddard official said at a

briefing for the NASA Administrator on OAO-1, the ability of project

staff to "get up there in their [the contractor' s] plant and you are fight over

their shoulder. And if you think their controls man isn't very good, you

go back and get your best controls man to come up with a better idea and

hit him over the head with it." (ref. 122.) Goddard could also draw on

other centers for support. The Lewis Research Center was developing the

Centaur upper stage used for OAO-2 and OAO-3, while the Ames

Research Center was brought in after the OAO-1 failure to help redesign

the spacecraft's control system (ref. 123).

Yet there still remains the question as to whether the OAO program

was the most appropriate way for NASA to use its resources. NASA's

position in 1959 and 1960 was that the agency could handle projects of this

scope and, as a technology development agency,-needed to do so. But in

retrospect some officials, including Newell, came to believe that OAO

had pushed too hard against the state of the art, and that a more modest

program might have met the needs of astronomers sooner and more

cheaply. Many years after leaving NASA, Newell discussed the OAO

with remarkable candor: "The observatory finally proved to be a powerful

astronomical facility. But in retrospect it can be seen that NASA might

have done better to follow the recommendations of its advisors, who

would have preferred to start with a less ambitious astronomy satellite

that would have permitted astronomical observations sooner. Having the

less capable ... satellite sooner, the astronomers would have been

content to wait for the larger one ...... one could detect the feeling

that OAO was a bit out of step. The satellite had been sufficiently difficult

to construct that it had delayed satellite optical.., astronomy for about a

decade, whereas a series of cheaper, simpler satellites could have kept

research moving while work on a larger instrument proceeded. Also, now

that it had come, OAO was well behind both existing telescope

technology and current needs." (ref. 124.)

Perhaps this was not the entire story. Where so much was being

spent on manned projects, it was probably necessary to have at least a few

unmanned scientific projects of the order of OAO to maintain the

appearance of a "balanced" program. Nor was the OAO without progeny.

_ Although the first studies for a large orbiting space telescope were

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Even more crucial to Polaris's success was the ability of SPO to

neutralize opposition and, particularly, to achieve maximum flexibility in

attaining its ends. As Sapolsky notes, the creation of the SPO was of

greater consequence to the Navy than the establishment of Polaris. "The

Navy had undertaken many complex tasks prior to the [Fleet Ballistic

Missile]. It had not previously, however, formed a major subunit whose

sole mission was the development of a single weapon system." (ref. 127.)

How did the SPO achieve this organizational autonomy? The SPO

benefited from the national commitment to a ballistic missile program_ a

commitment similar to those which led to the Manhattan Project and

Apollo. It was relatively easy for the SPO to sell Polaris to Congress and

the public. It was more difficult to sell it within DOD. In order to

accomplish this, the SPO strategy was to co-opt potential critics by

seeking them out and soliciting their advice (for example, the naval

laboratories and outside scientists generally), accommodating the

submarine specialists and the Nuclear Power Directorate under Admiral

Rickover, using its own contractors to sell the project, and focusing on

systems development rather than advancing the state of the art.

"Improvements in subsystems were encouraged, but not allowed to

interfere with the object of meeting ship deployment schedules . . . The

test program was designed to develop a missile system and not to research

its components." (ref. 128.)Contractors were encouraged to avoid any

task which did not contribute to the development of a submarine-launched

ballistic missile.

The attitude of the SPO toward outside scientists and the naval

laboratories shows how the Office could co-opt outside groups while still

keeping them at arm's length. The SPO established the positions of Chief

Scientist and Engineering Consultant, but refused to institute a general

advisory committee of outside scientists which might slow the pace of

development and even remove some of the S PO's control over Polaris.

(For much the same reasons, NASA in 1966 rejected a proposal that it

establish a general advisory committee of outside scientists.) It was also

SPO policy not to use naval laboratories in development work unless no

commercial source was available and the laboratory's technical

competence was superior to that of SPO contractors. SPO avoided using

government laboratories because their behavior could not be controlled as

easily as that of its contractors, and because of the laboratories'

vulnerability to government-wide funding cutbacks (ref. 129).

Another reason for the SPO's success in starting Polaris anc

maintaining control over it was the office's reputation for managerial

innovation. The SPO, using the consulting firm of Booz, Allen ant

Hamilton, invented the Program Evaluation and Review Technique

(PERT) for tracking resources and activities throughout a system

Generally computerized, PERT describes the discrete steps needed tc

134
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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:educe an end item, develops estimates of the time needed to reach an

• .... event in the network and charts a "critical path" of the longest anticipated

: .:, time sequence for realizing each event (ref. 130). When the SPO

_ _ ......: introduced PERT in 1958, it was an immediate success, eventually

becoming a requirement in Defense, NASA, and Atomic Energy

Commission contracts. SPO officials constantly proclaimed the merits of

PERT, and they had every reason to do so. By gaining a reputation for

managerial effectiveness, the SPO could insulate itself still further from

competition from other organizations or, indeed, from any outside

attempt to weaken its control over Polaris.

Yet there is no evidence that PERT by itself had anything to do with

the successful management of Polaris. Neither contractor executives, nor

the technical engineers and evaluators in the SPO, nor the Navy plant

representatives claimed to have used data generated by PERT in their

segment of the project (ref. 131). Its effectiveness was a myth that SPO

officials needed to sell the project. As Sapolsky shows, "... these

techniques either were not applied on a significant scale in the operations

of the Special Projects Office until after the successful test and

deployment of the initial [Fleet Ballistic Missile] submarines, or they

were applied, but did not work, or they were applied and worked, but had

a totally different purpose than that officially described." (ref. 132.)

_ The success of Polaris depended on the ability of the SPO to devise

an organizational structure which combined decentralization with internal

; competition; to fend off potential competitors and to remove the SPO

from the normal chain of command; and to give a role to scientists, other

elements in the Navy and DUD, and to contractors in such a way as not to

jeopardize the Office's power to control the project. The success of the

• SPO in achieving these ends was due rather more to its superb skill in

playing bureaucratic politics than to innovations in management methods.

. Systems Engineering at Bell Laboratories. Both OAO and Polaris

owed a great deal to the concept of systems engineering. As we saw

earlier in this chapter, a large and complex piece of hardware may be

treated for design purposes as parts of an interrelated whole. From the

1930s to the present, Bell Telephone Laboratories has made important

contributions in systems engineering, both in government-sponsored

work and in its internal research. For the government, during the Second

_.

World War, Bell Labs designed the gun director for antiaircraft defense,

perfected techniques for locating submarines and homing torpedoes to

their targets by sounds generated by the submarine, and designed more

than half the radars used by the United States armed forces during the war

(ref. 133). This support continued after the war, with work ranging from

basic physics and chemistry to operations research on guided missile

systems. Bell Labs was also involved in two special projects. The first

was to contribute its research expertise to Sandia Laboratories, set up by

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135
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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the Atomic Energy Commission to develop nuclear weapons and operat6il "'

by Western Electric, the manufacturing arm of AT&T. The second was to_'.i

set up a special dedicated organization, Bellcomm, working for NASA on

systems engineering for the lunar landing.

Before turning to the contributions of Bell Labs, it would be well to

look more closely at what systems engineering entails. As noted earlier,

there is a marked difference between military systems engineering and

civilian applications. For the former, military urgency leads to an

emphasis on very small margins of performance. For the same reason,

military equipment tends to be designed from the bottom up, while in

such civilian areas as telephone systems engineering, there is the

requirement noted by a Bell Labs official, that "any new telephone system

must be compatible with all existing equipment in the telephone

network." (ref. 134.) Unlike operations research, which tries to make the

best use of existing equipment, systems engineering tends to be most

active at the earliest and the latest stages of the design process. In the

former, the engineer studies the overall design concept; in the latter, he

prepares the operating instructions, test procedures, and logistics of the

operating system. What matters, in this formulation, is that the end user

and the ultimate need are in the forefront of the engineer's research. In

systems engineering, there is less emphasis on incremental improvements

and more on exploiting advances in (say) electronics or physics. Systems

engineering "needs new technology to work with." (ref. 135.)

Viewed in this light, the achievement of Bell Labs during and after

the Second World War has been to translate the concept of systems

engineering into operating systems. How was this accomplished? One

answer has to do with the relative ease with which technical people were

able to move from basic and applied research into areas with which they

had no previous connection. For example, during the war, persons whose

previous work had been in telephone and switching and transmission

systems worked to develop microwave systems and radar equipment or

computing devices for fire control (ref. 136). Where fundamental

research was being carried on along a broad front, the boundaries

between civilian and military work were quickly obliterated.

Or consider Bell Lab's work on long-distance transmission. This

continuing development of transmission capability has had to be matched

by other, parallel lines. Some of these areas include"

• Development of solid-state devices from the transistor to the integrated

circuit;

• Materials development_synthetic crystals, magnetic alloys, and

plastics for insulation and weather protection;

• Switching technology, ranging from mechanical stepping relays to

densely packed solid-state devices;

136
A LooK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

......

./ ...

,.-_ - .

Computer development and applications, from computer-assisted

: design to computer operation of complex systems;

.... _. _-.,.• Information theory_the general specification of conditions which

must be met for messages to be transmitted and decoded with

predictable probability of error.

What these cases show is the feedback that occurs must

occur_between fundamental research and engineering design. Research

in solid-state physics and information theory begets improved communications which, in turn, suggest new possibilities in research.

Because of the importance of this synergism, Bell Labs has even located

some of its groups for example, the development-and-design-formanufacture group--in laboratories on Western Electric premises (ref.

137).

A second feature of the work undertaken at Bell Labs has been the

.- importance attached to long-range planning. It is fundamental to define

.... one's objective_to decide what the laboratory or a group within it should

be doing now and perhaps a dozen years downstream. At Bell Labs,

management has often been willing to wait for years before a commercial

application becomes practical. Projects, even major ones, are small,

rarely employing more than a dozen persons. What has characterized

much of Bell Labs' work has been the persistence with which

management has stuck to a certain objective. It will be interesting to see

whether this long-term view of the world survives the changes in AT&T

under the current order of divestiture. One of the advantages of the AT&T

monopoly was that it could, and did, take the long view.

Take the development of electronic switching systems. The first

studies for a "transistor switching system" were begun in 1951 at Bell

' Labs' New York offices and ran parallel to work being done by the

- electronic apparatus development organization. These studies, as well as

r other exploratory work, led to the conclusion that high-speed electronics

_

could provide smaller and less expensive switching systems. At that point

(1954), Western Electric authorized a field trial of an electronic system at

....

company facilities in Morris, Illinois. This trial was a success, in the

sense that it proved the soundness of stored-program control for telephone

_ switching systems; but the Morris system as originally designed was not

put into production, because "a revolution in technology had made

obsolete all its major components." (ref. 138.) Instead, work began on a

parallel effort, using many of the concepts proved at Morris, but

incorporating magnetic memories, newer network elements, and silicon

.. transistor and diode circuits. The Bell System introduced its first

commercial system in 1963, an improved version in 1965, and an

automated government network in 1966. In effect, the lead time from the

'_' :_.....- first exploratory studies and first commercial networks took more than a

_

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137
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THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS '\

dozen years, involved parallel efforts at many of the Laboratofi_;

facilities, led to several false starts and, once on the fight track, resulte

in new services and features.

If we seek to isolate the special features of the more important Be

Labs' projects, they would include the interdependence of fundament_

and applied research, the broad base of knowledge in many discipline..

the continuity of teamwork among small groups of scientists and researc

engineers, the willingness of the sponsoring organizations to commit the

resources to projects with very long lead times, and the close workin

relationships estabI-ished with the ultimate user, Western Electric. £

these features, the most important was the interdependence of basic an

applied work--and not at this laboratory only.

In this and the two preceding chapters, we have looked at technolog

development institutions as a whole--their common features, the

problems, and the ways in which they interpret their charters. We no'

turn to the roles of the professional Staff, the men and women who are th

laboratory. Reversing the Marxist formulation, we can say that t[

overwhelmingly important job of the research administrator is to mox

from the administration of things to the management of people_

rather, to manage with them.

• . .,

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138
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CHAPTER VII

The Management of the Professional Staff

Employment Patterns Among Federal Scientists and Engineers

The vitality of a technology development organization resides in its

professional scientists and engineers. This group proposes the ideas that

are starting points for development programs, examines their validity in

the light of fundamental scientific principles, and devises strategies by

which ideas are converted, step by step, into operating systems. Other

elements of the organization are essential--skilled technicians, shop

machinists and electricians, administrative personnel. But unless the

professional scientists and engineers function imaginatively and

competently, the organization will lose momentum, stop generating

worthwhile ideas, and either cease to achieve the goals set by the

sponsoring agency or lower them in favor of what is considered

attainable. In this chapter we will review the tactics of managers and

senior officials in technology development to maintain high levels of staff

performance. Specifically, we want to provide at least tentative answers

to these questions" How does a laboratory acquire and retain a competent

staff? What are the effects of aging on research? How do scientists and

engineers make the transition to management? How important is

professional mobility, both between divisions within a laboratory and

between laboratories? Finally, how do managers and the officials to

whom they report evaluate the quality of research within their

organization?

Before these questions can be answered, we would like to make our

assumptions about personnel management explicit. Our first assumption

is that there are no personnel policies which are guaranteed to work across

organizational lines. Continuing education may or may not work;

indefinite employment or term employment may or may not work;

rotation of staff between divisions may or may not work. It is as if, in the

best laboratories, the organizational culture is strong enough to impose

itself on any program of personnel management.

This brings us to our second point. Personnel issues are synonymous

with the organization's goals. Arnold Deutsch notes that: "... the

• primary motivating factor in job selection by technical people is the

139
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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nature of the work itself. The interest, the challenge to the technical

abilities, and the opportunities for significant professional achievement

offered by the work to be done determine whether or not an engineer or

scientist will consider a position." (ref. 139.) Consequently, nothing less

than a thorough understanding of the functions of a given laboratory will

enable one to decide which personnel policies are effective and why.

Personnel management is affected by (for example) levels of agenc_

funding and the discretion of laboratory directors in spending what is

allocated; the diversification of laboratories into work for others; the

advent of new technologies which suggest new programs; and the

competition for the brightest graduates that government laboratories fac_

from industry and the universities. Many personnel theorists hav(

somehow forgotten that since the environment of any organization i_

constantly changing, no theory which ignores this truism will hold water.

Our third point has to do with nature of this environment, and ma!

be summed up thus" Despite declines in funding for nondefense basi_

research, the aging of staff in Federal laboratories that have experience(

manpower restrictions, and the tendency of agencies to locate their nev

programs in existing facilities rather than creating new ones, the function

of the Federal scientist and engineer are not likely to change greatly. A

to the relative decline in Federal support for research and technologl

development, the evidence is clear enough since 1967. Only in the las

few years have we started to reverse this trend, and it will take some tim,

for the positive results to become apparent.

Consider, for instance, nine of the national laboratories operate

under contract to the Energy Department (table 5).

These figures show that for seven of the nine laboratories there wa

little or no growth in staffing during the preceding decade and that the tw

exceptions the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore Natiom

Laboratories _ were and are heavily involved in weapons developmen

At NASA the decline in the work force has been even steeper, with a dro

of 30 percent, from over 30 000 to 22 000 between fiscal years 1971 an

1982. Possibly of more significance is the rise in the proportion (

professional employees to the total workforce (fig. 42). From thes

figures it is apparent that scientists and engineers alone comprise just ow

half of NASA permanent employees and that, combined wil

professional administrators, they account for two-thirds of permane_

employees. A further breakdown of the figures illustrates two importa_

trends. The first is the increase in the number of supervisors as

percentage of total NASA employees. In fiscal 1982, there w_

approximately 1 supervisor for every 6.7 employees agencywide, whi

at Headquarters the ratio was almost 1 to 5. At many governme

laboratories there has also been a decline in the number of technicia_

available to support professional staff.

140
4_

Table 5. Full-time Staff Equivalents from June 1967 to September 1982 for Nine National Laboratories*

Ames ANL BNL LANL LBL LLNL ORNL PNL Sandia Total

June 30, 1967 635 5 000 3 400 4 014 2 920 5 629 4 870 2 413 8 214 37 095

June 30, 1968 635 5 200 3 400 4 120 2 792 5 898 5 040 2 617 8 149 37 851

June 30, 1969 570 5 000 3 350 4 330 2 697 5 937 4 850 2 619 8 179 37 532

June 30, 1970 530 4 600 3 200 4 428 2 545 5 568 4 619 2 372 7 581 35 443

June 30, 1971 455 4 435 2 894 4 168 2 342 5 276 4 345 842 7 291 32 048

June 30, 1972 410 4 356 2 542 4 183 2 342 5 538 4 143 935 7 223 31 672

June 30, 1973 380 3 982 2 621 4 501 2 002 5 233 4 048 1 008 6 401 30 176

June 30, 1974 365 4 114 2 472 4 585 2 148 5 445 3 726 1 213 6 477 30 545

September 30, 1975 395 4 570 2 609 5 062 2 122 5 704 4 255 1 328 6 539 32 584

September 30, 1976 405 4 719 2 829 5 565 2 294 6 257 4 445 1 506 7 022 35 042

September 30, 1977 440 4 887 3 049 6 035 2 905 6 731 4 710 1 825 7 264 37 846

September 30, 1978 443 5 045 3 304 6 370 3 235 7 035 4 980 2 127 7 478 40 017

September 30, 1979 448 5 002 3 491 6 802 3 350 7 087 5 001 2 169 7 618 40 968

September 30, 1980 463 4 925 3 604 6 938 3 278 7 313 5 025 2 249 7 847 41 642

September 30, 1981 479 4 727 3 502 7 165 3 009 7 717 5 073 2 156 8 018 41 804

September 30, 1982 427 4 200 3 308 7 000 2 500 7 525 4 775 2 050 7 677 39 487

* Estimated. Some of the data consist of FY averages.

Source: Final Report of the Multiprogram Laboratory Panel, Energy Research Advisory Board, Vol. II (Oak Ridge, Tenn.' Oak Ridge

National Laboratory, September 1982), p. 24.

Key:

Ames = Ames Laboratory

ANL-Argonne National Laboratory

BNL-Brookhaven National Laboratory

LANL-Los Alamos National Laboratory

LBL = Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

LLNL-Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

ORNL-Oak Ridge National Laboratory

PNL- Pacific Northwest Laboratory

Sandia- Sandia Laboratories

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THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Non- 1977

Professional

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Professional Administration

14.8%

3 499

Non- 1 982

Professional

/ \6.2_ I

Professional "_ Administration

16.3%

Professional 3 462 Professional

Engineering

50.7% ]

1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982

Professional 15 043 14 938 14 705 14 749 14 418 14 208

Non-Professional 8 526 8 231 7 928 7 864 7 426 6 978

Total 23 569 23 169 22 633 22 613 21 844 21 186

% Professional 63.8 64.5 65.0 65.2 65.2 67.0

Source: NASA, Personnel Programs Division, The Civil Service Work Force as of September

30, 1982, p. 3.

FIGURE 42.- This figure shows the number of permanent civil service employees in

NASA and how they are divided into various occupational groups.

The other notable trend is in the age distribution of scientists and

engineers which is, of course, a consequence of the manpowe]

reductions. In this respect, NASA is typical (fig. 43).

Since 1975, there has been a quite dramatic increase in the averag_

age of scientists and engineers employed by NASA. Note particularly th_

decrease in the number of scientists and engineers in the 30 to 34 and 3_'

to 39 categories precisely the ages when the most productive researct

is being done.

The Problem of the Aging Staff

Why is the aging of the professional staff considered a problem?

Most research and technology development organizations seek to bring in

those who will contribute to the store of new technology. Recent

graduates with advanced degrees have been trained to attack problems

using the most advanced instrumentation, design concepts, and computer

techniques. The received wisdom is that younger candidates are likely to

142
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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25

20

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1975 1982

t3.2

20.6

22.4 23.0

Number of

Scientists and

Average Age Engineers

82 44.5 10 746

"81 44.0 10 923

'80 43.9 11 210

"79 44.2 11 284

'75 42.1 11 665

"70 39.0 13 837

Under

25 25/29 30/34 35/39 40/44 45/49 50/54 55/59 60 & Over

Number:

1982 328 710 660 1 t 159 2 060 2 475 1 927 966 461

1985 1:53 521 1 537 2408 2608 1 962 t 70t 594 181

Source: NASA, Personnel Programs Division, The Civil Service Work Force as of September

30, 1982, p. 15.

FIGURE 43.- This figure shows the age profile of NASA civil service scientists and

engineers in 1975 and in 1982.

be more productive than older employees, and the hiring age distribution

reflects this preference. Note that this preference is not a matter of

discrimination on the basis of age, but rather that the desired qualities are

usually found among younger employees.

However, there are some functions that can more effectively be

carried out by persons with broad experience. Project management is .an

obvious example, since it involves coordinating the work of many

contractors and subcontractors. Also, as programs change, .an organization needs to find expertise not represented within its present staff. Thus,

.some new employees will be hired at mid-career or beyond.

In fact, most laboratories have a spectrum of needs, ranging from

basic research to project management to the continuing administration of

the laboratory itself.. There is, then, no single approach to hiring and

retaining technical personnel, because no single approach can meet .all the

needs of a large organization moving simultaneously on many fronts. At

Bell Labs, for instance, there appear to be several concurrent policies

calculated to maintain a high level of competence. Bell Labs

predominantly hires young degreed scientists and engineers out of the

best universities; weeds out by termination those who do not come up .to

Bell Labs' standards of performance within three to five years; continues

to let go those whose performance lags in mid-career; and retains a core

of highly qualified people up to the mandatory retirement age of 65.

:143
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Such policies inevitably raise this question" How many new

employees does a given research and technology development organization need to hire each year to maintain a high level of effectiveness?

Where basic research is a source of new ideas or programs involving

highly sophisticated techniques, an influx of new employees is essential.

In a study carried out by staff at Lawrence Livermore National

Laboratory in 1970, the data in table 6 were gathered, showing the

average turnover rates in fifteen research and technology developmenl

organizations.

Table 6. Professional Personnel Turnover in Research and Technology

Development Organizations

Organization

(5-Year Averages through 1970)

Aerospace Corporation

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Lockheed Missile & Space Company

Bell Laboratories

Standard Oil Company of California, b

Engineering Department

Annual Percentage of Professional Staff a

Hired and Terminated and

Transferred In Transferred Out

7.1 12.1

8.9 10.2

9.8 13.2

11.0 9.1

19.8 16.8

(10-Year Averages through 1970)

Argonne National Laboratory

Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory

Naval Ordnance Laboratory

Chevron Research Company

Sandia Corporation

Applied Physics Laboratory

Lawrence Livermore Laboratory

Battelle Memorial Institute-Columbus

RAND Corporation

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

6.3 6.2

7.5 4.1

8.4 7.1

9.2 10.8

9.7 7.6

9.8 6.7

9.9 7.5

11.1 10.0

13.2 13.6

17.8 10.5

a Includes all full-time, regular, technical, professional employees who were addc

to the staff by any means and those who left for any reason, including layoff. Tt

percentages were calculated for each year separately and then averaged. Some figurq

were based on calendar and some on fiscal years.

b Includes those engineers who, after hiring and training, were transferred to oth

company departments.

Source: C. M. Van Atta, W. D. Decker, T. Wilson, Professional Personnel Policies al

Practices of R&D Organizations (Livermore, Cal." Lawrence Laboratory, Decemb

1971), p. 10.

Many of the organizations listed above reported more people hire

than terminated and were in a period of growth. For example, Bell Lat

144
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

. had known sustained growth throughout its history, save for a five-year

. ,

_,_ ... ,;;" period in the 1930s In such periods growth plus normal attrition may

' ":i .::..- provide sufficient vacancies to accommodate an adequate hiring rate. But

•

•.:,_i"-:i:-; where there is no real growth, the hiring rate may drop to only three or

_i_i;i-i:ii._i._ iii!i:, ._ four percent annually unless management stimulates attrition by selective termination. On the limited evidence available, an annual influx of six to

.....__!-._,._._.i_.eight percent is needed to avoid deteriorating performance.

.:.., :,..:.,._ During periods of rapid growth, the opposite condition may

;i-_'i_..ii,._-_' prevail too many new employees for the organization to assimilate

i._._..:_.i_ _ -'.,-_ efficiently, resulting in inadequate supervision and inefficient use of

• .(. :2 ".i.

._._<._i_-_i_ • resources. Rapid growth is followed by moderate or no growth, and

::,....,.:,...._-_._- ..... errors in hiring during the preceding period become obvious and present

;.".ii_':. ' management with difficult choices. To compete with other comparable

organizations, senior managers may have to terminate incompetent

professional employees and shake up the organizational structure.

. To sum up the argument to this point. Within Federal laboratories

' . and laboratories operated under contract to Federal agencies, we have

.... "_: noted the following" a decline in total employment at various Federal

!-i_:_":(_!_)_ laboratories combined with a rise in the percentage of professional

employees, a steady rise in the average age. of scientists and engineers,

.... .... and a drop in the number of employees per supervisor. These figures

._-... _-:'_ ', suggest a sluggishness a stagnation, even in bringing new blood

..... into the organization. But against these data, there are certain

_ considerations which tend to mitigate their impact. The first consideration

.-_ '_ has to do with the effects of an aging staff. It is true that in scientific

: research, the most significant work is done before the age of forty and in

development work, before the age of fifty; that performance tends to

,_ _._ decline in the forties as employees fail to keep up with advancing

- technology; and that sometimes it becomes necessary to make older

. , employees take early retirement to open up positions for applicants with

specialized skills. But this is scarcely the whole story; professional

• ,

obsolescence is at most a statistical tendency, not an iron law. For one

_-. _-. thing, personnel chiefs at some major industrial laboratories have denied

• _ , ,

.-_. .... that there is a significant relation between age and value to the

- organization (ref. 140). More important, the attitudes of a laboratory's

• _ senior managers may themselves determine how productive older

professionals are. If the laboratory tries to maintain a low average age and

an "up or out" policy in promotions, older staff members may indeed feel

. undervalued and their work will suffer accordingly.

• _" :: There has also been muchresearch sponsored on the effects of aging

•.. within organizations "industrial gerontology," as it has been called.

"' . On the evidence, productivity need not decline after the age of forty.

_. ", Indeed, it appears that after fifty productivity tends to climb. As the

_ " Lawrence Livermore study mentioned earlier notes" "... contributions

145
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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made during this late period are usually more 'productive' than 'creative'

... a pulling together of one's life work, guidance of younger

professional employees, etc. The older employee is generally secure in

his position, has fewer family pressures, and is willing to take risks again

• . . Older scientists continue to be useful to the organizations in many

ways despite their drop in strictly creative scientific achievement.

Although they tend to produce a lesser amount of major creative work

than their younger counterparts, they do continue to produce over the

span of their careers. When the working environment is otherwise

favorable, only two conditions can effectively keep older employees from

performing worthwhile creative tasks" negative attitudes and failure tc

try." (ref. 141.)

These conclusions must be regarded with caution. In the literature ol

the social science, it is rare to find a study unambiguously supporting

theory the effects of school busing, the negative income tax, ant

medical care policy immediately come to mind for which equal ant

contradictory data are not available.

Yet there is evidence that some scientists those who are highl2

motivated to begin with, and (equally important) who are afforded the

opportunity to work on important research continue to produc_

throughout their careers. Management can encourage these people in_

number of ways: rotating assignments, offering continuing education

and sponsoring some individuals for leaves to study at a leadinl

management school or the Federal Executive Institute. It is not, then

intuitively obvious that aging and obsolescence are synonymous if th

sponsoring agency provides for at least some influx of new staff, if ther

is a spectrum of opportunities within the organization, _ some scientist

and engineers can be transformed into managers (a point to which w

shall return), and if the agency can devise ways to measure th

productivity of research as a step to increasing it.

Research Productivity in the Federal System

In the context of this chapter, productivity implies several nc

necessarily compatible things. On one level, productivity means th

automation of work, the supercession of manual effort by automate

instruments, or the use of techniques like simulation programs whic

reduce the burden on expensive test facilities. So productivity ma

include any of the following" the use of computer-aided design t

custom-design very large scale integrated circuit chips; the use (

interactive graphic design systems in preparing production drawings; th

programming of wind tunnel tests from startup to shutdown; t_

development of laser flow diagnostics; and the use of remotely pilote

research vehicles for particularly hazardous tests (ref. 142). On a deep_

146
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

.,..

• ,-;"

level, productivity refers to the quality of the research carried out at the

laboratory; in turn, this cannot be isolated from the sponsoring agency's

mission. Personnel management and a sense of mission are reciprocal; an

agency without a strong sense of mission will not keep its best research

people for long. The problem in evaluating research productivity is

actually three-fold. It is difficult to measure something as intangible as an

idea; research scientists, like other professionals, resist attempts by

non-scientists to evaluate their output; and any evaluation of research

productivity must use multiple criteria, instead of a simple-minded

enumeration of research products (ref. 143.)

In any discussion of research management, we are ultimately driven

to consider the sponsoring agency's goals. We have discovered that a rise

in the average age of professional staff need not be a disaster, that the

measurement of research productivity is difficult, and _ as we must now

disclose _ that there are not simply "scientists and engineers," but

professionals of very different temperaments who may not coexist

peacefully in the same laboratory. There are, on the one hand, those

scientists who go deeper and deeper into a single area of research, and for

whom the institutional setting within which the work is done is a matter of

indifference. They are as likely to do their best work in a Swiss patent

office, a prisoner-of-war camp, or the laboratory of a small college as in a

large multidisciplinary research installation. The kind of people who feel

at home at NASA or the multiprogram laboratories of the Energy

Department are quite different: They are more likely to go from discipline

to discipline while fitting their investigations into the content of some

larger mission or project. It is this kind of scientist or engineer who,

within the same laboratory, will move from aeronautical engineering to

an analysis of the physics of lunar cratering; from advanced control

theory to design techniques for control systems for powered lift aircraft;

or from information theory to developing methods of noise suppression

and error correction in deciphering telemetry signals (ref. 144). It is these

persons who can move freely between disciplines, who can see practical

applications in the most abstruse research, who are the essence of the

laboratory's reasons for being. And the number of such researchers is not

large _ perhaps one or, at most, two dozen in a facility of 3 000 people.

But the distinctions between one kind of scientist and another go

even deeper than we have indicated. The scientist who moves easily

between disciplines is perhaps more an ideal type than the norm. Instead,

scientists seem to fall into one or another category, depending on whether

their work is weighted to fundamental science or to the application of

their findings to their agency's interests (ref. 145). Scientists in the first

category are more apt than those in the other to demand a large degree of

freedom in selecting research projects, to identify more with the scientific

profession than with the employing organization, and to work on research

147
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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activities which are organizationally separate from development.* In the

other category, the most productive scientists those who have had al_

opportunity to translate research findings into useful applications are

more likely to desire promotion into management positions than either the

least productive scientists in their own category or the most productive

scientists in fundamental research. It is the business of the laboratory'.,

management to accommodate both categories under the same roof.

We seem to have drifted rather far from the nuts and bolts ot

personnel management, but in fact this is not so. Taking the perspective

of a laboratory director, we have tried to analyze personnel issues in thei]

full complexity. After all, it is the director's responsibility tc

accommodate basic and applied researchers, and to deal with perceptions

that one group is gaining at the other's expense; to sponsor discretionar5

research; to maintain at least the minimum complement of professional

staff needed for worthwhile research (the opposite problem too large

professional staff is seldom a problem nowadays!); to evaluate the

work done; and to decide how much of the laboratory's manpower car

profitably be diverted to work for others. (To anticipate our conclusions ir

Chapter XI, work for others only succeeds where it has a particulaJ

relevance to the laboratory's mission. Additionally, laboratories with

good record in basic research are better able to diversify than thos(

handling large development projects, because the work of the former i,

more apt to spill over into a variety of disciplines.) The director can dc

much to maintain the vitality of the laboratory, whether this involve_

changing assignments frequently, identifying candidates for managemen

positions, instituting leave programs for the professional development o:

people, retraining people and the like.

But even the most capable director can do only so much. To repeat

Personnel policies cannot be appreciably changed or even understoo(

apart from other policies which determine how the Federal Governmen

gets its research and technology development done. And dissatisfactio_

with these policies is growing. From the Bell Report of 1962 to th_

reports of the Defense Science Board in the 1960s and 1970s to the recen

report (May 1983) of the White House Science Council, the diagnose',

have been much the same, although the more recent the report, the more

//:

*These attitudes are more characteristic of highest productivity scientists within eac

category. Thus while in one survey 66 percent of the most productive scientists in the fir_

category regarded selecting research projects as "extremely important," only 1

percent of the least productive scientists agreed. And while only 19 percent of the mo:

productive scientists desired promotion into management positions, 52 percent of the lea..

productive did so. See Howard M. Vollmer, "Evaluating Two Aspects of Quality i

Research Program Effectiveness," in M. C. Yovits et al., eds., Research Progra_

Effectiveness (New York: Gordon & Breach, 1966), pp. 160-161.

148
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

_ caustic the criticism" too much red tape and too little discretionary

..... authority at the workbench level; salaries low in comparison to salaries " ._, ; 7_.

i.:: paid by industry for comparable work; inability of many laboratories,

-: :: particularly those under civil service rules to attract, motivate and retain

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their sponsoring agencies (ref. 146).* And up to a point, the proposed

remedies have been the same" make government salaries "comparable" to

those offered by private industry; eliminate excessive layers of

management; delegate more authority to laboratory directors to make

decisions and control funds; and give the directors of government-owned,

contractor-operated facilities complete authority to set and carry out

personnel policy (ref. 147).

Considering this unanimity of opinion, this dissatisfaction with

things as they are (or have been), it is surprising that so little has changed

in twenty years. At contractor-operated facilities especially, the freedom

from civil service requirements seems not to have produced the intended

good effects. There seems to be a rule that, with time, contractoroperated and government-operated laboratories tend to become more like

each other. The reason is quite simple" In each case, operating funds

ultimately derive from congressional appropriations, and the senior

officials of sponsoring agencies are held accountable for their proper use.

The failure to understand this is at the root of the conflict between many

contractor-operated facilities and their sponsors for example, NASA

and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). When JPL's functions were

transferred to NASA in 1958, JPL officials assumed that the Laboratory

would remain a quasi-independent institution working for one principal

client in this case, NASA rather than Army Ordnance. But NASA

officials saw matters very differently. To them, JPL would take on the

functions of a NASA center, although with a freedom not available to

centers staffed entirely by government employees. These two views were

irreconcilable and, under pressure from NASA, JPL did become more

like a government laboratory, especially after 1964. JPL created the

position of general manager, dropped the clause from its contract with

NASA requiring tasks to be set by mutual agreement, and agreed to be

paid on a cost-plus-award-fee basis rather than by an annual lump sum.

The case of JPL can stand for many others. In practice, no Federal agency

has been willing or able to give its contractor-operated facilities complete

* One criticism found in the Bell Report seems to have dropped out

recently namely, that the Government was contracting out essential functions that

were properly its responsibility. That less is heard of the problem twenty years later may

mean one of two things: that the problem has been addressed and resolved, or that the

fusion of government and contractor work has advanced so far that no separation of

functions is really possible.

149
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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independence to set policies within the framework of its mission, even

when there were no specific regulations to prevent this.

These conclusions will strike readers as pessimistic. But there's the

rub" Federal laboratories, like other large organizations, do not change

quickly. Without recognition of this fact for fact it is there is not

the slightest possibility that the recommendations of the latest panel will

have any greater effect than its predecessors'. Within the interstices of the

Federal personnel system, laboratory directors can do much to start or

redirect work, move younger staff into management positions, and,

through a variey of tools, breathe life into the laboratory and maintain its

technical competence. To understand the limits and possibilities of

personnel management in a government environment, we shall look at the

subject from an agency perspective. Specifically, we shall examine

NASA in the 1970s and a recent experiment by two Naval centers to

simplify their personnel management systems by introducing more

flexibility. In this context, flexibility includes the ability to link pay to

performance, drop outdated position standards, increase turnover of low

performers, use the agency's block of senior level and excepted positions

to retain the most desirable people, and move people between different

divisions or even different laboratories within the same agency.

One word of caution. Many of the methods that make for flexibility

are available. Many technology development agencies already have

authority to retain certain appropriations until they are spent, reprogram

within their accounts, use a percentage of laboratory funds for

discretionary research, and terminate unsatisfactory employees. But as

mentioned earlier, the theoretical freedom to do certain things is usually

limited by the accountability of Federal agencies for the ways in which

public monies are spent. They are limited still further by the authority of

the Office of Personnel Management to set policy for executive agencies

and by the authority of the Office of Management and Budget to set

personnel ceilings for the same agencies. At every turn it seems as if the

checks and balances of the Federal personnel system work against the

interests of the government laboratory. Let us see if this is the case.

Two Case Studies in Personnel Management

NASA in the 1970s. One of the severest tests to which a large

mission-oriented agency can be put is how it reacts to the completion of

its original mission. Confronted by this problem as early as 1967, NASA

responded by closing its Electronics Research Center, cutting back at

most of the other centers, and creating a Personnel Management Review

Committee of senior employees to advise the agency on personnel

matters. But as NASA moved into the 1970s and cutbacks instigated by

150
A LooK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

' the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) continued without letup,

_. .... the agency decided to take a much harder look at its personnel

_i .:: management. The evidence, as shown by the work of internal task forces

, :"_,._ __.. :_ and contractor reports, reveals a consensus about NASA's problems and

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some possible approaches to solving them.

As early as 1966, an agency task force had concluded that certain

options were no longer available to NASA for matching manpower with

programs (ref. 148). Every subsequent review of NASA personnel

accepted this conclusion as a starting point for its own investigations. The

task force dismissed out of hand the possibility of mass transfers between

centers; the conditions that had led to the transfer of the Space Task

Group from the Langley Research Center to the new Manned Spacecraft

Center at Houston in 1961 no longer existed. Transfers of individuals

(unless voluntary) were even less likely to succeed because of the morale

problems such moves usually created. Reductions in force were to be

viewed as a means of enabling a center to move "from one step in

technology to the next," but they were a poor way of redistributing

manpower. In the end, the task force endorsed three methods of matching

personnel to programs. It cautiously approved the concept of assigning

tasks where the manpower was available _ cautiously, because each

center had its special capability and because "the prime interest of a

center can properly change only very gradually." The task force also

approved using attrition to move slots between centers and the "float" (the

gap between authorized and filled positions) to handle emergencies (ref.

149).

What these recommendations amounted to was a consensus that

some of the methods available to NASA for shaping its programs were, in

effect, either unusable or unlikely to do much good. The problem, in the

eyes of officials and the panels that advised them, was compounded by

government-wide policies limiting the ability of officials to exercise their

discretion. Among these policies were veterans preference, retreat rights,

by which a senior employee whose job was abolished could "bump" a

lower grade employee, the inability of agencies to retire older, marginal

workers, and the use of position controls by OMB as a budgeting

mechanism. Without exaggerating, we believe that these policies are

almost as dominant now as they were a decade ago. Government reforms,

notably the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, have simply not yet had

the good effects intended. It is still the case that executive agencies

(NASA among them) are bound by the position controls imposed by

OMB; that attempts to institute a new system of performance appraisal

have left most managers confused and uncertain; and that the creation of a

Senior Executive Service, a corps of high-level managers accountable for

their successes and failures, has not fulfilled its purpose owing to the cap

on salaries (ref. 150).

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THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTION S

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Perhaps the initial hopes as to what these reforms might accomplish

were unrealistic. But the principal reason why these reforms fell short of

expectations was that they ran up against certain political realities. It is

unlikely that OMB would agree to the permanent elimination of

manpower ceiling controls, or government unions to seniority rights, or

Congress to the closing of some installations in order to preserve the jobs

of employees elsewhere. Instead, research and technology development

agencies have had to content themselves with modest incremental

changes in their personnel management, while seeking permission from

the Office of Personnel Management to conduct small-scale experiments

to determine if changes in personnel regulations might lead to greater

efficiency.

Since 1967 to 1968, NASA has sought to make the best use of

certain powers vested in its senior officials. First, NASA has required of

its centers that each have definite roles and missions; this, as we saw in

Chapter IV, was what led NASA to assign responsibility for short-haul

aeronautical research to the Ames Research Center and for long-haul

aeronautical research to the Langley Research Center. Second, NASA

has come to rely more heavily than before on the use of support

contractors to shoulder the burdens caused by declining personnel

ceilings. It is not that NASA is using more support contractors now than it

was at the high point of Apollo. Rather, NASA has drawn a much sharper

line between so-called "government functions," which may not be

contracted out, and everything else. NASA's position was set forth

lucidly in a 1976 staff paper: "... all functions except certain

fundamental 'Government functions' have been at least partially

contracted in NASA as long as improper supervision of contractor

employees by Government employees was not required and there was no

significant cost differential between the civil service mode and the

support contractor mode ... It is clear ... that support contract

manpower has become an essential in-house resource. Support

contracting provides an effective.., way of carrying out certain routine

operations to 'keep the plant going' at NASA centers and also a valuable

flexibility in meeting fluctuating program workloads with minimum

disruption to other activities at the Centers." (ref. 151 .)

This policy reserved to NASA employees functions that they may

not delegate: responsibility for general management, external affairs,

resources, procurement, and, most important, determining the work to be

done. But it left to the agency sufficient authority to provide common

support services to a number of divisions, rather than having each

division provide them separately.

A third area for NASA officials to control was career development

identifying their best people and, in particular, grooming those

scientists and engineers who wanted to make the transition tc

152
A Loo_ AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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management. To find and develop these professionals meant moving on

several fronts" improving the agency's personnel management information system so that it contained data on what employees actually did and

how well they were doing it, rather than relying on the formal (and often

inaccurate) position classification system; encouraging inter-center

transfers and selecting employees for tours of duty at Headquarters;

stressing the importance of executive development, assigning responsibility for it to a very senior official, and keeping a confidential roster of key

jobs and promising middle managers identified as top management

potential; and devising training programs for staff whose skills were

becoming obsolescent (ref. 152).

This matter of identifying future managers among professional staff

needs some elaboration. At the NASA centers most successful scientists

and engineers must eventually decide whether to remain in research or

take on management responsibilities even though, officially, both

career paths have equal merit. As a kind of rule of thumb, to be on the fast

track one should be a branch or division chief by the early thirties, and a

center director by the early forties. Some professional staff already have

that loyalty to the organization rather than their technical discipline which

is a prerequisite for good managers. For others for example, those

people who are technically competent but are somewhat reluctant to take

the plunge and become managers the transition is clearly more

difficult. It is not easy to take on the problems of a supervisor and retain

the skills needed to step back into the role of the scientist or engineer. The

specialist must switch his loyalty from his profession to his organization;

he must learn to work more through others; he must become an expert in

organizational procedures, while having few rules on which to fall back

(ref. 153). Moreover, among engineers particularly, there is a kind of

"instrumentalist" approach, an often unarticulated faith that organization

and managerial problems are amenable to technical fixes, and that

"politics" is an excrescence in a supposedly value-free technical

organization. The engineer preparing to become a manager must often

begin by consciously striving to overcome the effects of a narrowly

technical education.

As important as identifying and training staff for management

positions are, it is equally important that the agency recognize how

difficult the transition process normally is (ref. 154). This was the

principal finding of a study commissioned by NASA and the National

Institutes of Health from the National Academy of Public Administration

in 1971. The study also noted a defect of the civil service selection

system" Where scientists and engineers believed (rightly or wrongly) that

the only path to promotion and salary advancement was through

managerial assignments, they often took on work for which they were

unprepared. What emerged from the investigations of the study team

153
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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were the recommendations that the selection of managers be a continuous

process, and that agencies use a variety of tactics internships,

supervisory training programs to prepare employees for managerial

roles. Implicit in the study's recommendations was the philosophy that,

indeed, many are called but few are chosen, precisely because so few

professionals choose themselves.

An Experiment in Federal Personnel Management. Is the Federal

personnel system a shield or a target? Does the system permit any

deviation from its rules? Every system has room for variances from the

norm but, if too numerous, the system ceases to be a system. In fact,

Federal personnel regulations do tolerate certain freedoms. There is an

entire category of "excepted" positions, which is just what the term

implies positions excepted from the regular civil service screening and

classification procedures. All large agencies have them and, indeed,

regard them as one of their most valuable resources. From the beginning

NASA officials fought hard to extend their authority to fill such positions

"by persuading Congress to revise the (number) of excepted positions,

hiring nonquota* personnel where excepted personnel were unavailable,

reserving (as far as possible) a certain number of positions for 'quick

hires' of executives from outside the agency, and doing what they could

to keep the center directors and program associate administrators at the

highest levels authorized by the various salary acts." (ref. 155.) But such

positions seldom comprise more than two percent of an agency's

permanent employees; and even if the percentage were higher, it would

not change the current system at all. What would really be interesting

would be an effort at modifying the system to give laboratory officials

greater discretions in hiring, promoting, and retention. Absent a national

emergency, it is unlikely that such an overhaul would be permitted.

There are, however, intermediate steps which some agencies can

take. Without any changes in the law, agencies could rewrite the

contracts governing their contractor-operated facilities to give the director

complete freedom to set personnel policies (ref. 156). But if such

authority were given, it might well lead to the wholesale conversion of

laboratories from government to contractor operation. Another possibility

is to permit agencies to conduct small-scale experiments with a simplified

personnel system. The 1978 Civil Service Reform Act mentioned earlier

makes this possible" It authorizes up to ten demonstration projects to

determine if a simplified system would lead to greater efficiency (ref.

157). It should be stressed that these projects are quite limited in scope.

They are limited to a maximum of 5 000 employees; they may not waive

* Nonquota positions are a category of scientific and research positions which do not

count against an agency's block of supergrade (the old GS-16/18) positions.

154
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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leave, insurance, annuity, Hatch Act, or equal employment opportunity

regulations; and they are limited to five years. To date, the Office of

Personnel Management has approved only one project. _This is a joint

project begun in 1980 and continuing to the present of the Naval

Ocean Systems Center in San Diego and the Naval Weapons Center at

China Lake, California.

Clearly, any assessment of a project which is not yet completed

would be premature. The avowed purpose of this project is to address

problems acknowledged to be widespread. These include outdated

position standards, the inability of supervisors to measure employee

effectiveness, lack of the right incentives (including merit pay), and the

adverse effects of reductions in force on good performers and newly-hired

employees. Under project guidelines, the position classification system is

to be simplified and made more flexible; performance appraisal will be

linked closely to compensation and organizational effectiveness; pay will

be linked to performance, with employees who exceed performance

expectations receiving salary increases exceeding government-wide

comparability increases; while performance will be "a primary criterion

in the retention process while retaining tenure, veterans preference, and

length-of-service factors." (ref. 158.) To repeat: This project represents a

modest step toward rationalizing the existing personnel system. What it

promises is the establishment of performance criteria to be used in

evaluating the project's anticipated effects. Thus flexibility of workload

assignments can be measured by the cost, quantity, and quality of

recruits; increased turnover of low performers by the turnover of critical

employees; retention of high performers by the overall retention rates;

and increased recruitment success by the cost per recruit and recruit

quality. Should the project succeed that is, if the anticipated effects

occur the possibilities for change throughout the Federal service are

evident.

Conclusions

The complexity of professional personnel policies is not so great as

to make generalizations impossible. If anything, the opposite is true.

There is, in fact, a wide consensus within the Federal community that

there are serious problems in the aging of professional staff, in the

perceived lack of authority by laboratory directors to hire and fire, in that

inflexibility in adapting regulations to changing conditions which is one

of the system's salient features hampering the conduct of Federal

technology development. Rather than repeat what has already been said

about these matters, we will conclude with some remarks about the

special nature of personnel management in a laboratory environment.

155
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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The presence of a few individuals of exceptional talent has, to a very

large degree, been responsible for the success (and even the existence) of

outstanding research and technology development organizations. It is not

the function of the laboratory to be "'representative," to be a cross section

of the population, but to nurture exceptional talent wherever it may be

found. A technology development organization that cannot tolerate and

nurture a few eccentrics is halfway toward rigor mortis. In many Federal

laboratories, the best fundamental research projects are almost always

built around one outstanding individual. This person has demonstrated

that he is capable of performing basic research of high quality, and he is

accordingly granted the freedom to pursue his interests. It should be noted

that in these smaller projects the question of duplication of effort usually

does not arise, since usually no large resources are involved.

The most talented individuals will make their way, but what of the

majority of professionals? For them, continuing education is essential

not because, as some allege, the exponential growth of new technology

is pushing back the age of staff obsolescence, but to improve

peripheral skills and to make employees familiar with subjects outside

their areas of expertise. Note, also, that continuing education does not

necessarily improve the performance ratings of people whose skills are

becoming obsolescent.* Studies of continuing education programs in

laboratories indicate that the highest performers took the fewest

continuing courses; that a staff member's level of initial education is

more important in determining his or her rating and salary than

subsequent course work; that the younger the staff member at the time of

receiving his highest degree, the higher the rating; and that there is little

evidence of improvement in relative performance as a result of

participating in continuing education courses.

These findings imply that the cost to an organization in man-hours

lost and dollars spent may not pay off in improved staff performance.

Alternatively, the findings may be interpreted as indicating that the

particular programs of continuing education covered in these studies were

* Based on an admittedly limited survey taken by the General Accounting Office at

two Air Force laboratories, it appears that many scientists and engineers consider

management training more likely to lead to reward than technical training. More than half

of the interviewees "considered that maintaining technical expertise is not an effective

way to enhance promotion prospects. Promotions and awards are based upon job

performance and, while special recognition .may not be given to skill enhancement

through education, there would be an indirect benefit when such activities improve

performance upon which rewards are based. Nevertheless, their perception of

nonrecognition might discourage some individuals from participating in continuing

educational activities." Letter, R.W. Guttman, Director, Procurement and Systems

Acquisition Division, U.S. General Accounting Office, to Secretary of the Air Force,

March 6, 1978.

156
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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poorly designed or administered. Continuing education for mature

scientists and engineers should not attempt to repeat or update graduate

courses. The mature staff member needs a clear presentation of material

he can use on the job, preferably presented by successful professionals

within his own organization. The fact that so many outstanding research

and technology development organizations with tough-minded managements provide continuing education, often wholly or partly during

working hours, indicates a prevailing belief in continuing education as a

means of raising the general standard of staff performance.

Finally, we assert that, in principle, simple measures exist for

evaluating the aggregate productivity of professional staff and that they

need not exclude one another. Productivity can mean the number of

publications produced by an individual within the past five years, the

frequency with which these publications are cited by the author's

colleagues, or the extent to which the staff translated their own or others'

research into applications (ref. 159). Such measures are essential for

planning and budgeting purposes but, even more important, they are the

yardsticks by which the laboratory's reasons for being may be judged.

And it is surprising, but also encouraging, that productivity does not seem

to be clearly related to staff age, age distribution, tenure, or turnover rate.

Perhaps it remains only for research administrators in some laboratories

to recognize this.

157
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PRECEDING ....PAGE BLANK NO.T,. F_L_._tED_ _* "

CHAPTER VIIi

Supporting Functions and Personnel

Supporting Functions Defined

Whatever the technology development laboratory may be, the last

thing we can call it is a one-man show. The presence of a few exceptional

individuals may account for the quality of the laboratory's work, but

hardly explains how the work gets done. The exceptional scientist or

engineer can accomplish little by himself. He needs colleagues with

whom to exchange ideas, as well as to serve as collaborators in the

working out of those ideas. But even after we subsume all the scientists

and engineers at a single installation, there remain several categories of

workers without whom the laboratory could not function at all. These

perform what are called, for want of something better, "support"

functions. There is no really adequate definition of support, but

provisionally, we can say that whatever is not included in scientific and

engineering work at one end and administration and clerical work at the

other is a supporting function.* Support activities include everything

from mowing the lawn or carting trash to writing sophisticated computer

programs or running a tracking station. The more complex these support

functions are, the less distinguishable they are from research and

technology development.

But even this way of putting matters scarcely elucidates the

significance of support functions for a research installation. Consider any

large NASA center. It may have a photographic laboratory or

image-processing facility for converting digitized information transmitted

by satellite into pictures, storage facilities for holding expensive

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* The functions we will discuss are covered by NASA Occupational Codes 100 and

300.

l O0-Wage System- (Trade and Labor Positions): Includes trade, craft, and general

laboring positions (non-supervisory, leader, and supervisory), compensated on the basis

of prevailing locality wage rates.

300-Technical Support Positions: Includes scientific and engineering aid, technician,

drafting, photography, illustrating, salaried shop superintendents, quality assurance

specialist, production planning, and inspecting positions.

\

159
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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one-of-a-kind equipment, tracking or telemetry stations for communicating with satellites designed by its staff, and (almost certainly) a

data-processing facility for supporting the center across the board. While

all of these facilities "support" the center's mission, we need to go

somewhat deeper in order to understand the problems supporting

functions pose. There are really three questions we have to consider: Can

anything useful be said about functions as diverse as lawn mowing and

providing ground support for a deep space probe? How can productivity

or efficiency in general support functions be first measured and then

evaluated? And what are the public policy implications of the contracting

out of many support activities by Federal agencies?

To answer our first question" There are two broad classes of support

activities. The first comprises those functions that cannot be managed and

controlled as a direct function of the levels of primary technology

development tasks of the laboratory. Suppose we call these general

support functions (table 7). Included in general support are the personnel

office, procurement and supply, financial management, administrative

computing, and a number of more specialized staff offices. General

support activities are typically organized along functional lines; that is,

there exists a single personnel office or procurement office serving the

entire installation. General support is also designated "research

administration," "base support," and "indirect support."

Table 7. General Support Functions at a NASA Center

General Support

Communications

Property and Supply

Financial Management

Personnel, Equal Opportunities

Security

Procurement

Library

Health, Safety

Facilities and Engineering

Plant Services, Maintenance

Legal Services

Public Affairs

Technology Utilization

Resources Management

Direct Support

Graphics and Exhibits

Publications

Reproduction Services

Photographic Services

Electronic Instrument Services

Model Shop

Machine Shops

Metal Fabrication Shop

Technical Computing

Also includes professionals, technicians,

and facility operators assigned in

supporting roles in line technical

organizations.

The second kind of support can be closely adjusted to the

laboratory's primary work. Under this head we include graphics,

reproduction, publications services, technical computing, photographic

services, and shop services (table 7). It is clear that costs for a part

produced in a shop, for example, can be charged to the technology

160
A Look AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

: development activity requiting the part. Thus there is a built-in

,_ _ mechanism for controlling costs that does not exist in the case of general

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support. As with general support, direct support is often organized along

functional lines; for example, there may be a single comprehensive

machine shop or computer organization serving the entire center. Under

direct support we would also include those technicians, craftsmen, and

engineers assigned to line organizations to work alongside the engineers

and scientists in primary technology development. Further, it is common

in technology development organizations to locate special purpose shops

or support laboratories within a line organization to facilitate direct

support of primary research and development such as a special purpose

computer installation. Figure 44, with direct support outlined heavily,

makes this clear. Note that all direct support units are located in the

Directorate of Research Support. But note, also, that direct support

personnel "reside" in the technology development directorates (Aeronautics and Flight Systems, Astronautics, Life Sciences) as well.

To return to our first question can anything useful be said about

this diversity of functions? we would reply that all of them can be

classified as either general or direct support. A more important (and

difficult) question is how we can measure the productivity of general

support elements in particular. A related question is, what is the

appropriate size (whether numbers of workers or expenditures) of the

general support elements? Answers to these questions cannot be based on

a laboratory's mission; they must be sought, rather, by considering the

specific activities included under each general support function. To take

an example to which we shall shortly return warehousing, the

management of a supply depot, may be broken down into broad

categories such as housekeeping services, material operations, traffic

management, and inventory management, and then further broken down

into discrete, measurable activities. In short, we can first consider the

appropriate mix of support to professional personnel, before trying to hit

on other methods for assessing productivity. And that is precisely what

we shall do, using NASA's Ames Research Center as an example.

Measuring Productivity: The Method of Support Ratios

Support ratios may be defined as the ratios of support personnel to

the total center population. These ratios can be calculated at both a gross

and at a functional level that is, the ratios of numbers of workers in

each support function to the total population. But such ratios mean little

unless there are comparative standards to go by. Unfortunately, these do

not exist. Each center's special mission will lead it to devise its own

approach to the organizing of support activities, which may be reflected

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in the use of more or fewer persons, or personnel at higher or lower

levels.

Despite this lack of standards or norms, we might approach the

problem of identifying support ratios by comparing them at a number of

ostensibly similar technology development centers. In table 8, the

functional level general support ratios at Ames are compared with those

obtained in a survey of industrial laboratories undertaken in the early

1970s, and for nine Navy laboratories based on data furnished to one of

the authors (Mark) by the Director of Naval Laboratories.

Table 8. General Support Ratios-- Functional Level

General Support Function

NASA Navy' Industrial2

Ames Labs Survey

Communications

Supply, Property Management

Procurement

Financial Management

Personnel

Security

Library

Health and Safety

Facilities Engineering

Plant Services and Maintenance

0.3% 0.4%

2.0 3.8 1.2

2.0 1.3

2.6 2.3 3.3

1.3 1.6 2.2

1.3 _ 1.5

0.9 1.3

0.3

1.5 _ 1.2

5.5 7.7 7.5

Notes:

1. Data for nine Navy labs provided by Director of Naval Laboratories, Dept. of the

Navy, Washington, D.C.

2. The Industrial Survey is reported in: Jones, Richard A., Research Administration: Its

Relative Size in the Organization. SRA Journal, Spring 1974.

At first glance, one would note the relatively good agreement

between the ratios for Ames and those of the surveys. The problems begin

when we try to interpret the data. For example:

• Though great care was exercised, there was considerable difficulty in

matching the definitions of functional categories at Ames with those of

the two surveys.

• Even where functional definitions could be relatively easily reconciled,

there was no assurance that the activities of the functional

organizations were really comparable. An example was administrative

computing, which was subsumed under Ames' financial management

function, but was not mentioned in the information available for the

two surveys.

• The definition of "similar," in comparing the Ames Center with the

firms covered in the survey, was unclear. For example, the industrial

163
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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organizations all had fewer than 1 000 employees, while Ames had

about 2 500, including support contractors.

e Some organizations resided within another facility and may have

shared certain general support functions. An example was the

autonomous U.S. Army Aeronautical R&D Laboratory, a tenant at

Ames Research Center, which used a number of the Ames general

support services, such as the library, technical computing, and

security.

• An organization with dispersed facilities may have some centralized

functions. Again, the Army Aeronautical R&D Laboratory is an

example, with personnel and payroll offices in San Francisco.

• Detailed comparative data were difficult to acquire, as shown by the

blanks in the Navy laboratory data (table 8) and the paucity of

published papers on the subject.

There are two gross ratios for which some comparative data are

available. These are the general support ratio as defined earlier, and the

administrative and nonprofessional support ratio. The latter can be

defined as the ratio of total complement less all scientists and engineers to

total complement. The available data are shown in table 9. The problems

listed earlier still apply. The rather large difference between the NASA

and military administrative and nonprofessional support ratios cannot be

reconciled on the basis of available data. It may be that the NASA centers

employ more professionals in supporting roles than do the military

installations, rather than that the work of military laboratories requires

larger nonprofessional supporting staffs.

Table 9. Gross Support Ratios at Selected Laboratories

Organization

NASA Ames Research Center

NASA Johnson Space Center

NASA (all centers)

Air Force Laboratories

Army Laboratories

Navy Laboratories

Industrial Survey

Gross General

Support Ratio

17.6

17.0

19.9

Administrative and

Nonprofessional

Support Ratio

56.9

57.3

70.3

66.2

67.9

4

Note:

The Air Force, Army, and Navy ratios are derived from a report of hearings before a

Subcommittee of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, 93rd

Congress Investigative Report on "Utilization of Federal Laboratories." USGPO,

Washington, DC 1974.

164
A Look AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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Measuring Productivity" The Job Analysis Method

Our first attempt to measure the productivity of support personnel

seems to have left us where we began. It seems that the use of support

ratios may be of limited value in managing general support; that problems

of comparison across organizations are formidable; that detailed data are

generally unavailable; and that developing criteria for making decisions

on the basis of these ratios has not been possible. Support ratios may have

some value in reviewing variations in general support with time within

(rather than across) organizations. We had better forget about support

ratios, and consider how best to measure the productivity of selected

general support services. In principle, it should be easier to measure the

adequacy of support services, which are normally discrete and repetitive,

than to measure the quality of research ideas or personnel. In the case of

the former, we have a simple criterion by which to proceed output.

More precisely, it should be possible to take any support activity and, by

means of a detailed analysis, determine acceptable performance. Such an

analysis would require three steps" (1) enumerate the steps required to

perform the work; (2) list those things input needed to perform the

work; and (3) list those things produced by the work output (ref. 160).

But as soon as we begin to consider any particular service, it

becomes apparent that evaluating the outputs of even the simplest service

is no easy matter. Consider, for example, a taxi or shuttle bus for taking

employees from one part of a large research installation to another. How

would we measure the quality of the service? We could develop any

number of criteria as, for example, that a passenger should be picked up

within four minutes of the agreed time, or that a vehicle should not be out

of commission more than X hours in a given period, or that a certain

number of drivers should be available on all working days. Even as

simple a case as this demonstrates three things: To be evaluated, a service

must be broken into discrete components; to each activity there must be

assigned a quantifiable standard, along with the acceptable deviation from

that standard in other words, an acceptable quality level; and tradeoffs

between standards must be made.

To avoid misunderstanding, some cautionary words are in order.

While, for example, personnel and procurement certainly qualify as

general support, they are so intimately related to the public interest that

they cannot be easily separated from an agency's mission, as we might do

with operating a mess hall or a supply depot. These latter are commercial

activities in the sense defined by the Office of Management and Budget as

"work that is separable from other functions or activities and is suitable

for performance by contract." It is these activities which lend themselves,

whether as direct or general support, to job analysis; and it is in this

context that we are applying the method.

165
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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It is also necessary to warn against a simple-minded application of

job analysis or any other method. Imagine this method applied to

analyzing what a symphony orchestra does. An analyst might observe

that for long periods the second clarinetist had nothing to do, that the

tympanist only played repeated notes, and that the winds only repeated

what the strings had introduced. Such an analysis would be correct as far

as it went, but would simply miss the point of the performance. No

method can substitute for judgment or a knowledge of what is being

evaluated. Or as one writer put it, some works are like mirrors; if a

donkey looks in, no apostle will gaze out.

A brief case study will serve to make these points clearer. One of the

authors (Levine) was commissioned by the National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), an agency within the Department

of Commerce, to draft a plan to evaluate prospective contractors who

would manage NOAA's supply operations. NOAA is itself an agency

made up of other agencies, of which the largest and best known is the

National Weather Service. All of these agencies are supported by NOAA

warehouses which stock instruments, electronic equipment, common use

technical and administrative forms, and NOAA publications, handbooks,

and operating manuals. The largest of these warehouses, the NOAA

Logistics Supply Center, is located in Kansas City, Missouri. For the

moment, we can disregard the agency's intention to contract out the

management of its warehouses; the performance criteria would be

identical if the system was managed, as in fact it is, by government

employees. The question remains" How can NOAA evaluate what is, in

effect, a range of support services?

From what has been said, a general approach to evaluating NOAA's

supply depot can be easily described. For each service, develop a

standard; assign an acceptable quality level for the performance of the

service; and design a surveillance method to determine if acceptable

quality levels have been met (ref. 161). In practice, the task of drafting a

quality assurance plan is a little more complicated. The Logistics Supply

Center stocks some 8 600 line items, in addition to sophisticated

one-of-a-kind equipment furnished to the National Weather Service;

some items are inactive, while there are shortages of others; and in other

cases, information on items in stock may not be readily accessible to

users. Moreover, a quality assurance plan, to be effective, must be

capable of being entered into a data-processing system; otherwise, the

supply system will temporarily collapse whenever the one or two persons

who carry it in their heads leave. The plan, as approved, allowed for the

complexity of the system. Supply operations were broken down into

some 65 to 70 discrete activities; to each was assigned a performance

standard and an acceptable quality level; finally, one of three surveillance

methods random sampling, 100-percent inspection, and customer

166
A LooK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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complaints was specified to determine that standards really were being

met. (For contractor operations, there was also a category of deductions

for failure to meet the acceptable quality level.)

How does this system work? Suppose we have a requirement that the

operations manager must check all incoming shipments. We could then

specify, as a standard, that the correct number of containers as noted on

the carriers' freight documents has been received. To find out if this

standard is being met, we could carry out a random sampling of verified

items received on randomly selected days. Finally, we would check to see

that what was received met our acceptable quality level say, that no

more than 5 percent of incoming items were not properly verified. Table

10 gives three more examples of this kind of job analysis. None of these

procedures is novel. The method of job analysis simply means that an

agency looks at work as it is being done to see what actually results. This

method has long been used by private industry and the Department of

Defense, and the Office of Management and Budget now requires Federal

Table 10. Job Analysis of NOAA Warehousing Operations

Requirement

Establishes and implements control

over NOAA-owned

equipment

Identifies all non-expendable and selected items of expendable equipment

Maintains an accountability system

for equipment management

Standard

Establishes written

procedures which

prescribe the relationships, operations, and specifics

of NOAA Logistics

Supply Center

equipment control

system

Controlled and identified in the records

and on the equipment by a uniquely

numbered tag

Establishes register

with equipment control numbers listed

sequentially and

containing, as a

minimum: (a) the

equipment control

number, (b) date assigned or tagged,

(c) noun, and

(d) acquisition

document identification number

Acceptable

Quality Level

5%

5%

5%

Surveillance

Method

100%-inspection

Random sampling of

relevant documents

Random sampling of

register

167
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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agencies to do job analyses before contracting out support services. The

important thing to note about the job analysis method is that it can be

extended to evaluate any support functions, no matter how complicated,

and that in this respect it is easily superior to the support ratio method

discussed earlier.

The Legal Status of Support Services

We have not yet answered the last of the questions posed earlier:

What are the implications of the contracting out of many support

functions? The first thing that needs to be said is that the question of who

shall provide commercial services to the Federal Government is hotly

debated. By now, analyses of the Office of Management and Budget's

(OMB) Circular A-76, the controlling document on the subject, have

reached talmudic levels of complexity. Since 1955, there have been two

opposing philosophies regarding the use of contractors to provide support

services to Federal agencies. The first, as summed up by OMB, is that it

is the government's policy not to compete with its citizens, but instead,

to "rely on competitive private enterprise to supply the products and

services that Government needs." (ref. 162.) The other philosophy is that

government shall attempt to get its work done by its own employees, only

contracting with the private sector when the nature of the work makes

full-time use of government employees impracticable or the skills needed

to do the work in-house are unavailable (ref. 163). By the late 1970s, the

former philosophy had completely superseded the latter, to the point

where some officials and congressmen began to wonder out loud if the

• 9

government was not losing its ability to evaluate its contractors work.*

To understand what the official policy implies about the government ls

conduct of research and development, we need to understand what OMB

Circular A-76 prescribes. As we shall see, there is nothing self-evident

about the procedures for converting a government, commercial, or

industrial activity to contract operation.

* Of course, there are circumstances where programs are best evaluated from the

outside, on the principle that no one should be judge in his own cause. This is why the

Securities and Exchange Commission requires independent audits of publicly-held

corporations, why Congress in authorizing certain education and social services programs

requires evaluations by outside contractors, and why the Defense Department created

RAND and the Aerospace Corporation as sources of independent technical evaluation.

What is at issue here is a narrower question: How does an agency determine if it is getting

value for its money? It can hire an outside evaluator, but once the evaluator submits a final

report, what then? There seems to be a danger of an infinite regress" The agency selects a

second evaluator to evaluate the first evaluator, followed by a third evaluator . . . If

government employees have a stake in boosting their own programs, outside evaluators

may have a stake in telling their clients what they want to hear. Otherwise, they may not

be invited back.

168
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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Four principles enunciated in OMB Circular A-76 define how and by

whom commercial and industrial work shall be done. First, there are

restrictions on how contractors may be used" Contract employees may not

supervise government employees, nor may government employees be

involved in close, continual supervision of contract employees; and

in-house work may not be converted to contract solely to avoid personnel

ceilings or salary limitations (ref. 164). Second, there are certain

functions which may not be contracted out, functions enumerated by a

former director of the Bureau of the Budget (OMB's predecessor) as "the

decisions on what work is to be done, what objectives are to be set for the

work, what time period and what costs are to be associated with the work,

what the results expected are to be ... the evaluation and the

responsibilities for knowing whether the work has gone as it was

supposed to go, and if it has not, what went wrong, and how it can be

corrected on subsequent occasions." (ref. 165.) This is as succinct a

justification for an in-house staff as one could wish, but its practical

application is less clear. As will be shown, there is no longer a firm line

dividing research and development from "routine" support services.

Third, Circular A-76 outlines a procedure for agencies to follow in

deciding whether to contract out their industrial and commercial

activities. To simplify greatly, an agency does a cost-comparison study;

that is, it develops an estimate of the cost of government performance of a

commercial activity and compares it to the cost of contract performance

(ref. 166). If studies warrant contract performance, the agency solicits

bids and, in effect, competes against commercial firms to see who can do

the work at least cost. If a firm's low bid is at least 10 percent lower than

the agency's, the government is required to contract for performance of

that service. Finally, OMB authorizes Federal agencies to carry on

commercial activities if no satisfactory outside source is found to be

available. This is, one might say, an escape clause for the government.

If the reader suspects that interpreting Circular A-76 is rather like

walking through a minefield, our point is made. The circular wavers

among the various reasons for justifying contracting out: because a

commercial source is available, because of cost, or on general

philosophical grounds. These may be good reasons, but they do not

account for the main reason agencies have contracted for services" It

is often the only way to get the job done. Agencies like NASA and the

Defense Department have not let huge service and base support contracts

simply because commercial sources were available, or because costs

would be lower, and least of all for philosophical reasons. Rather, they

have let these contracts because they were subject to continuing civil

service manpower reductions, and the extensive and sophisticated use of

support service contracting was the only way in which these agencies

could continue to perform the functions for which they were responsible.

169
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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In this sense, government agencies may be violating the spirit if not the

letter, of the provision that support service contractors should not be used

as a substitute for civil service employees. The political climate in the

past fifteen years has been such as to make this situation unavoidable.

Government employment has not been held in high esteem ("There are

too many bureaucrats") and yet the government has been called upon by

the Congress to render ever more complicated services to various client

groups. The pattern has been to appropriate the funds to do a given job

but then in the name of government "efficiency" to cut back the

number of civil service people necessary to do the work.

We can now examine the role of support services in a research and

technology development environment.* There are three basic contractual

arrangements that agencies use to manage their programs, ranging from

management of entire installations to providing support for specific

activities"

1. The agency awards a fixed-term, renewable contract to a commercial

firm, a university, some other not-for-profit organization or a

consortium, to manage an installation. The contractor "gets no

proprietary benefits from laboratory research or facilities (whatever is

available to the contractor is also available to other parties on the same

terms). Its role is almost entirely administrative." (ref. 167.) The

classic example of this relationship is the government-owned,

contractor-operated facility, such as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and

the multiprogram laboratories of the Energy Department. Employees

at these installations are on the contractor's payroll; thus workers at

Sandia Laboratories are employees of Western Electric, not the

Energy Department.

2. The agency installation is managed by government employees, but the

agency awards a master contract for housekeeping and base support,

and separate contracts for more specialized functions. NASA's

Kennedy Space Center is an example. Trans World Airlines provides

base support, firms with major development contracts provide

checkout and launch support services, and the Air Force Eastern Test

Range provides joint support for services such as photoprocessing. A

comparable arrangement is the use of base support contractors at

military installations.

3. Again, the installation is managed by government employees but there

is no master contract for base support. Instead separate contracts are

let for particular activities such as technical writing, janitorial

* OMB Circular A-76 does not apply to the conduct of research and development.

However, "severable" commercial activities in support of research and technology

development are subject to the circular.

170
A LooK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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services, image processing, ground support, computer programming,

and the like. This is the practice followed at most of the larger NASA

centers, as well as some Defense laboratories.

There are, of course, all kinds of intermediate arrangements, such as

a contractor-operated test facility at an installation managed by government employees. The important point is that government practice is

frequently at odds with government policy. Contractors are used for work

that could be done in house, while government employees provide

services which could be provided more cheaply by contractors (ref. 168).

As a 1981 report of the General Accounting Office (GAO) said, "...

since the executive branch first established a general policy of reliance on

the private sector.., emphasis has shifted from almost outright reliance

on the private sector to reliance with exceptions." (ref. 169.) Federal

policy has been inconsistent, but the reasons for inconsistency go even

deeper than those given by the GAO. For one thing, the existence and

thriving state of government-owned, contractor-operated laboratories

suggest that "make or buy" decisions may be a side issue. If Federal

agencies can contract out of the civil service system entirely, why the fuss

as to whether government or contract labor should be used for a given

activity?

What Circular A-76 obscures is that the nature of support services in

technology development agencies has changed significantly during the

past decade. Leaving basic research to one side, we can hardly

distinguish government from contract employees simply by what they do.

If we try to subtract all support services from research and technology

development, we will be left with no "development" and precious little

"research." What distinguishes government employees from support

service contractors is not what they do or even how they do whatever it is

that they do; it is, as we saw, the power of the former to decide what work

will be done and to evaluate the results. But as supporting an agency's

mission has become very complex, the government is at a real

disadvantage in dealing with its contractors, since the latter can hire the

most competent (who will usually be the most experienced) technical

personnel.*

r"

* This shrinkage of in-house technical competence may have something to do

with the persistence of "mutuality clauses" _ requirements that research tasks shall be set

by mutual agreement _ in the contracts negotiated by the Energy Department with its

multiprogram laboratories. A mutuality clause may mean that an agency has enough

confidence in the quality of its managers to permit them to negotiate work with its

contractors; but it may also mean that the agency must, perforce, defer to its contractors'

good judgement. NASA dropped its mutuality clause with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

precisely because its senior officials were confident that they had the in-house competence

to assign research tasks unilaterally.

171
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Two examples of services in support of NASA will illustrate both

the nature of the more sophisticated support services and the difficulties

faced by government managers in monitoring them. In 1978, the Goddard

Space Flight Center awarded a contract to the Space Systems Division of

General Electric for operating a ground station to support the launch of

the Landsat-D satellite, for which GE was also the prime contractor. By

early 1982, the Landsat Ground Segment had become a project in itself,

with more than 300 engineers, computer scientists, and technicians

housed in a building at Goddard. The Ground Segment was a very large,

complex, totally integrated network of automated data processing

equipment; the software alone amounted to more than 680 000 lines of

programming code (ref. 170). Even GE seems to have been a little awed

by the magnitude of the task. As the Space Systems Division's house

organ boasted, the final configuration of the Ground Segment consisted of

"15 computers, 44 disk drives, 36 tape drives and 30 terminal interfaces,

as well as 22 racks of special purpose hardware ..." (ref. 171.) The

Landsat Ground Segment was a support activity in the strictest sense of

the term. Yet the lack of in-house staff available to design a system such

as the Ground Segment also made the job of evaluating the contractor's

effort that is, whether the government was getting good value for the

money difficult, if not impossible.

As our second example, consider the use of the computer systems in

wind tunnels. In engineering jargon, the development of computer

programs is the "pacing item" in the field of computational aerodynamics.

The basic equations needed to simulate airflow over a complete aircraft

free of any approximations are extremely complex, with up to 60 partial

derivative terms (ref. 172). Only supercomputers with speeds about 25

times greater than that of current computers can handle such equations.

The real bottleneck, though, is in programming. In its final report on

Aeronautical Research and Technology Policy (1982), the President's

Office of Science and Technology Policy identified precisely the reason

why NASA centers like Ames and Langley were having trouble acquiring

the software they needed: "Software development by in-house staff is

extremely difficult because the government cannot attract and retain...

personnel in this area. The result is a large contract effort to develop and

maintain software. This, unfortunately, results in no in-house expertise.

Industry figures indicate that 20-30% of programming costs are required

to just maintain software. The standardized wind tunnel data system

software being developed at Ames will take at least 35 man-years of

programming effort and should have begun before the data system was

acquired. Because of funding limitations, this was not possible, and

hence it will be three years after hardware delivery before the new system

can be used to its full capability." (ref. 173.)

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172
A LooK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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To sum up the debits and credits of contracting for support servicescontracting out is often less expensive, especially in base operations; it

gives the agency greater leeway in rapidly building up the work force at

the start of new programs and phasing it out when the work is completed;

it frees government employees from routine chores; and it is often the

only way to tap expertise unavailable in the government. On the debit

side, contracting out may create a vicious circle: Industry attracts the

most capable technical people, the agency must perforce contract for a

particular service, and the government ends up indirectly paying its

contractors what it could not pay them directly.

But contracting out has still other disadvantages. There is no

conclusive evidence that contracting out, except for routine base

operations, is less costly than having the work done in house. Contracting

is time-consuming and does nothing to relieve immediate manpower

shortages. The complexity of the process gives contracting officers reason

not to contract out. As the former head of OMB's Office of Federal

Procurement Policy observed" "The [A-76] handbook is so complex and

detailed, you need a training program to teach people how to use it." (ref.

174.) (He spoke better than he knew; A-76 seminars and training sessions

are a thriving cottage industry in Washington.) Finally, government

managers are concerned that contracting out can lead to work stoppages

because of strikes, and that a decision to contract out is usually

irrevocable, even if it is less desirable than keeping the work in house

(ref. 175).

In short, no conclusive case in the abstract can be made either for or

against contracting out. Yet the percentage of support services contracted

out is likely to increase, especially for the more sophisticated services on

which technology development agencies depend. One thing is quite clear:

Cost is not, and for many years, has not been an overriding factor in make

or buy decisions. To repeat, the principal reason why NASA and the

Defense Department have contracted for the most sophisticated (and

expensive) services, especially those involving data processing, is that

ther e was no other way to get the job done. It needed no Circular A-76 to

encourage NASA to rely on the private sector. Long before Circular A-76

was promulgated in 1966, NASA had been routinely contracting out 85 to

90 percent of its Research and Development appropriations and it

continues to do so. And this dependence on the private sector can only

grow, given the nature of the work carried out at the NASA centers and

the technology needed to support it: the short (5 to 10 years) life cycles of

computer systems, the costs associated simply with maintaining software,

the move to computer-aided design, manufacture, and simulation, and the

development of supercomputers able to perform up to one billion

calculations per second. There may be some changes in the management

of these contracts. For example, many support functions may be

173
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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physically consolidated at a single "operations center," just as suppor!

contracts themselves may be consolidated into long-term master

contracts. But the combination of a slowly declining government work

force and work that is both demanding and very expensive means thal

contracting for support services will remain unavoidable.

There is, then, something paradoxical about support services in a

research environment. The output of any service can be measured and,

therefore, evaluated. But the legal status of these services is ambiguous.

We have found government employees providing commercial services,

contract employees performing governmental functions, and a certain

disregard for the rule that functions shall not be converted to contract to

avoid the limit on personnel ceilings. But too much attention paid to legal

issues may cause us to miss an important point. For the center or

laboratory director, these functions are among the easiest to control, since

input and output can be defined in advance. What is still lacking is some

model to integrate support services with the management of the

laboratory's internal resources people, money, equipment. In other

words, something is needed to tie a particular function say, data

processing or micrographics with the laboratory's mission. Somebody

has to be able to set objectives, develop long-range plans, assemble the

resources, and do everything needed to make the divisions within the

laboratory work as one. It is to this function of internal resources

management that we now turn.

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174
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CHAPTER IX

What the Research Executive Does

Toward a Theory of Research Management: Search for a Method

By the nature of their work, senior research administrators are not

likely to spend their time reading textbooks on public administration.

There is never enough time to do everything that needs to be done, there

are never enough people available to do the work, and there is never

enough money for all the programs needing funding. All too often the

motto of the senior administrator someone with the power to hire and

fire, to select project work assignments is" Sufficient unto the day is

the evil thereof. The circumstances under which he works leave him

neither time nor inclination for a theoretical analysis of the organization

in which he has chosen to spend his career. As is not uncommon in large

organizations, the people most familiar with their operations are often the

ones least able to describe what is going on.

This lack of introspection on the part of research officials has had

some undesirable consequences. We have no really adequate theory of

the organization of Research and Development institutions: indeed, there

are no generally agreed definitions of basic or applied research or, for that

matter, any consensus on how basic research (however defined) feeds into

industrial productivity. Again, it is probably unwise for senior officials to

ignore the broader implications of what they do. All of us carry a picture

of the world around in our heads; but only to the extent that we are

sufficiently aware of our assumptions to criticize them can we match them

against the world "out there."

Thus most of our knowledge of organizations comes from persons

on the outside. There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of theories

concerning the behavior of organizations, research installations included.

The first approach attempts to develop certain extremely general axioms

applicable to every kind of organization. A well known example of this

approach is March and Simon's Organizations, the core of which is a

series of propositions about organizations (ref. 176). We learn, for

example, that "both the amount and the locus of uncertainty absorption

affect the influence structure of the organization." Again, "the greater the

standardization of the situation, the greater the tolerance for subunit

175
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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interdependencies." Yet again, "the greater the amount of past experience

with a decision situation, the less probable that intraindividual

organizational conflict will arise." Readers may or may not find these

assertions intuitively obvious. The problem begins when we try to

conceive how we could test, let alone validate, assertions of such

generality. It might even be the case that a theory which accounted (say)

for the operations of a retail chain would, for that reason be inadequate to

explain the working of a laboratory. The most we can say is that, while

these theories might be confirmed by experience, they are logically

anterior to experience.

This is not to deny that much of what March and Simon assert is of

considerable importance. In particular, we accept with some reservations

the central thesis of Organizations that "most human decision-making,

whether individual or organizational, is concerned with the discovery and

selection of satisfactory alternatives; only in exceptional cases is it

concerned with the discovery and selection of optimal alternatives. (ref.

177.) Given the constraints under which research executives normally

labor, they will indeed have reason to prefer the alternative which is

satisfactory to one which is optimal. To use the word coined by March

and Simon, they will "satisfice;" in research, as elsewhere, the best is

often the enemy of the good. But to understand how a research

organization really behaves, we need something more descriptive, less

abstract, and less on the theoretical plane.

A second approach is inadequate in a different way. This approach

claims to be empirical: The theorist puts a hypothesis before us and the_

tells us to look and see how admirably it squares with our experience. A

famous example of this approach is Luther Gulick's acronyrr

POSDCORB defining the work of a chief executive: Planning

Organizing, Staffing, Directing, Coordinating, Reporting, and Budgetin_

(ref. 178). Many a member of the Senior Executive Service, readin_

Gulick's analysis, might well feel drunk with power! The problem witt

this formulation is not that it is wrong chief executives do all th_

things Gulick claims they do _ but that it is incomplete. Executives

such as the research management people with whom we are concerned

are limited in many ways" by lack of funds, by agency mandates whic]

they cannot significantly change, by government-wide policies ove

which they have no control. A purely formal description of wh_

executives are supposed to do will be doubly misleading. It will sa

nothing about the constraints just mentioned, and it will ignore th

informal strategies executives normally employ to achieve their ends.

There is, however, a third approach, which we tentatively advance

For purposes of analysis, it is possible to classify organizations in variou

ways. One such attempt, by the British sociologists Burns and Stalker i

the early 1960s, is particularly suggestive. Based on a study of the Britis

176
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

electronics industry, they posited two types of working organizations, the

, :_- ,,.,-_,_.. 'mechanistic" and the "organismic." The mechanistic organization is the

. ii.....i::...: classic hierarchical, bureaucratic system described by Max Weber nearly

.. £" /:i.....:_i eighty years ago (ref. 179). A mechanistic system can be easily identified

by the specialized differentiation of functional tasks, the precise

.......... definition of each person's rights and obligations, the elaborate code

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governing superior-subordinate relations, the greater importance attached

to local rather than to general knowledge, and the concentration of

information at the top of the hierarchy. Mechanistic organizations are

appropriate to stable conditions.

Where conditions are changing rapidly, where unforeseen requirements occur, a very different kind of organization is needed. In the

organismic system, what is posited of a mechanistic system is turned

around. The system is characterized by a network structure of control and

authority, a lateral (rather than vertical) direction of communications,

greater emphasis on commitment to the concern's mission than to

decisions and judgments by one's superiors, and acceptance of the fact

that knowledge may be located anywhere in the organization. Burns and

Stalker summarize the nature of the two systems, thus" "Mechanistic

systems tell (the individual) what he has to attend to, and how, and also

tell him what he does not have to bother with, what is not his affair, what

is not expected of him what he can post elsewhere as the responsibility

of others. In organismic systems, such boundaries disappear. The

individual is expected to regard himself as fully implicated in the

discharge of any task appearing over his horizon. He has not merely to

exercise a special competence, but to commit himself to the success of the

concern's undertaking as a whole." (ref. 180.)

These observations may provide a clue to the kind of conceptual

framework we seek. The purpose of this book is to describe a certain

institution, the technology development laboratory, and a certain kind of

executive, the "satisficing" research administrator, as they really are. We

are not out to substitute one full-blown theory for another, but to test our

working assumptions to see if they correspond to reality. Our first

assumption is that the technology development laboratory is a

mechanistic organization trying to behave like an organismic one.

Routine always threatens to drive out innovation, but most of what is

done at any laboratory involves complying with directives from the head

of one's division or directorate, or from the laboratory director, or from

the administrative offices of the sponsoring agency. The problem is not so

much to rein in a group of free spirits out to "do their own thing" as to

ensure that the laboratory is not smothered by requirements imposed from

the outside.

It is no accident that some of America's most successful

corporations are organismic organizations. In their remarkable book In

177
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Search of Excellence (New York" Warner Books, 1982), Thomas Peters

and Robert Waterman have identified, with a wealth of detail, the

attributes common to these firms, whether their products are hamburgers

(McDonald' s), integrated circuits (Texas Instruments), or tape and allied

products (3M Company). These attributes include" a bias for action (""do

it, fix it, try it"); respect for the individual; autonomy and risk-taking;

simple form and lean staff. For our purposes, the most interesting

attribute of these companies, and the one most relevant to the laboratory,

is that they are simultaneously centralized and decentralized. In the world

of advanced research, where the environment is uncertain and changing,

executives need to push decision-making down to the lowest practicable

level, with great flexibility as to methods of getting things done. This

flexibility must not extend to mission objectives; otherwise flexibility

equals plain chaos, as opposed to the "'organized" chaos found in the

successful organizations examined by Peters and Waterman.

Our second assumption is a corollary to an observation made in the

preceding chapter. There, we noted that it was becoming harder to

distinguish "'support" from "research and technology development." The

corollary is that, to a growing degree, process and production are

becoming interrelated. For example, the recent development of powerful

systems of computer-aided engineering and automated systems of text

editing may profoundly affect the kinds of work laboratories do.

Technology development laboratories are not simply the beneficiaries of

these systems; they are heavily involved in (for instance) designing video

discs to replace field operation manuals, storing engineering drawings and

parts information digitally, and creating an electronic file of designs, such

that the laboratory or its contractors can move from one product

generation to the next with parts modified from existing designs. If these

systems can be brought to fruition, we may expect two changes in the

ways laboratories carry out their missions. Productivity will be enhanced,

and the laboratory will concentrate more of its resources on process, that

is, on the best procedures whether in design, distribution of product

information, or testing _ for accomplishing substantive programs.

Our third assumption is that in any large laboratory, the way work is

funded often determines what kinds of work get done. Patterns of

institutional funding vary from funding by task order to one where the

laboratory is given considerable freedom in allocating money to its

projects. One approach found at the NASA centers and, in different form,

at the National Bureau of Standards, is level-of-effort funding. This

pattern has been lucidly described in a recent report on the

contract-operated laboratories of the Energy Department: "A laboratory

may receive a funding allocation each year based on the size of its staff,

its buildings and equipment and the nature of its work. Agency programs

then negotiate with the laboratory (and perhaps an agency coordinator)

178
A Look AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

, for their piece of the pie . . . For example, each NASA research center

_ receives a lump sum annually based on the size of its staff, its buildings

....i. ,_._ . and equipment, and the nature of its work ... In addition, a certain

,.. " . ,

./i ,..... _ proportion of NASA's R&D support comes to the laboratory on a

_:_;/!!,:i .>::.I_'_/ prorated basis related to the level of effort covering such items as capital

' "_:<i,il :: equipment computer service and other kinds of general R&D support

Clearly, this makes tasked R&D in such centers very inexpensive

:",,:":: -,_',. compared with a laboratory without such base support . . ." (ref. 181.)

..,," .

i_;_::ii_ -.'._i, The point is not that one method of funding is better or worse than

,_::_::_::- !_ any other, but that each sets the terms on which the laboratory goes about

:!:;:;:<:/:ii:_":-i_: :.,,_,.,._: ' its business. A laboratory where most funding is assigned by task effort is

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.... likely to be organized differently from one which receives an annual lump

..:

sum. In the latter case, the laboratory will probably negotiate a total

• package with its sponsoring agency; in the former, there may well be a

,, complicated process of bargaining before laboratory and sponsor can

agree on which tasks (with overhead) shall be funded.

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,-..... _:,_ii_.i It is time to piece together these remarks into something more

::_.:._.:_::;;,i ..... " coherent. We want to understand this curious phenomenon, the modem

i_"_:-_: technology development laboratory. Much of what we need for that

! _::_i! understanding has been presented piecemeal in earlier chapters" the nature

.,iii_ ! of project management, the roles and missions of one laboratory in a

...... multilaboratory agency, the nature of support functions, and so forth.

But something is still needed if we are to understand how a laboratory's

/ resources people, money, facilities, and equipment are pulled

together to accomplish useful work The approach adopted here is to

focus on the senior laboratory executives, those officials ultimately

,.

•, responsible for the institution's performance to their bosses at

Headquarters, to Congress, and to the taxpayers. (In the case of large

. .

. privately funded laboratories, read "Board of Directors" for "Congress"

, and "Stockholders" for "Taxpayers.") In analyzing what it is they do,

we shall concentrate on resources management at the NASA centers, for ,. . . .

._ three reasons. First, they are all government-owned, government-

..•. ,'.i

_ operated facilities, and do not present the more complicated policy issues

' of a contractor-operated facility like the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Second, NASA is a multilaboratory agency, and much of the interest in

examining the agency's resources management is in seeing how different

institutions are grouped in related fashion. Third, the planning and

control of NASA resources is usually well documented and more

accessible to the analyst than much of what occurs in Defense and Energy

laboratories or in privately funded technology development institutions.

Starting, then, with the NASA centers as our "case," we shall review

in detail those functions that justify the existence of a center's senior

executives or, Who needs the boss? These functions are"

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179
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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• Setting objectives

• Short-term planning

• Structuring the organization

• Reviewing, measuring, and evaluating results

Each of these functions is susceptible to further breakdown.

"Short-term planning" includes budgeting, facilities management,

drafting program operating plans for Headquarters approval, and much

more. This process is known in NASA as Institutional Management,

which is understood to include "all those activities and resources involved

in the development, utilization, and maintenance of the NASA in-house

capability in an effective and efficient manner." Figure 45 provides an

overview.

OVERVIEW OF THE INSTITUTIONAL MANAGEMENT PROCESS

• MANAGE PROGRAMS

• OVERSEE PROJECT PLANNING

• PROPOSE PROJECT MANAGEMENT

APPROACH

• MAKE WORK ASSIGNMENTS TO

CENTERS

• VALIDATE MANNING LEVELS FOR

PROGRAMS

• PROPOSE IN HOUSE/OUT OF HOUSE

STRATEGY

ADMINISTRATOR/DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR

• APPROVE BUDGET AND OPERATING PLANS

• BALANCE PROGRAM AND INSITUTIONAL REQUIREMENTS

• APPROVE CENTER ROLES AND MISSIONS PROGRAM ASSIGNMENTS-KEY

PERSONNEL SELECTIONS-MAJOR CONTRACTOR SELECTION-FACILITIES

ACQUISITION-ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS

PROGRAM OFFICES INSTITUTIONAL MANAGEMENT

PROGRAM MANAGEMENT • MONITORS CENTER ROLES AND MISSIONS

• REVIEWS ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

• MANAGES INSTITUTIONAL BUDGET AND

OPERATING PLAN

"_-'q=" • ESTABLISHES MANPOWER CONTROLS .,4.-,,z=,.

• MANAGES EXECUTIVE RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

PROGRAMS

• REVIEWS KEY PERSONNEL ACTIONS

• DIRECTS PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS

• DIRECTS ADP AND INFORMATION MANA(_EMENT

PROGRAMS

• REVIEWS NEED FOR INSTITUTIONAL FACILITIES

_,_ ,,,opO_..],_ _ AND EQUIPMENT

• DIRECTS LABOR RELATIONS PROGRAM

INSTITUTIONAL I LEADERSHIP

FIELD CENTERS

• MANAGE CENTER INSTALLATIONS

• EXECUTE PROGRAMS AND PROJECTS

• MANAGE RESOURCES WITHIN CONTROLS

• IMPLEMENT POLICIES AND OPERATING PROCEDURES

STAFF OFFICES

FUNCTIONAL MANAGEMENT

• ESTABLISH STANDARDS OF

PERFORMANCE

• ASSURE COMPLIANCE WITH

STATUTES AND REGULATIONS

• REVIEW STAFFING

REQUIREMENTS

• MANAGE FACILITY AND EQUIPMENT

PROGRAMS

______ COORDINATION

Source: The Planning and Control of NASA Resources (NASA Technical Memorandum

83090, 1981), p. 24.

FIGURE 45.- This is an overview of the institutional management process as used by

NASA.

180
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

.... , The Functions of the Senior Executive

.....!__;.:_....._ We begin with the most all-embracing, long-range functions,

• ;..

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Setting Objectives. This is the overt act of deciding what the

organization's reasons for being are. At the level of research and

technology development agencies such as NASA and the Energy

Department, objectives are enunciated in very broad terms in their

enabling legislation. Within each center, the objectives become much

more specific, and in the long term they may be nothing more than a

delineation of the center's current or evolving expertise.

To a degree, the circumstances leading to the creation of a laboratory

are those "objectives." Often, a laboratory is created as a vehicle for an

outstanding scientist or research administrator, as the Lawrence Berkeley

Laboratory was built around Ernest Lawrence, Lawrence Livermore

National Laboratory around Edward Teller, and (in a very different way)

the Marshall Space Flight Center around Wernher von Braun and his

rocket experts. The problem for such installations is how to adjust once

their founders are gone. For example, the Marshall Center moved from a

strong emphasis on propulsion systems into many other areas" the Apollo

Telescope Mount that was the principal payload for Skylab, the orbiting

Space Telescope, the High Energy Astronomy Observatory, and similar

projects more in the realm of space science than development

engineering. At the same time, the center continued its role in propulsion

technology, with responsibility for developing the main engines, external

tank, and solid-rocket boosters of the Space Shuttle.

What these examples suggest is, first, the complexity of changing

objectives and, second, the limited role of laboratory directors in this

process. A really major change in the mission of a laboratory must

normally be approved by Headquarters. Moreover, the decision to change

the mission of a center is seldom made on technical grounds alone. The

1962 decision to remove the development of the Centaur upper-stage

vehicle from Marshall to the Lewis Research Center was taken in order to

minimize interference with Apollo. The decision four years later to assign

the Apollo Telescope Mount to Marshall was made because work there on

the Saturn rocket was phasing down, leaving the center vulnerable to

reductions in force and raids by other centers on Marshall personnel.

Neither of these decisions would have taken the precise form that they did

if center officials, led by von Braun, had not made their position clear.

But these were primarily Headquarters decisions made at the highest

levels of the agency.

In what ways, then, do center executives, set goals? The answer

seems to be that they do so incrementally by shifting resources

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181
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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from one directorate to another, by the use of discretionary funds, by

sponsoring research and technology work which may blossom into full

scale projects several years later, by improving the center's support

capabilities (data processing, test facilities, technical documentation) so

that they attract new sponsors, and most important of all, by selecting

talented people to do the jobs they deem most important. They rarely do

zero-based budgeting, save as a requirement imposed from outside.

Whatever its merits, zero-based budgeting is ill-suited to most

government functions. Laboratory directors do not start their mornings

with a clean slate; they deal, most emphatically, with certain givens

which they can only alter with difficulty. What the center director does is

more important than anything written into a formal plan. The Chapter IV

case study of work on short-haul systems sponsored by the Ames

Research Center is an example of this method. But there are many others.

In his Functions of the Executive, Chester Barnard has concisely

explained what the method of defining organizational purpose really is"

"... strictly speaking, purpose is defined more nearly by the aggregate

of action taken than by any formulation in words; but that.., aggregate

action is a residuum of the decisions relative to purpose and the

environment, resulting in closer and closer approximations to the

concrete acts . . . It is more apparent here than with other executive

functions that it is an entire executive organization that formulates,

redefines, breaks into details ... No single executive can under any

conditions accomplish this function alone, but only that part of it which

relates to his position in the executive organization." (ref. 182.)

So far from being identical, goal setting and formal long-range

planning, as commonly understood, may even be antithetical. The

conventional wisdom about long-range planning is that the planning

organization must develop plans that are bases for current decisions; that

plans should, so far as possible, be written; that each major

suborganization in an agency should have its own long-range planning

group and that all long-range planning groups should be permanent (ref.

183). But experience shows something else: While plans may or may not

exist, planning occurs in all the operational divisions of a good

organization. Laboratory executives are reluctant to draft long-range

plans, partly out of a fear of committing themselves prematurely to an

untried course of action, partly out of the feeling that such planning is a

waste of time, and partly from the knowledge that next year's budget is

plan enough. One may say that planning is about what the organzation

does now, not what it will be doing five years hence.

Thus laboratory executives are not forced to choose between

supposedly rational analysis and muddling through. If we take Barnard's

analysis a step further, we would say that a capable research executive

defines goals most effectively by conveying them to those managers who

182
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

• must flesh them out. By making his managers partners in a common

, effort, by delegating to them authority to work out new tasks in detail, the

, ,

....'_; .__ ;_ executive engages in a most effective (if informal) kind of planning.

. ,,.:': ,:., It is strange that the inadequacy of formal long-range plans is not

_","!::-_.: better understood Such plans are too often criticized for the wrong • , . •

::,; - .:i,.:: reasons In a recent study of the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) the -' .._ 'i, . "

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Congressional Research Service criticized that agency's Long Range Plan

because: "... there is no systematic use of program implementation

timetables ... nor does the plan present any clear prioritization of

programs in support of NBS goals . . . it is not clear how the Bureau's

long-range planning effort is tied into the development of the Bureau's

annual budget_a relationship which is essential to the effective use of

long-range planning as a strategic management tool." (ref. 184.)

But the report has already made clear that the stimulus for the

creation of a central planning office came from outside the Bureau

from the Office of Management and Budget. It would be absurd, though,

to suppose that NBS did no planning before 1978, when OMB inserted

six positions for central planning in NBS's budget. The excerpt cited

above raises some further questions. How, precisely, should NBS have

"prioritized" its programs? More than any other Federal laboratory, the

Bureau of Standards provides services to industries and other agencies.

This work for others is an exceedingly important part of its work, as we

shall see in the next chapter. It is not clear how NBS could set priorities

over the next five years, when changes in the economy and

presumably the Bureau's efforts to improve the nation's science and

technology base would cause the plan to be overtaken by events. The

faults singled out by the Congressional Research Service may be real

faults, or they may show a shrewd awareness by Bureau officials of the

limitations of any formal plan. Conditions are always changing, but a

long-range plan, once ratified by the sponsoring agency, can seem as

though set in concrete.

All of this should not be taken to mean that long-range

planning or more accurately long-range thinking is unimportant.

Perhaps the most important contribution that the leadership of an

institution must make is to provide the institution with a vision of the

future. This vision must be easy to understand both by people inside and

outside the institution, it must be intellectually challenging and exciting,

and it must be credible so that the people in the institution actually believe

that the vision can be turned into reality. The mechanisms for creating

this vision are complex and diffuse certainly no "long-range planning

staff" has ever succeeded. It is in this process that the management of the

institution must strictly apply, for want of a better term, the "organismic"

approach. A great many people in the institution must be involved in

many different ways to create this vision of the future. Only then will the

183
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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vision fulfill the reason for its existence, which is to make the institution

something much more than simply the sum of its parts.

Short-Range Planning. Short-range planning will be defined here as

the continuing process of developing programs, procedures, schedules,

budgets, and forecasts. Ideally, such planning is performed at all levels

within the organization. It entails intensive interaction of managers at all

levels to agree on a rationale to guide the organization. The products of

such planning normally cover specified periods the schedule for a

technology program, a fiscal-year budget, or a five-year forecast. The

main sequences in this planning and control process, as developed with

NASA, are shown in figure 46. This figure illustrates the most important

steps in the process, but it omits several features of interest. Like those of

most technology development agencies, NASA's programs are authorized annually. This means that every year the agency must seek

authorizing legislation from both houses of Congress before it can request

appropriations. More will be said about annual authorizations in the next

chapter. Their significance here is that they add greatly to the centers'

paperwork burden. With the full range of NASA programs under constant

review, the centers must specify in even greater detail than would

otherwise be the case as to how they will use their resources, the status of

current programs, what new work they will need approved, and what

changes in their need for manpower can be anticipated.

CONCEPTUAL PLANNING

I

• R & D CONCEPTUAL PLANNING

ESTABLISHMENT OF AGENCY

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

DETAILED PLANNING

• RTOP PROCESS

• PROJECT PLANNING PROCESS

• INSTITUTIONAL PLANNING

• PAD DOCUMENTATION PROCESS

II

CONTROL

APPROVAL

• APPROVED PAD

• DETAILED RESOURCES

PLANNING

• SUBMISSION OF

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET

REQUEST

• CONGRESSIONAL AUTHORIZATION

AND APPROVAL

• PROGRAM AUTHORIZATIONS

(506's & 504's)

• MANAGEMENT STATUS REVIEWS

IV

Source" The Planning and Control of NASA Resources (NASA Technical Memorandum

83090, 1981), p. 11.

FIGURE 46.- The NASA planning and control process is shown on this chart.

184
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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The budgetary process is as much the driving force in center

planning as the programs to be funded. To describe the center budgetary

process, two mechanisms need to be understood. The first pertains to the

NASA budgetary structure. NASA funds its programs under three

accounts" Research and Development (R&D), Research and Program

Management (R&PM), and Construction of Facilities (CoF).

It should be noted that the CoF account only funds the construction

of buildings and often not their collateral equipment, which sometimes

actually costs more. As such, equipment is normally paid for out of R&D

or R&PM, depending on whether the equipment is special-(R&D) or

general-purpose (R&PM). The R&PM budget absorbs the cost of NASA

employees salaries, training, and benefits while the costs of

support service contracting are borne either by R&D or R&PM,

depending on whether tasks support R&D programs or the agency's

institutional base. Thus funds are disbursed from Headquarters either as

direct program funding or institutional support. Note that institutional

support funds consist of both R&D and R&PM monies. Such an approach

is NASA's way of affirming the policy that direct support (computer

services, graphics, machine shops) be charged directly to projects

benefiting from that support.*

The major part of NASA's budget .is contained in the Research and

Development account. This is actually a serious misnomer because such

things as the funds required to construct Space Shuttle orbiters as well as,

say, technology development for advanced space communications

systems, are carried in the R&D account. For all practical purposes, the

R&D account carries the entire NASA program activity and amounted to

* At the contractor-operated laboratories operated for the Energy Department, the

budgetary process is markedly simpler than NASA's. The primary budget parameter is

funding, and there are no arbitrary limitations on staffing or grade levels. As with NASA,

the budgetary process begins with informal discussions, at the project level, with a

Headquarters counterpart. Budgeters must develop detailed costs for all aspects of their

projects, including all technical/scientific and direct support personnel, facility

operations, direct support services, and capital costs. Then, a "fair share" of laboratory

general support and other overhead costs are included through a standard factor, currently

about 60 percent of direct costs. Each project budget is analogous to the RTOP budget in

NASA, except that the project budget at (say) Lawrence Livermore Laboratory accounts

for all costs. The NASA RTOP budget includes all direct costs, but excludes civil service

salary costs, and in no way accounts for a share of general support costs.

It should not be concluded that the comparatively straightforward budget process at

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, for example, is "painless" for project

managers. Technical people usually have a low threshold for pain due to administrative

demands on their time, and justifiably so. Still, the process is simpler than NASA's, and

the absence of anything comparable to NASA's system for handling institutional costs

makes administering resources at Lawrence Livermore markedly easier, and probably less

costly.

185
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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almost $6.0 billion in Fiscal Year 1984. The Research and Program

Management account is also misnamed before 1970, it was actually

called Administrative Operations (AO) which much more accurately

describes what the money in the account is used for. In round numbers,

the R&PM account contained a billion dollars in Fiscal Year 1984. The

dominant items in the R&PM account are those related to personnel costs

and these are, to first approximation, fixed. But in addition to the control

imposed by the limit on salary money, NASA also has to live within a

separate personnel ceiling imposed in terms of the average number of

full-time equivalent (FTE) people that can be on the payroll in any given

fiscal year. It happens on occasion that these two "controls" contradict

each other. Thus, it is possible to have more FTEs than R&PM to pay the

salaries and vice versa. The reason for the separate controls on salary

money and FTE is not quite clear. It is probably due to the fact that the

number of federal employees (FTEs) has a much higher political visibility

compared to the dollars in the Federal budget devoted to the payment of

civil service salaries.

In addition to these considerations, there are two small items carried

in the R&PM account that are unusually important for managers of

research institutions. One is the travel account. This is divided into two

parts, program and non-program travel. Program travel is defined as

travel necessary to accomplish a specific program, such as visiting a

contractor, or going to the launch site when a spacecraft is being readied

for launch. Non-program travel is intended to make it possible for

members of the scientific and technical staffs of the several NASA

institutions to attend technical meetings and so further their professional

development. Managers of research and technology development

institutions need to recognize the importance of non-program travel and

to make sure that their best technical staff members have ample

opportunity to travel for the purpose of professional development.

Non-program travel should be recognized as an important investment in

the "human resources" available to the agency, despite the possibility that

some of the travel opportunities provided for technical staff will be

abused.

The other small but important item in the R&PM account that

deserves special management attention is the cost of utilities. Ever since

the large change in energy costs ten years ago, utility costs have

fluctuated in ways that have become less predictable. A sudden rise in

electrical power costs may therefore have to be accommodated at the

expense of other things personnel costs, travel in the R&PM

account. In view of this situation, it has become necessary for

management to become sophisticated about cost trends, so that

negotiations with the utility suppliers can be carried out at the highest

levels if necessary.

186
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT ,LABORATORIES

• The Construction of Facilities is a very small fraction of NASA's

' overall budget, but it is unusually important. (In Fiscal Year 1984, the

_', .L,-.. NASA budget had $137 million in the CoF account.) The facilities

.... ..

ii.., available to a center have an extraordinary impact on what can be done

:i.,'_:- and what technical objectives the center management can adopt. Since

- ,...

:.; _i;_i,:, facilities normally take a long time to develop and construct, they form an

, important part of the 'vision of the future' that the management must i!:_;_i_: i?_?_i _

,_-.., provide. There is no doubt that the rank-and-file at a center view the

:_::!::_ _:_:"::;. _,.., _ facilities plans in just this manner. Accordingly, the development of an

_.. , . -.

• ,,, imaginative facilities plan is unusually important even if the amount of

i_"_i5 '.> money spent on its implementation is relatively small. All of this is well

-, ' /i i q .j

•.,_,:-_i_. understood by most NASA senior managers and most of the NASA

!:'..:._,"-"-:,-: ! _ '2 .... _ : ".".. centers have quite elaborate long-range facility plans that are updated

;,._i:.....'- annually. These plans are not just "bricks and mortar" proposals. They

are a vital part of the future of the center.

.- The second mechanism we mentioned pertains to the work of

- developing budgets at the centers. The most important of these budgetary

• instruments is the Research and Technology Operating Plan (RTOP),

' • _

• ..

,_._,_.!._ discussed in Chapter V This it will be recalled is the agreement

:_,._:,:_i:._i between a center and Headquarters on the nature and size of research

;; :: tasks the center elects to sponsor. The RTOP is a microcosm of the entire

• budgetary process. A division within a center may start the ball rolling,

....• but what ensues will be the outcome of prolonged negotiations between

different divisions within the center, between a division and the director's

• office, and between the center, the relevant program offices (Space

_ Science and Applications or Aeronautics and Space Technology), and the

NASA Comptroller. If approved, the RTOP will describe the planned

work, accomplishments to date, the schedule for the coming fiscal year,

and manpower and funding requirements, which may be run out to five

_i years if appropriate.

Two aspects of this process often lead to considerable complexity.

. One is the fragmentation of the budgetary process, owing to the split at

_,, Headquarters between the programmatic and the center operations sides,

.,

" ,. and to the existence of separate program offices, each with its own

procedures and schedules. The second is the extreme difficulty

,.

experienced by center technical staff in breaking out their R&D budgets

at the RTOP level into separate direct program and general support

portions.

What has not so far been mentioned, but must always be kept in

._ ' mind, is that the total NASA budget is generally being reviewed by OMB

• and Congress, even as the center prepares its operating budget. A further

..

:_:i complication is that controls are placed on manpower, as well as funding,

-_._ levels. These controls affect the actual numbers of government and

• ,

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187
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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contract employees, the funds available to compensate civil-service

workers, and the average grade level at the center.

What applies to the RTOP applies to full-scale projects as well. In

both cases, there are standard forms whereby the center indicates what it

plans to do, how it plans to do it, and what it will need in the way of

resources. In the case of discrete projects, Headquarters issues a project

approval document (PAD), which authorizes a new project; on the center

side, the project manager drafts a detailed project plan. The actual

authorization for work to proceed comes when Headquarters issues two

forms (the "506s" and "504s" in figure 46) to the center. Briefly, these are

the principal authorizing and resource allocation documents. Without

them, the center cannot obligate funds.

It was necessary to give a brief account of NASA's planning and

control process in order to make the role of center executives

comprehensible. Consider, for example, centers of the size and diversity

of Goddard or Langley. At any time, the directors and their staffs are

accountable for several dozen research tasks, perhaps one or two flight

projects, and a multitude of activities which support other centers as well

as their own installations. A capable director can give a certain direction

to all of this, but he cannot hope to control all perhaps not even a

majority of the decisions that must be made by his managers. What he

can do, for starters, is to ask the right questions at the right time: Do we

need a new RTOP, or can we sponsor new research tasks within existing

authorizations? Is it, perhaps, time to phase out research work that has

already run 2 to 3 years? Regarding Project X, should we move from the

conceptual phase to the drafting of a project plan? Do we need heavier

support in other words, more contractors for our computation

laboratory? How can we absorb personnel from Project Y, which is

winding down? Should we establish a small working group to look into

areas not covered by our existing directorates? Many such questions

suggest themselves.

Recall our earlier discussion of the "organismic" system. We noted

as one of its features the dispersal of knowledge throughout the

organization. As Burns puts it, "Each individual has to do his job with

knowledge of overall purpose and situation of the [center] as a whole.

Interaction runs laterally as much as vertically, and communication

between people of different rank tends to resemble 'lateral' consultation

rather than 'vertical' command. Omniscience can no longer be imputed to

the boss at the top." (ref. 185.)

This describes precisely the situation at any NASA center or,

indeed, most government laboratories, save for small installations with

missions of a narrowly technical kind. Whether it is a budget, a contract

requiring the director's approval, an RTOP, or the allotment of

discretionary funds to a directorate a senior research executive can

188
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT, LABORATORIES

seldom handle these matters unaided. What we have called short-term

planning is not so much the cause, as the outcome, of the negotiations,

• meetings, and informal consultations involving a center's senior

:: executives, their managers, functional staff, and Headquarters officers.

.i_ According to this view, center executives are neither 'top-down'

i._,:'_: managers nor constitutional monarchs at the mercy of their staff and -_. ' ._i ._ , \. "

....' .... advisors. Rather, they are advocates for the projects and programs

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thrashed out at all levels of the center. In effect, these interactions are a

kind of analogue to the free market, since it is in this form that center

executives answer the key questions pertaining to R&D budgeting"

• What should be the total amount allocated to R&D for the next

planning period?

• How should the total amount available be allocated to various types of

R&D?

• Which specific projects should be initiated, which continued, and what

level of support should be given to each? (ref. 186.)

Structuring the Organization. Richard R. Nelson has made a most

useful distinction between decisions within an organizational structure

and decisions about that organizational structure, which he sees as the

major decisions. Decisions about an organization occur when "a given

organizational regime is limited in the range of contingencies it can

handle effectively . . . when circumstances evolve outside of this range,

the symptom is a growing restiveness (on part of one group or another)

with the routine flow of events and decisions; and ... successful

resolution requires some kind of significant reorganization." (ref. 187.) It

is in structuring the research organization that senior executives often

make their most significant contribution.

Note that it is not a question here of rearranging the boxes in an

organization chart. Reorganizations do matter, but less for what they

accomplish than for what they signify to center employees. The

advantage to a center director, especially a new one, in reorganizing is

that in doing so, he can shake up the organization, and avoid the danger

of becoming captive to existing institutional arrangements. But the real

question a senior executive must face is, What kind of an organization do

I want this laboratory to be? A laboratory director can put his stamp on

the organization in many ways. In personnel selection, for example, he

will try to find the right mix of skills, so that the center can perform the

full range of work from basic research to flight projects. More than likely,

he will try to control civil service job classifications to maintain a

reasonable average grade level; control the total number of civil service

positions to meet the OMB ceiling; use special hiring authorities for

temporary special skill needs; enter into cooperative agreements with

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189
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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local universities; establish special entry-level programs to attract new

blood; and encourage direct and informal communication between gifted

researchers and senior management outside the defined channel of the line

organization (ref. 188). Taken by themselves, none of these measures is

radical; taken as a whole, they can shape the organization for a

generation.

To make our point as strongly as possible that a laboratory's

senior management has great freedom to shape the organization we

selected examples of possible changes from one area, personnel

management. But there are many other ways in which laboratory

managers can and do subtly change the nature of their installations. A

new (or even modified) research or test facility can create new sponsors or

a new research agenda. In the realm of what are, strictly speaking,

organizational changes, an executive can transform the laboratory by, for

example, merging several research efforts into one directorate, setting up

small groups working in fundamental research and, particularly, moving

the center into disciplines adjacent to its historic mission.

A short case study will illustrate how some laboratory directors

move their organizations in new directions. In 1973, the NASA Deputy

Administrator wrote to the directors of the older research centers, asking

them to explain the objectives they planned to set for their institutions. In

his reply, Edgar Cortright, director of the Langley Research Center,

mentioned that several years earlier, center officials had decided to

concentrate more resources on space applications" "We selected

environmental quality as best suiting our skills and interests. Langley has

always been involved in studying the atmosphere since it is the medium

of flight... In addition, we have extensive experimental and analytical

research under way on a wide variety of related subjects, i.e., circulation

and dispersion modelling; currents of the continental shelf; pollutant

chemistry; tunable lasers for pollution detection, etc." (ref. 189.) At the

Ames Research Center, one of the authors (Mark) listed six "areas of

emphasis" where, it was felt, the center should lead NASA. One of these,

theoretical fluid mechanics, "is the basic science on which all of NASA's

activities ultimately depend . . . Our objective at Ames is to hold the

leading position in the world in this field." (ref. 190.)

The wisdom of these choices is not at issue here. We cite these

choices because the underlying rationale is so clear; in one case (Langley)

that the center already had the expertise needed to move into new, but

adjacent, fields and in the other (Ames) that the center's expertise

underlay every kind of development work funded by the sponsoring

agency. We can go still further and state certain principles which, we

believe, should guide executives in shaping their organizations. First, do

not move too far out ahead of the rest of the organization. Build on what

is already there. It is exceedingly rare for a laboratory to move abruptly

190
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

from one kind of research to one altogether different. While this was once

'_• possible for example, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory moved from

, -: guided missile research to lunar and planetary exploration, when it was

ii. : transferred from the Army to NASA it has become rare to take such

• .

_.._i,._-, major steps. In the past, when money was easier to come by, the usual

_: _:: procedure when an agency moved in new directions was to create a new

_:;_,._:_i_:_,research installation. Today, the same objective must be accomplished by

' _::_." causing more gradual changes in the existing institutions.

:i_::.::.!_i.; Second, structuring the organization and making the restructuring

.... stick are two different things. A really determined executive can create

: _i_ _._ "facts," but there is even greater challenge in training the future branch

•:,_. ...... _ chiefs and managers who will inherit that structure a decade hence. As the

:'_:"_-:,_ _., director of the Lewis Research Center, responding to the Deputy

..... : Administrator's 1973 survey, warned, "Because we all started here

. together, most of us will be leaving together." (ref. 191.) Personnel

development and considerations of organizational structure cannot be

" separated.

._ :- Finally, we would once more stress the importance, in any research

:-:._:_::_: organization of leaving room for research not. tied to specific missions A

..... major difference between government and industrial laboratories is that,

;:_-. in the latter, basic research is a staff function conducted at one (or at most

.

.... a few) location(s) instead of being dispersed throughout the organization

' (ref. 192). Even in companies as large as General Electric and DuPont,

there is one central research organization which serves several functions"

• as the long-range research arm of the corporation, as a centralized facility

for specialized services, as a technical consulting group to corporate

management, and to do research for company divisions on a contract

, basis (ref. 193). In an agency like NASA, on the other hand, most of the

" larger centers the Kennedy Space Center is an exception _ have their

. own long-range basic research groups. It falls to the center director to

:. justify these groups, to guard against duplicating work other centers are

doing, and to ensure that some communication outside formal channels is

_ always possible.

.. •

•" Reviewing, Measuring, and Evaluating Results. This is the process

,_ by which center executives assure themselves and those to whom they

report that work under their direction is being adequately carried out. A

single word for this function is "control." Examples of control are the

day-to-day monitoring of individual tasks by supervisors, periodic

progress reviews, meetings, presentations to Headquarters, testing of

_ hardware, and the like. In a somewhat different sense, the accounting

• function is the tool by which the budget is controlled. Moreover,

_ limitations on the workforce in the form of costs, number of employees,

and average grade level all lead to elaborate control systems.

191
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Although this function is no less important than the first three, we

shall not say much about it here. First, evaluating results depends on the

goals set, the game plan under which the laboratory functions, and the

structure drafted for it by its senior management. It is not something

independent that can easily be treated from a theoretical viewpoint.

Planning, operations, and evaluation merge into one another. The same

budget which maps the center's strategy for the coming fiscal year is also

a commentary on those activities which executives think should be

terminated, sustained at current levels, or augmented.

But there is a more important reason why the evaluation of results

cannot be treated here. No Federal laboratory is completely independent

in choosing what it does. If its work is of national importance and if

not, what is its reason for being? it will be under pressure from its

sponsoring agency, from Congress, from the scientific community, from

industry, and from any number of other outside players. It is useful to

treat the laboratory as a closed system, but it is not realistic. In the next

chapter, we set matters right by analyzing the relations between

laboratories and their sponsoring agencies. And we shall look especially

closely at a single question" How do laboratories interpret their mission to

apply their research to "national" needs? In accordance with our practice

throughout this book, we shall approach an answer by way of two case

studies, one of the multiprogram laboratories operated for the Department

of Energy, and the other of the National Bureau of Standards. We will

then be in a better position, through these examples, to show how the

work done in a laboratory is actually evaluated in practice.

192
i _i_ i

i_ +i ,_/_ _

•_iii:!__i _i,_°?

!iill

!•

CHAPTER X

The Laboratory and its Sponsors

"Can two walk together, except they be agreed?"

---Amos, II!, v. 3

The Role of the Sponsoring Agency

There is a delusive simplicity to studying Federal laboratories as

though they were closed systems. What we propose is to get behind

appearances and review some of the many ways in which laboratories

interact with their external environments. As a general rule, research and

technology development laboratories tend to be more stable than the

agencies that justify and provide the funding for the laboratories. While it

is expensive to set up a research institution, the reorganization of an

agency in Washington does not automatically require the construction of

large new facilities. A good laboratory is a more or less permanent

institution and it may shift between agencies as the political climate

dictates. Examples abound" the transfer of the National Bureau of

Standards from the Department of the Treasury (1901) to the Department

of Commerce (1903-1913); the transfer of segments of the Bureau to the

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; the organization of

the multiprogram energy laboratories, first under the Atomic Energy

Commission (1946), followed by the Energy Research and Development

Administration (1975) and the Department of Energy (1977); and the

selection of the research centers of the National Advisory Committee for

Aeronautics to be the core of NASA when it was created in 1958. There is

nothing immutable about the ties of a laboratory to its sponsoring agency.

The agency may be target as well as shield.

It often happens that the reason for being of a technology

development agency becomes politically irrelevant, once the objectives

for which the agency was created been achieved. Since 1967, NASA has

had to face this problem, shutting down its Electronics Research Center

and transferring it to the Department of Transportation, as well as cutting

back support to other centers. Similarly, the Army transferred part of the

Fort Detrick Chemical Warfare facilities to the National Cancer Institute

when the Nixon administration terminated all biological warfare research

in 1969. In both cases, there was a sponsor able and willing to take on a

193
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

,...

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new facility. In other cases, a laboratory, while retaining a primary

loyalty to one agency, tries to pick up additional support by diversifying

or by arranging to do work for other Federal agencies. We will call this

the "resource sharing" model. Mention was made in Chapter IV of the

location of the Army Air Mobility Development Laboratory at NASA's

Ames Research Center. Another example of resource sharing is the

location of the Army Corps of Engineers Nuclear Cratering Group at the

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which is operated under

contract to the Energy Department. In each case the agency operating the

laboratory is funded by another that wants work done there. Almost every

large laboratory operated by a given agency does some reimbursable

work for other agencies.

More will be said about resource sharing in the case studies included

in this chapter, but certain general rules (which account for successful

resource sharing) can be mentioned here. The first is that "user" groups

should be small compared to the "host" laboratory probably no larger

than 20 percent of the host. Second, the host laboratory must be extremely

careful not to interfere with the programmatic function of the user group.

Resource sharing will not work if the program of the user group is so

skewed that it only benefits the host laboratory and its parent agency.

Finally, the user group should operate under roughly the same personnel,

procurement, and fiscal regulations, if the host laboratory is to execute

these functions properly. Unless some administrative uniformity exists, it

is possible for purely administrative problems to wreck a relationship that

otherwise makes sense on technical grounds.

Perhaps enough has been said to show why easy generalizations

about the proper roles of government laboratories are implausible at

best, misleading at worst. Government laboratories exist in every phase

of dependence or freedom. A laboratory may work exclusively for one

sponsor or for several; perform reimbursable or non-reimbursable work

for other agencies; be a joint venture of an agency and one or several

universities and be operated as a distinct organizational entity;* do

fundamental research or perform work very closely tied to an agency

mission; or even carry on work which is not closely tied to any agency

mission.** No generalizations are adequate to encompass such varied

institutional possibilities, and so we have elected to explain matters

indirectly, by detailed case studies of two very different kinds of

laboratories" the National Bureau of Standards in Gaithersburg, Maryland

* An example of this is the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics operated by

the National Bureau of Standards and the University of Colorado.

** A possible example might be the National Center for Atmospheric Research in

Boulder, Colorado, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and operated by

a consortium of universities.

194
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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and the nine multiprogram laboratories operated under contract to the

Energy Department. Once the operations of these laboratories have been

reviewed, it will become easier to understand the complexity of the

transactions between a laboratory and its clientele, or the reasons for the

difficulties encountered by Energy laboratories in moving into work in

nonnuclear energy research, development, and demonstrations. A

laboratory may be deemed "national" because it is supported out of public

funds and supplies certain public goods in, for example, national

security, space exploration, or the maintenance of a national measurement system. But such an assertion tells us almost nothing about the way

these laboratories operate or why they choose certain courses of action

over others apparently as rational. Only selected case studies can bring

out the reality behind a laboratory's organic legislation.

But even the case studies set out later in this chapter need something

by way of a preface to make them intelligible. We need to explain two of

the most important features that make technology development

laboratories what they are. First, we will set forth in general terms the

functions performed by a parent agency for its laboratories. Then, we

shall briefly examine those conditions which militate for or against the

independence of laboratories vis-a-vis their sponsors.

Justification of the Technology Development Function. The most

important function of the parent headquarters organization is to justify the

research and technology development functions carried out by the

laboratories and to see to it that the necessary funds are appropriated.

Relationships between laboratory and sponsor are complicated and

decentralized; only in this way can all the talents, both at the laboratory

and headquarters, be brought to bear productively on the problem of how

to set the fight amount of funding. Figure 47 illustrates these relationships

schematically.

The top laboratory managers establish their primary relationship

with the second tier of managers at headquarters, and so on down the line.

The laboratory director will normally deal with the program associate

administrators (or assistant secretaries), the department heads of the

laboratory with the various headquarters division heads, and the

laboratory division chiefs with the group leaders in the headquarters

organization. There is, of course, considerable cross-talk between the

various tiers, and independent negotiation regarding programs and

funding. These negotiations are keyed to the Federal budgetary cycle and

the three main groups involved: the agency itself, the Office of

Management and Budget, and the congressional authorizing and

appropriations committees. The Federal budgeting cycle is illustrated in

figure 48.

The agency formulates a budget which is presented to the President

through the OMB sometime in the fall of the calendar year, usually in

195
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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September. (Preliminary budgets may be submitted to OMB earlier in the

year as a basis for subsequent negotiation.) OMB then reviews the

agency's budget, compares it with those submitted by other agencies, and

responds by giving a "mark" to the agency in October or November. Final

negotiations then begin, and by the following January a final budget for

the executive branch is developed. This budget is part of the President's

annual message, and by law must be submitted to Congress before

January 20.

Once the budget is presented to Congress, it is referred to the

appropriate authorizing committee. The distinction between authorization

and appropriation is subtle, but it is absolutely crucial. An agency whose

appropriations have run out is normally kept alive through a continuing

resolution, which permits the agency to continue spending at the funding

level of the prior fiscal year until a new appropriations bill is passed. But

an agency whose authorization expires ceases to exist. What has made

this process especially important has been congressional insistence on

periodic, or even annual, authorization. Prior to 1959, most agencies

the Army Corps of Engineers was a notable exception were

permanently authorized by their organic legislation. In that year Congress

added a rider to the NASA appropriation bill, requiring that agency to

seek authorization before it could request appropriations. The annual

authorization requirement was subsequently extended to all new military

research and development programs and to the Atomic Energy

Commission.

Assistant or

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FIGURE 47. _ This chart shows the formal relationships and fines of communkation

between the headquarters and a large research institution. The most important

po&t to recognize N that these communications take place at many different levels.

196
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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Budget Process for the OMB

FY 85 Budget

v

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Negotiations Between

OMB and Agencies

for the FY 86 Budget

FIGURE 48.- The Federal Budgetary Cycle (Fiscal Year 1984-85).

The authorizing committees shape the agencies for which they are

responsible in three closely related ways. The bills reported out of

committee set the ceiling for appropriations; the reports accompanying

the authorizing legislation are recognized as limitations and preconditions

on how the funds made available can be spent; and committees prescribe

the conditions under which "their" agencies can reprogram or transfer

between accounts, as well as the percentages and sums involved (ref.

194). Over and above these functions, the authorization process has an

impact which is hard to measure" The authorization committee will be the

advocate in Congress for its agencies. Where most appropriations

subcommittees deal with a hodgepodge of unrelated agencies,

authorization committees usually oversee, at most, two or three. Thus,

the House Science and Technology Committee authorizes the budgets of

NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the National Bureau of

Standards. On balance, regular authorizations probably work to an

agency's advantage. The process is undoubtedly cumbersome, with

distinct sets of hearings in each house on essentially the same programs.

But it does give an agency greater visibility in Congress, although with

the implied threat of Congress trying to control its programs too closely.

Once the authorization bill is passed, Congress must actually

appropriate funds for the work authorized. Because appropriations

subcommittees deal with groups of unrelated agencies, it sometimes

happens that items in one agency's budget are traded off against items in

another. What we have here is not randomness but, to quote a phrase, a

failure to communicate. There is, for example, the case of NASA's

Pioneer Venus program as it made its way through the 1974

appropriations hearings. Pioneer Venus was a planetary exploration

program for which the House Science and Astronautics Committee

the predecessor to the Science and Technology Committee had

197
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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authorized $50 million in the summer .of 1974. When the bill reached the

House Appropriations Committee, the item was deleted with the proposal

that Pioneer Venus be delayed one year so that a program in another,

unrelated agency could be funded. For reasons of celestial mechanics, it

was impossible to delay the planetary program. Failure to fund would

have meant a delay not of one, but of four, years and would have

effectively crippled the program. Once this was properly explained to

members of the Appropriations Committee, the funds were restored; but

this example illustrates how tradeoffs in the appropriations process are

sometimes made.

Negotiations with Congress and OMB are the responsibilities

primarily of the program associate administrators (or assistant secretaries)

in the technical agencies. They will generally be the ones who conduct

final negotiations with OMB examiners and senior officials, and who

deliver the agency's testimony before its authorizing and appropriations

committees. The most senior agency executives (the Secretary or the

Administrator) will also testify before Congress, but their main function

tends to be, at least during negotiations, to deal with the staff in the

President's Office who formulate the President's Budget. At the end of

each calendar year there are usually some points still at issue between the

agency and OMB, and it is at this time that agency heads tend to meet

with the President and his immediate assistants to agree on the final form

of the budget.

Formulation of the Program. The second important function of the

Headquarters organization is to formulate the agency's program in

general terms, and then to assign it, once it has been funded, to the

appropriate research installations. In assigning roles and missions,

Headquarters is usually guided by certain principles"

First, a given role and mission should be consistent with the facilities

at that laboratory. Facilities are usually expensive and require long lead

times to bring "on line." Prudent management dictates that, normally and

in periods of level or declining budgets, the mission of a particular

laboratory should be largely determined by the facilities it can bring to

bear on research problems. We have chosen our words carefully.

Qualified people are, of course, extremely important but, in general,

people can be hired more quickly than facilities can be built.

Second, the work of a mission-oriented laboratory should result in

some final product. The assignment of a mission should not be

open-ended; achieving a goal must take precedence over exploring a

particular discipline. (There are, as always, exceptions; an institution like

the National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois has the mission of

developing the discipline of high-energy physics.) Missions tend to be

associated with projects, such as Apollo, Viking, or the fast breeder

reactor; with finite military programs, as in many Defense laboratories; or

198
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT, LABORATORIES

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with the determination of the properties of materials important for

industry, as with much of the work of the National Bureau of Standards.

The work done at the Bureau raises many of the kinds of questions that

research directors and their superiors at Headquarters must consider" How

are the areas of work to be chosen and priorities to be set? How will it be

determined whether the work of the Bureau is relevant to concerns of

industry? How active or passive should the Bureau be in its relations with

industry? How do relations with industry intersect with those of

consumers, regulatory agencies, and, in the case of computers, with the

preparation of mandatory Federal standards for automatic data processing

(ref. 195)? It is well to emphasize the generic nature of these questions

since an agency like the Bureau, preoccupied as it is with matters of test

and measurement, might seem to be the farthest removed from an agency

like NASA. Yet the same principle holds for both" By orienting missions

around projects with finite lifetimes, an agency can assure that its

research is dynamic.

Evaluation of Results. There is a final function which a headquarters

organization has, and that is to evaluate the quality of the product of a

technology development institution. Despite all that can be said about

evaluation, this remains the most difficult and perhaps the most hazardous

headquarters function. It must be done, yet no good rules that apply

across the board exist. The simplest way to make this evaluation is to

ensure that a laboratory's output whether this output is a new research

concept, new hardware, or new standards for data processing equipment- is closely coupled to the ultimate user. One example might be a

reactor design used in ship nuclear propulsion; a second might be a

standard reference material, like carbon steel or rice powder, used to

calibrate instruments; a third might be an electrophoretic system to separate

and map human serum proteins; while a fourth might be an aircraft engine

design that improved fuel efficiency.

The coupling will be less direct where the work done is either more

exploratory, or is devoted to programs like space exploration which often

have no first-order practical consequences. Here the question is not so

much, Did this bird fly? as, Should it have flown in the first place? (Recall

our discussion in Chapter VI of the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory.)

Where the work requires technology that scarcely exists when a program is

sponsored, or when any payoff is far in the future, the distance between

output and the end user becomes still greater. In this category are programs

like the supersonic transport and the breeder reactor. Here, the technical

problems are (or were) so complex and the technologies so unproven that

the private suppliers whose cooperation was essential the airframe

manufacturers in one case, the public utilities and reactor manufacturers in

the other- refused to participate until the government agreed (as eventually it did)to put up all or most of the development money.

199
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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In general, evaluation works well primarily in the first case, where the

output of the laboratory (the supplier) is closely coupled to the industry or

the agency that uses it. In the other two cases, evaluation is much more

problematic because it involves not only technical but also political,

regulatory, and environmental considerations that technology development organizations are ill-equipped to review. Evaluation and the work

being evaluated tend to succeed where: (1) the government has a direct

procurement interest in a technology and is the actual buyer and (2) where

precedent exists for the work being sponsored (ref. 196). Even in these,

the best cases, evaluation will be difficult because it must be made before

the practical impact of the technology being developed can be properly

judged.

Autonomy of the Federal Technology Develoment Laboratory

The other question raised earlier was this" What conditions militate

for or against the independence of laboratories vis-a-vis their principal

sponsors? "Autonomy" is probably a more precise word: autonomy to set

research priorities, to structure the laboratory's budget, to manage its

programs without excessive headquarters interference. There are obvious

limits to what even the most free-wheeling headquarters organization can

tolerate, but within these limits there is considerable variation in the

autonomy of Federal laboratories. In relation to headquarters, a

laboratory or laboratories is likely to have a relatively high degree of

autonomy" (1) where the resources devoted to research and technology

development are large in relation to the agency's budget, (2) where the

laboratories manage one or a few large high-priority programs, rather

than many small research tasks, (3) where these same programs require

frequent congressional authorization, and (4)where the units of a

multilaboratory agency are grouped in related fashion. This last condition

is especially important, because it permits the formation of coalitions of

laboratories against what field personnel see as the efforts of headquarters

to engage in "micromanagement."

In view of these criteria, NASA emerges as an agency whose

laboratories enjoy relatively high autonomy, the National Bureau of

Standards as one with limited autonomy, with the laboratories of the

Energy and Defense Departments falling somewhere in between.

Consider the NASA centers during the Apollo program. Throughout the

1960s, the manned spaceflight programs accounted for about 70 percent

of NASA's budget. Given Apollo's status as a program of the highest

priority, the three centers under the Office of Manned Space Flight

(OMSF) the Manned Spacecraft (MSC), Marshall, and Kennedy

Centers enjoyed considerable freedom to run their programs in their

own ways. Between 1962 and 1967, NASA was a more decentralized

200
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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agency than before or since. OMSF and its centers devised tactics

enabling them to become for a time the preponderant organizational

element in NASA. First, OMSF and its head, Associate Administrator

Dr. George Mueller, built a powerful coalition, almost a "manned

spaceflight family." (ref. 197). Through the Apollo Executives Group, it

dealt directly with all of its prime contractors; through the Manned Space

Flight Subcommittee of the House Science and Astronautics Committee,

it had close ties with its authorizing committee; and in the OMSF

Management Council, it had a forum for resolving its disputes internally.

And despite strains, particularly the philosophical differences between

Marshall Space Flight Center and the Manned Spacecraft Center (now the

Johnson Space Center) on the proper way to manage Apollo, the coalition

held.

Second, there was the possibility of coalitions between OMSF and

the older research centers that got their start under the National Advisory

Committee for Aeronautics. By their nature these coalitions alliances,

really were weaker and more temporary, but they were no less real for

that. The older centers were doing much of the supporting research and

technology work for Apollo; many of their technical people were eager to

get into large-scale development work; most important, the core of the

Manned Spacecraft Center, when it was constituted late in 1961,

consisted of senior managers like MSC Director Dr. Robert Gilruth and

his distinguished colleague Dr. Max Faget, who had spent their careers at

the Langley Research Center. The possibility of cross-communication

between OMSF and the older centers was not foreclosed. Third, Mueller

and his OMSF staff were careful not to challenge NASA's senior

management, the Administrator and the Deputy Administrator, directly.

The autonomy of OMSF was brought into play, not against NASA senior

management, but against other organizational rivals, notably the Office of

Space Science and Applications (OSSA). OSSA and OMSF were far

apart on the kinds of experiments to be flown on Apollo missions, and

some OSSA scientists and advisors believed that the size of the manned

programs imperiled NASA's very ability to do space science at all. It was

precisely in these circumstances that OMSF could make the other

program offices feel the size of its foot. OSSA was outflanked, and space

science on Apollo was done very much on Mueller's terms.

Two things combined to diminish OMSF's autonomy" the leveling

off of the manned space program budget as early as 1966, and the January

1967 fire that killed three astronauts on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral.

The decline in OMSF's budget could not, by itself, have diminished

OMSF's autonomy very much; relative to the other program offices, it

remained the largest entity within NASA. But the Apollo fire was enough

to convince NASA officials, especially Administrator James Webb, that

OMSF had been kept on far too long a leash and that management of the

201
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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program had been faulty in certain areas. For more than a year prior to the

fire, both the Apollo program manager and NASA senior officials had

known that Apollo was running into serious trouble and that the prime

spacecraft contractor, North American Aviation, seemed to lack the

technical and managerial skills needed to keep the program on schedule.

Following the fire, Webb brought Apollo and through it, OMSF--

under much stricter control" shaking up OMSF management at

Headquarters and in the field, creating a special office to monitor NASA's

contracts with North American Aviation, and appointing an Associate

Administrator for Organization and Management to bring the entire field

organization under central control. Thus OMSF tended to become more

like a normal program office and, less like a project organization

embedded in a Federal agency.

By comparison with NASA, the National Bureau of Standards has

had much less autonomy relative to its parent agency, the Department of

Commerce. The principal reasons for this are that the Bureau is small in

relation to the Commerce Department, that Commerce has many

responsibilities other than research, and that even within that restricted

area there are rival research and development organizations within the

Department of Commerce, such as the National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration. To complicate matters, much of the

Bureau's work could be done elsewhere: by firms large enough to have

their own test facilities, by trade associations, and by private

organizations involved in drafting voluntary standards, like the American

National Standards Institute. Because some of the Bureau's research

appeared to duplicate work being done elsewhere, OMB put pressure on

the Bureau to justify what it was doing. In 1974, OMB went further and

enunciated a "lead agency" policy, requiring that an agency, in drafting

its program, "should be the principal or primary source of support for

carrying out that mission . . . Ideally, this . . . should help avoid

duplication of effort (and) . . . result in better knowledge of and the

control over the cost of carrying out specific mission." (ref. 198). But in

the eyes of Bureau officials, this policy did not always seem to be applied

in the same way, and it was often applied after the fact (ref. 199). By

1980, there was a consensus that the Bureau should be considered the

lead agency in measurement sciences, but even this consensus left

important questions unanswered, as the next section shows (ref. 200).

In sum, the Bureau's mission makes it very difficult to build the

constituencies available at certain times to NASA and the Department of

Energy. The work of the Bureau is exceedingly important; one thinks, for

instance, of the ASCII code set by the Bureau, which enables several

computers by the same or different manufacturers to talk to each other.

By its nature this work is unglamorous and highly technical. Moreover, it

is not work that lends itself to the project approach. It is a matter, instead,

202
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

.. of research tasks, most of which are performed by Bureau employees; the

,..- " Bureau has never been a large contracting agency, again in marked

. _":"7_".. contrast to NASA and the Department of Energy. The truth is that, aside

" ." from its specialized user communities the Bureau has rarely attracted

- i.'::., much outside attention, and that such attention as it has received has often

._-.- ...... been of a rather unwelcome kind. An example of such attention was the

_::'f:' notorious battery additive affair of 1953, when the Secretary of

_:_!. :;[;._i. I Commerce demanded the resignation of Dr. Allen V. Astin, the Bureau's

._._,_i"_:; ' Director, after the Bureau tested a battery additive and found it worthless.

:;;_::._iii; The subsequent outcry by the trade associations and the press and

___i;i_":_ congressional hearings saved Astin's job" also an investigation of the

_"_::..,..,..::__ '...._. affair by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the behavior

_"::_i_"i-'_-_ of Astin and the Bureau's scientists had been entirely proper (ref. 201).

_:":: Then, in the 1970s, Congress turned its attentionto the Bureau and

- began imposing direct responsibilities on it in, for example fire

" prevention research, energy conservation, packaging and labeling, and

" evaluating energy related inventions _ all areas outside the Bureau's

competence, strictly defined. Finally, in 1978, Congress authorized

:,!LI: appropriations to the Bureau for 1979 and 1980 only. This was a change

._.,. ...._, since, from its establishment in 1901, the Bureau had been permanently

_:_i-i. :_I:::, authorized. This move toward regular authorization may work to give the

, _ Bureau more powerful political sponsorhsip; as mentioned earlier, a

' congressional authorizing committee tends to become an advocate for its

agencies. But the fact that congressional interest in the Bureau was so

• sporadic for so long may serve to explain why the Bureau has found it

difficult to develop programs different from what the Commerce

Department, OMB, and Congress deem necessary.

It might appear that the large multiprogram laboratories operated

' under contract to the Atomic Energy Commission (and later the Energy

" " Department) would face relatively little interference from Headquarters.

. .. Because the AEC elected to contract out almost all of its technology

development work, it might have come to pass that all the scientific and

_-- engineering expertise would reside in the laboratories; that Headquarters

....' would be in no position to challenge the laboratories' assessment of their

.... missions; and that they would have autonomy to move into areas of their

• :

own choosing. But the actual relations of the laboratories to the AEC

were far more complex than this. In one area, weapons development, the

Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos Laboratories did enjoy something

like autonomy, owing to the unique triangular relationship of the

• laboratories, the AEC, and the Defense Department. Although these two

• laboratories were operated under contract to the AEC, their principal

client was the Defense Department. In a sense, the laboratories fell

:: : between the cracks" the customer and funding agencies were distinct.

'_4

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203
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Headquarters were not shy about imposing their preferences on the

laboratories. The decision by the AEC to sponsor the development of a

liquid-metal, fast breeder reactor (LMFBR) is a case in point. Although

in 1961, the AEC had authorized Oak Ridge National Laboratory to begin

work on a molten salt reactor, the Commission was under pressure to

come up with an even more advanced technology. The Joint Committee

on Atomic Energy wanted to move from commercial light water systems

to reactors that would "breed" new fuel; while by the early 1960s, the

Atomic Energy Commissioners were moving from "assisting studies of

the technology.., to paying a share of the capital costs and subsidizing

reactor design costs ... to the building and monitoring of the full

panoply of equipment needed for a commercial LMFBR." (ref. 202.) The

molten salt reactor was a breeder technology, but in the judgment of AEC

technical people it was not the technology of choice. The crucial event in

the AEC's decision to sponsor the LMFBR was the appointment of

Milton Shaw in 1964 to head the AEC's Division of Reactor

Development and Technology. What happened next is described by Irvin

Bupp: "During 1965, Shaw successfully reoriented the AEC program.

His liquid-metal breeder reactor program would attempt to do for this new

technology what Admiral Rickover's naval propulsion program had done

for light water systems: provide a solid technical base for a prototype

construction project. For the first time, the AEC's power reactor

research-and-development program would meet the demands articulated

for years by the Democratic majority on the Joint Committee on Atomic

Energy." (ref. 203.) By 1967, Shaw had won over the Joint Committee

and many senior AEC officials. Work on the molten salt reactor

continued, but at a very low level. It would have been terminated in 1973

but for the Arab oil embargo, additional funding for energy related work,

and perhaps a disposition by energy officials to hedge their bets (ref.

204).

The hist_ory of the LMFBR is a clear case of the AEC imposing its

policies on one of its contractor-operated laboratories. But this leaves

unanswered the question of how the AEC managed to do this. The

intuitively obvious answer is that the AEC, as the funding agency, could

do as it pleased, once it was certain of Joint Committee backing. In the

absence of AEC support, the laboratories had nowhere to turn; and so

long as the AEC favored one program (LMFBR) over another (molten

salt core reactor), some laboratories stood to gain from the new

dispensation and would support it. But we can go further in explaining

why the laboratories were unable to turn aside AEC policies with which

they disagreed. The AEC laboratories are not comparable to (say) the

NASA centers; where the latter formed powerful coalitions within their

agency in promoting the Space Shuttle program, the former proved

unable to do so in the case of the breeder reactor. These laboratories have

204
A Look AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

widely differing missions and management styles, and they are even more

_ geographically dispersed than the NASA centers are. They have been

_, subjected to a variety of controls, especially since the stage-by-stage

....• _:: transformation of the AEC into the Department of Energy. Unlike

._._..::_i_-:.i NASA, the AEC interposed civil service field organization offices

,..i.i.li!_:-_i-._;._i..ii: between Headquarters and its laboratories, enabling it to supervise the

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laboratories more closely than NASA would have deemed necessary or

desirable.* As will be shown later, the transition from the AEC to the

Energy Department has burdened the laboratories with some of the less

desirable features of the old regime. But the point to grasp is that the

multiprogram laboratories have never had a monopoly on technical

expertise, and that self-confident AEC managers, backed by a powerful

congressional committee, could always make policy for the laboratories

if need be from the top down.

We need add only a few words about laboratories under the

Department of Defense. Strictly speaking, there are no Defense

laboratories; all such laboratories (except the U.S. Naval Research

Laboratory in Washington) are operated by one of the services and are

envisaged as mission-oriented agents for the respective service research

and development commands. At its best, the system has made an

organization like the Office of Naval Research possible an organization which has been permitted to sponsor research in many areas not

directly related to its agency's mission but with the potential for

long-term payoffs. Examples of such work range from elementaryparticle physics to the discovery of the Van Allen belts to supporting the

earliest work on time-shared computer systems to the invention of a

method for the rapid freezing of blood (ref. 205). At the other end are the

many research installations working in more narrowly-defined areas;

because these laboratories are attached to one of the services, there is the

likelihood that some research problems will be "solved" three times

over. * *

* NASA does have an office in Pasadena to monitor its contract with the Jet

Propulsion Laboratory. The important point, surely, is that NASA has chosen to operate

its centers with government employees and not to turn the centers over to contract

management so necessitating an elaborate field organization.

** In fairness, it should be noted that this is not necessarily bad, especially in defense,

where the penalties for falling behind are severe. In basic research, intellectual

competition is inherently valuable, and it is not imperative that the competition be tightly

structured to allow close comparisons. Problems arise in the early stages of development.

There are legitimate reasons for each service to have its own weapon system; it is also true

that the cost advantages of joint acquisition by the services have been overstated. No

service will willingly permit another service to dictate its requirements; what is necessary

for one service may be superfluous to another; service doctrines which tend to dictate

military requirements are not lightly surrendered; finally, there are objective technical

:...,.

205
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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There are two things about the DOD style of laboratory management

that are noteworthy" reliance on outside laboratories for sophisticated

exploratory work, and the existence of a special organization, the

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), to serve as a

kind of "venture capitalist" for DOD. Relatively little of the most

advanced exploratory work is being done in house. Much of the work

sponsored by the Office of Naval Research is supported by contracts to

industry and grants to universities. DARPA has carried this approach to

its limit. It has no research installations of its own; rather, DARPA

program officers define a research agenda, arrange for one of the services

to be its procurement manager, and work with contractors to bring a

particular concept say, a tank autoloader or a robot with threedimensional vision to demonstration. Many of DARPA's most

promising ideas are culled from unsolicited proposals. This approach has

led to major advances in supercomputer technology, computer-tocomputer communications (for example, the nationwide packet-switching

network known as ARPANET), electronic warfare, materials science,

and lasers (ref. 206). Indeed, DOD's tendency to go outside the walls is

of long standing; one thinks of the establishment of RAND and the

Aerospace Corporation as contract research centers for the Air Force, and

the reluctance of the Navy's Special Projects Office to use naval

laboratories in developing the Fleet Ballistic Missile. Since the early

1970s, DOD in general and the Air Force in particular have moved to

reduce the proportion of basic and exploratory research carried out by

government employees. The autonomy of DOD laboratories has thus

been further reduced.*

differences in service needs. This is why joint programs, beginning with the TFX plane of

the early 1960s, have proved so difficult to manage. As the General Accounting Office

noted of an attempt to merge three laser-guided missile seekers into one" ".-- the Navy

Bullpup was ready for production at merger time, the Air Force laser Maverick was

beginning advanced development, and the Army Hellfire was still in the conceptual stage.

All the services eventually dropped out of the joint seeker program." GAO, Joint Major

System Acquisition by the Military Services" An Elusive Strategy (NSIAD-84-22,

December 23, 1983), pp. 14-15.

* According to the National Science Foundation, between 1976 and 1983 DOD

funding for intramural basic research increased at an annual rate of 9.5 percent, compared

with 3.2 percent from 1973 to 1976. However, the laboratories' share of basic research at

5 percent remained unchanged. It seems to us that increased funding for intramural basic

research including that carried out at government-owned, contractor-operated

facilities, which are not counted by NSF as intramural is very desirable, even if the

laboratories' share of such research remains the same. The defense industry is unique in

many ways: There are formidable barriers to the entry of new firms, especially the small

ones which are so fruitful a source of innovation; only the few large firms already

established as defense contractors are capable of managing sophisticated programs; and

the shifting of funds to routine development work means that less money is available for

206
A LooK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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In the end, the ability of a laboratory to deal on an equal footing with

its principal sponsor is affected by many things" the reasons that led to the

laboratory's creation (which may not be the same as the reasons for

keeping it in being), the existence or absence of competing organizations

able to do the laboratory's work, the size of laboratory programs relative

to its agency's mission, and much more. In the next two sections, we see

how two quite dissimilar kinds of research installations have interpreted

their missions in the light of changing environments.

Strengthening Productivity- The Role of the National Bureau of

Standards

Founded in 1901, the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) (fig. 49)

is charged to maintain and develop a national measurement system (ref.

207). Although it has been given many subordinate responsibilities, the

Bureau's primary mission remains its reason for existence today. This

national measurement system is not easy to describe because the

boundaries of the system shift constantly. Even if we divide the system

into user and supplier sectors, it will quickly appear that many institutions

are both (table 11).

U.S. National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, Maryland

FIGURE 49.--A view of the National Bureau of Standards complex near Gaithersburg, Maryland. The large building at the left houses the administrative offices.

.:: ,i , ̧

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fundamental research. Under the circumstances, DOD laboratories serve an essential

purpose as sources of new ideas, as a means of making DOD a more sophisticated buyer,

and as points of contact with the universities. On the structure of technology development

carried out on contract to DOD, see Jacques Gansler, The Defense Industry (Cambridge,

Mass.: MIT Press, 1980), Chapter 4 and p. 304, n. 17.

207
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

..-_. ' :,. .. :. :.,

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Table 11. Supplier and User Sectors in the National Measurement System

Supplier Sectors

The Knowledge Community

International Meteorological Organizations

Standard Organizations

Instrumentation Industry

Other U.S. National Standards Authorities

State/Local Offices of Weights and

Measures

Standards Testing Laboratories and

Services

Regulatory Agencies

Industrial Trade Associations

User Sectors

The Knowledge Community

Instrumentation Industry

Regulatory Agencies

Department of Defense

Civilian Federal Agencies

State/Local Government Agencies

Industrial Trade Associations

Construction

Food, Tobacco, Textiles, Apparel

Lumber, Paper

Chemicals, Petroleum, Rubber, Plastics,

Clay, Stone

Primary and Fabricated Metal Products

Machinery, except electrical

Electric and Electronic Equipment

Transportation Equipment

Transportation and Public Utilities

Trade, Retail and Wholesale

Health Services General Public

Source: Science Policy Research Division, Congressional Research Service, Library of

Congress, The National Bureau of Standards: A Review of Its Organization and

Operations, 1971-1980 (May 1981), p. 6.

What is the role of the NBS in this diffuse and voluntary system? To

simplify somewhat, we would argue that the NBS performs three

closely-related functions which are vital to maintaining the system. It

provides the basis for uniform and accurate measurements throughout the

economy; it drafts voluntary standards for determining that a product, a

process, or a service meet certain criteria; and through its Institute for

Computer Sciences and Technology, it recommends uniform dataprocessing standards in the Federal Government. This mission, in turn,

can be carried out because of certain special features inherent in the

Bureau's organization. The first is scientific competence in many areas"

in materials processing, calibration, computer-aided design, mathematical modeling, structural analysis, and instrument design. So much may

appear obvious. But without competence across many disciplines, the

Bureau could scarcely play a significant role in developing standards.

This system is fragmented, decentralized and, above all, voluntary (ref.

208). Without regulatory authority to enforce standards, the Bureau can

gain acceptance for its standards only on the strength of the quality of the

work that goes into drafting them.

208
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

• A second distinguishing feature of the Bureau is its responsiveness

to the needs of other Federal agencies and industry. NBS is unique among

,_ .::.:. Federal laboratories in the amount of work for others it performs. Much

" .::_ of this extramural work is required by law; but in any case, the Bureau

•-_:_ has accepted many assignments the better to-carry out its mission

--,..;...-,. During the Second World War and for several years thereafter the

-.. ,..._.- Bureau received up to 85 percent of its funds from other agencies

_ ':::':: principally the military. Other agency funding has since tapered off and,

,!:.:-..:....:_;, as a matter of policy, Bureau officials prefer to maintain it at about 40 to

_"-_""_ _: 45 percent (ref. 209)

i_-.:.!:i:_._:.i;:: What has kept the level of support this high has been the pro-

;/.:!::_._;:i.i._i_:liferation of Congressional mandates since the late 1960s. Congression-

::,:.....:...... :_: al committees which have to do with NBS have seen it as a national

"5' ;i :'," ....

resource, capable of contributing to economic growth and supporting the

science and technology infrastructure. These mandates led to many

problems: They caused the Bureau to carry on work that went beyond its

competence in the physical sciences; Congress neglected to appropriate

funds to cover these programs, forcing the Bureau to divert funds and

. manpower from its core activities; and it led to disagreement with OMB

_:;:_,::;_,: over whether a Congressional mandate in a given area say, in studying

...... • _"_ the economic effects of metallic corrosion sufficed to make the

' Bureau the lead agency in that area. The point is that the Bureau's work

,:-: i for others affects its mission in ways which have no parallel in other

Federal laboratories.

Third, the Bureau's effectiveness depends not only on technical

competence but on the perception by its sponsors as an objective, neutral

authority. The Bureau has shunned a regulatory role and it has been

generally cautious in taking on work that might give the appearance of

,_ • competing with industry. It has been NBS policy to avoid the later stages

. of product development. At NBS, "... product development is usually

not taken as far as it is in other Federal laboratories, where the usual

policy is to continue developing a new technology to the point of pilot

demonstration. Development at NBS usually ends with an earlygeneration prototype a few steps prior to pilot demonstration Then other

• _.. _ •

Federal agency or private sector laboratories are left to continue

_ development." (ref. 210.)

Even where the Bureau has taken an activist view of its mission and

has moved further into technology development, it has avoided large

demonstration projects.* In 1983, for example, the Bureau installed an

... •

..,_.

i: i i_

:.,

* Note, however, that it is not the case that if a Federal agency avoids supporting

large demonstration projects, that any work up to that point is appropriate for Federal

support. The test is the judgment _ by the sponsoring agency, Congress, OMB, or all of

them _ that the results of a research and technology development activity would be

appropriable by private industry.

209
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Automated Manufacturing Research Facility (AMRF) in its machine shop

(ref. 211). The AMRF is to be a small, modular flexible manufacturing

system that will serve to test certain measurement concepts. The novelty

of the facility is not in its hardware; all of AMRF's components are off

the shelf. Rather, its purpose is to determine if different components from

different manufacturers can exchange information without the need to

modify software or protocols. This work is being supported by industry,

through the loan of equipment and personnel; and the transfer of

technology in this case, standards for the interfaces between

components of computer-aided manufacturing systems will occur

through the usual channels" industrial and trade associations, and the

American National Standards Institute.

The features so far discussed technical competence, neutrality,

responsiveness to other organizations suggest that the Bureau is a

rather conservative organization. They also suggest that, given the

structure of the national measurement system, technical competence and

mission performance are linked in a peculiarly intimate way. What

remains to be discussed is how the Bureau's conception of its role in

stimulating industrial productivity has changed under outside pressure.

Of all Federal agencies, the Department of Commerce, the Bureau's

sponsoring agency, is the one most closely tied to the ups and downs of

the U.S. economy. As data gatherer (Census Bureau, Bureau of

Economic Analysis), as a regulator of international trade, as a registrar of

patents and trademarks, and as the parent agency of the National Weather

Service, the Commerce Department touches the economy at many points.

To some Congressmen, it seemed reasonable that Commerce in general

and NBS in particular should play their part in stimulating technological

innovation.

But there is not (to put it mildly) unanimity as to the best approaches

to government sponsorship of industrial innovation let alone what the

Bureau's role shall be. In the past ten years, the Federal Government,

through the National Science Foundation, has provided seed money for

university/industry cooperative research centers; these centers are

intended to work on the cutting edge of technology, in biotechnology,

polymer processing, robotics, computer graphics, microelectronics, and

much more (ref. 212). Again, in 1980, Congress passed the

Stevenson-Wydler Act, which authorized the Secretary of Commerce to

establish an Office of Industrial Technology to assess the climate for

industrial innovation and to propose methods for advancing it; and to

create Centers for Industrial Technology, similar to the cooperative

research centers sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The Act

also requires every Federal agency operating one or more laboratories to

set aside 0.5 percent of its research and development budget to support

210
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

• the transfer of Federally-owned or originated technology (ref. 213). It

- remains to be seen whether this and other legislation will really lead to

,_:._i._:,::_:: greater productivity or whether, in pursuit of aims set forth in

_ .::_ high-sounding language, government employees will shuffle paper.

. ..,:::_.... :_: Where the government is not itself the buyer, such policies lack all focus

_i.;_,-_ _,: In particular, the experience of NASA and some AEC laboratories in

_ :::-:. setting up technology utilization programs has not been encouraging (ref.

:_ • !i_'/_ _ ,

"5 ' ;i ::. ": " "

.... >7.': -,!

• i : *.

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214).

In promoting innovation, the role of the Bureau will be a limited

one. And necessarily so. The Bureau, after all, comes under pressure from

many directions: from Congress, to move directly into product-oriented

research; from the scientific community, not to compromise the quality of

its basic research; from OMB, to do only such work as can be justified on

the ground that the Bureau is the lead agency; and from industry, to

establish standards in cooperation with, and not competing against, the

private sector. Bureau officials have tried, with some success, to steer a

course between two opposing policy models, each fraught with political

consequences. One position would be to restrict the Bureau to its

traditional role in measurement science, on the ground that this in itself

represents an important contribution to economic growth. According to

this view "... the Bureau performs basic research, not for industry or

for a particular technology, but in the limited area of physical measures

... While these physical measures may be used for producing

information about technologies.., or technical or natural processes...

or the distribution of physical particulates in a media (sic), the emphasis

is on the measurements, not on the processes or technologies." (ref. 215.)

The other position would put the Bureau in an activist role. It would move

into exploratory research and would concentrate on those industries that,

for whatever reason, could benefit by the research they could not

themselves perform.

In practice, the Bureau has tried to strengthen those areas where its

basic competence resides and to move gradually into targeted exploratory

research. This category of investigation has been defined by the National

Science Foundation as "the early stages of research in areas not yet well

enough defined or understood to merit full programmatic support." Since

the late 1970s, the Bureau has managed to get Congress to vote full

funding for mandated programs. It has also persuaded Congress to fund

special "competence building" projects, which are intended to sustain the

Bureau's scientific and technical base. The Bureau's rationale is that,

with so much of its competence diverted to short-term work, some way

must be found to keep its best people in the advanced research which is

the basis of its special competence. Such research can be justified for its

own sake and for the way it fits NBS mission objectives. As part of this

211
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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competence building, NBS scientists and engineers have done (or are

doing) important research in wave optics, organic electrochemistry,

quantum radiometry, and advanced robot vision (ref. 216).

The same rationale sustains the Bureau's sponsorship of the Joint

Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) in Boulder, Colorado.

Founded in 1962, JILA is an independent research institute, a joint

venture of NBS and the University of Colorado. The staff at JILA engage

in research of the most fundamental kind in atomic and molecular

physics; part of this work is supported by NBS direct appropriations, part

from other-agency contracts, and part from direct Colorado state funds.

As with the Bureau' s competence-building program, the existence of JILA

is justified on the ground that "... basic understanding in [atomic and

molecular physics] would increase the Bureau's long-term ability to

respond to measurement needs in emerging technologies, or industrial

areas, for example, lasers or chemical reactions in chemical processing,

and improve the precision of measurement in fundamental physical

constants. The case for such work was coupled with the assertion that, in

the future, the Bureau's role in standardization and measurement would

shift from that of a developer and doer to a teacher and innovator." (ref.

217.) JILA's existence can be justified on other, related grounds. New

standards demand greater accuracy and flexibility and as such, are

important to the economy. Tighter standards are only possible with bettet

understanding of physical properties at the most elemental level, and

ways to control them. More important still, the development of the

knowledge behind the standards is, like the standards themselves,

public good not sufficiently appropriable by any likely group of firms o_

universities to be undertaken in an organized way without Federal

support.

The appeal of this arrangement is that JILA is perceived as an elite

organization with a minimum of bureaucratic overlay. Less obvious is the

role of JILA in advancing the Bureau's mission in applied research anc

engineering. Nevertheless, other joint institutes have been proposed

for example, in microelectronics and membranes for chemical separatior

(ref. 218) and the concept is one that fits nicely with the Bureau',

strategy of maintaining and subsequently expanding its traditional area,

of competence.

Thus the Bureau is trying to pull off something quite difficult. Thi_

"something" is to continue its role in advancing measurement science

something essential to the infrastructure of science in the United States

while moving into exploratory research in areas that Bureau staff see a_

vital to industrial growth above all, in automated manufacturing (ref

219). The next group of laboratories we consider is very different.

212
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

" The Muitiprogram Laboratories of the Energy Department

. In moving from the National Bureau of Standards to the

__;. multiprogram laboratories operated for the Department of Energy certain

• .::

:::_. differences are obvious (ref. 220). Where the Bureau is operated by

_: _,:_::_ government employees, the latter are government-owned, contractor-

:_:/(::i_:.i " operated facilities. Where the Bureau's principal clientele is the industrial

::_)i):_.:j! sector, the former AEC laboratories have worked primarily for the AEC,

the Department of Defense, and other agencies. Where the Bureau has

i!_',:!.i:i traditionally avoided contracting out, the Energy laboratories subcontract

/::_::; ;) on a massive scale to industry and universities. And lastly, where the

_. Bureau has, for good reason, shunned product development the Energy

:i; >."?.: •

•::.,_,.::,.__;,:. _ laboratories have been involved in many kinds of production from

_"_:_":_'._ nuclear warheads to prototypes of commercial reactors to synchrotrons.

The nine laboratories we shall consider represent one of the heaviest

investments in basic and applied research made by the United States or

any government. By "multiprogram" we emphasize that each laboratory

has capabilities in many areas of basic and applied research, as well as in

. energy and weapons technology development. This sets them apart from

....:,_-!!_i; other laboratories established either to operate a very large research

:_::::._.,:_;_:ifacility for instance the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center to do

/;.:i research in one discipline, such as inhalation toxicology, or to work on

• one product or technology, as the Knolls and Bettis Atomic Power

-!:::"!_.' Laboratories specialize in nuclear propulsion. The nine multiprogram

laboratories, with their locations, primary mission or core area, and

• operating contractors are shown in table 12.*

To generalize about the work of these nine laboratories is difficult.

Suffice it to say that the laboratories handle close to half of.the Energy

, _ Department's research and development budget and about nine percent of

total Federal research and development; that they conduct about 70

_ percent of the Energy Department's weapons development and about 24

percent of energy-related research and technology development; and that

they represent an investment of over $3 billion (ref. 221). It should also

::: be recognized that, besides doing research and development, the

-_ - laboratories have other important roles. They serve as technical

consultants to the Energy Department, drafting environmental impact

statements, making technical assessments of safety and health-related

work, and helping the Department to be an informed buyer of industrial

services. They maintain special research facilities, some of them unique.

Several laboratories produce items of commercial value, like the

_ radioactive isotopes manufactured at Oak Ridge. All of the laboratories

* See Appendix III for more information about the nine multiprogram laboratories.

_,, _

_,..

213
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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are involved in education and training; many allow doctoral work to be

done at their facilities and hire postdoctoral students for short periods. As

systems engineers, as consultants to state and local governments, and as

stewards of unique facilities, the multiprogram laboratories contribute in

many ways to the nation's science and technology base (ref. 222).

Multiprogram

Laboratory Location

Ames Ames, Iowa

Laboratory

Argonne Argonne,

National Illinois

Laboratory

Brookhaven Upton, New

National York

Laboratory

Lawrence Berkeley,

Berkeley, California

Laboratory

Lawrence Livermore,

Livermore California

National

Laboratory

Los Alamos Los Alamos,

National New Mexico

Laboratory

Oak Ridge Oak Ridge,

National Tennessee

Laboratory

Pacific Richland,

Northwest Washington

Laboratory

Sandia

Laboratories

Table 12. Multiprogram Laboratories

Primary Mission or Core Area

basic research in materials and

chemical sciences

advanced nuclear technology

research and development,

fundamental research in high

energy and nuclear physics

fundamental energy science

fundamental energy science

research, development, and test

of nuclear weapons designs

developing nuclear warheads and

maintaining an innovative

weapons design program

fundamental energy science,

magnetic fusion, nuclear energy

(fuel cycle, primarily)

waste management

Albuquerque, research, development, and

New Mexico; engineering of nuclear weapons

Livermore, systems (except for the nuclear

California; explosive)

Tonopah,

Nevada

Operating Contractor

Iowa State University

University of Chicago

in cooperation with th(

Argonne Universities

Association

Associated

Universities, .Inc.

Regents of the

University of

California

University of

California

University of

California

Martin Marietta

Corporation

Battelle Memorial

Institute

Western Electric

Company

The roles and missions of the laboratories have changed significantl2

since their establishment. Most were created as part of the Manhattm

Project, although Brookhaven was founded in 1946, Sandia in 1948 t(

1949, and Lawrence Livermore in 1952. Since then the laboratories

fortunes have depended largely on national policy toward the uses o

atomic energy. The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 envisaged industry an(

214
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT, LABORATORIES

.. the AEC laboratories working in tandem to develop commercial

light-water reactor systems (fig. 50). As the first commercial nuclear

_._.-..._ plants came on line, the amount of nuclear energy research and

.....'<""ii__,. development at the laboratories dropped. It was at this time that

.._._._-.. laboratory directors notably Alvin Weinberg at Oak Ridge began to

-,,._..:/ emphasize their laboratories' abilities to move into areas of nonnuclear

!L.L,!;

.... . _.. research where they could make a real contribution for example in

..,:::),..ii/i:./. I civil defense, air pollution control, and water desalination. The problem,

as Weinberg saw it, was that most large Federal laboratories were tied to

missions that might or might not matter a decade hence. "When a

....,--._;..... government laboratory finishes a project, it cannot ask, What is the most

.,._.?.i_!.i.:;-f important national problem.., to which our talents can be put? Rather

:,_,._,_,,-,: ,_- the laboratory must ask What is the most important problem coming

IL_'): within the purview of our sponsoring agency, to which we should next

L .

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.5!11.. :.::::_,!.

., . ..

turn? This narrower set of problems may not be as important to the nation

as are other problems which are the responsibility of a different agency,

but which the laboratory may be equipped to handle. Such rigidity

reduces the efficiency with which we deploy our federal scientific

apparatus." (ref. 223.)

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C.

FIGURE 50. -- The Yankee Atomic Reactor, a commercial light water nuclear power

plant operated by New England Power and Light Co., Inc.

L. .

As it turned out, the AEC and its laboratories moved in two

directions concurrently. On the one hand, as we saw earlier, the AEC

shifted its emphasis in the mid-1960s from encouraging commercial

...... a-.o

OE pOOR Q_,_a _,

215
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

sources to build complete, or "turnkey," reactor systems to (in the words

of a GAO report) "building Government-owned facilities to resolve

uncertainties, improve and test reactors, and in effect, set standards for all

future builders of nuclear reactors." (ref. 224.) At the same time,

Congress began to encourage the laboratories to diversify. In 1967.

Congress expanded the 1954 Atomic Energy Act to permit the

laboratories to conduct research in public health and safety; in 1972, il

further amended the Atomic Energy Act, enabling the laboratories tc

conduct nonnuclear energy research for the AEC and other agencies; i_

increased the laboratories' nonnuclear budgets after the Energy Researct

and Development Administration (ERDA) was established in 1975; ant

in 1980, it passed the Stevenson-Wydler Act which, as shown earlier

required large Federal laboratories to set aside funds to stimulate th_

transfer of technology developed under laboratory sponsorship.

Both ERDA and its successor, the Department of Energy (DOE)

drafted guidelines to regulate the ways in which the laboratories planne(

their long-range research, considered new work, or took on work fo:

others. In the last case work for others the Department hewed t_

the AEC guidelines mentioned in Chapter III" Work for other Federa

agencies may be undertaken if private laboratories are unavailable to d_

the work, the work will not interfere with DOE programs, and the work i,

consistent with basic DOE responsibilities (ref. 225). The Departmen

has also developed a strategic planning procedure known as thq

Institutional Plan. This is supposed to represent the consensus of thq

Assistant Secretaries and other officials to whom the laboratories report

the responsible field operations offices, and the laboratories on the kind

of work to be sponsored over five years (ref. 226). The Plan is reviewe_

and updated annually. Additionally, the laboratories submit ideas fo

future work under a system known as "Form 189." None of this is uniqu,

to DOE laboratories. NASA, for example, has a five-year operating plan

the centers report to program directors at Headquarters; and Form 18q

corresponds roughly to the Research and Technology Operating Plan

The point, of course, is not what constitutes the formal system, but hox

well it works.

One way of analyzing the work of the laboratories is to take up th

roles and missions that laboratory directors consider appropriate

Specifically, we want to return to something touched upon in earlk

chapters" the attempts by laboratories to diversify into areas related t

their core programs. More precisely, we shall examine the issue

involved when the laboratories' technical capabilities have been applie

to nonnuclear energy research, development, and demonstratio

(RD&D). It is important to understand what, exactly, is at issu_

Diversification and work for others are not identical. All of th

laboratories are engaged in work for others, ranging from 6 percent (i

216
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT, LABORATORIES

• 1982) at Ames Laboratory to 19 percent at Oak Ridge and 20 percent at

.... Pacific Northwest Laboratory (ref. 227). But much of this work is closely

......._:_,.:..:. related to the laboratory s primary mission; thus at Los Alamos, a

' " i ::. weapons laboratory, a large proportion of work for others is sponsored by

.:...._'.._-:_i"_the Defense Department. Some of the work, as in laser technology, may

i. ."'

...... ._)

"_" -_.

>. , _.

"' have important commercial a ppli cation, • and there are programs, like

, . Lawrence Livermore's work on in situ coal gasification, which grew out '..,,",.. :¢ _.:

_:,.., of the AEC s research into the peaceful uses of nuclear explosives. But

'i"::+_"_""_: such technology is in a sense diversification within the laboratory's

,, _; "::,'..-.. _

'" .. ,..._"_ .;. primary mission, rather than outside it •

"i"i,:_.i!. '_ What conditions lead a laboratory to diversify? Much depends on

"' whether the laboratory executives wish to diversify or whether the

;3; "' ;,.i-: L"

-"....._":":_:_ " sponsoring agency desires it. In fact the ERDA and the DOE have called

•:-"'_-" on the laboratories to enter into nonnuclear energy research" when the

laboratories had existing capability from similar work in other programs;

when they had capability from work in the same program; when ERDA

. . needed technical support (ref. 228); or when ERDA assigned tasks to the

laboratories because Headquarters officials felt that it would be

•" inappropriate to assign them to industry for example in developing

::_::-:..:-_:_ii.;,:energy conservation performance standards for buildings (ref. 229). It

_:_5!_:.._ would be a serious mistake to assume that the efforts of the laboratories to

. diversify were taken only on their directors' initiative. Still, there are

._....- circumstances which would predispose laboratories to diversify among

them the termination of key projects or a decline in the laboratory's

. budget, forcing the laboratory to seek sponsors to make good the

• shortfall. But many laboratories have had activist directors who were

• convinced that the experience gained in their core activities was

transferable to other programs, other technologies.

"_ There are several scenarios which research executives have

advanced to justify their laboratories' moves into related areas. In .

• ascending order of probability of success, these are" (1) The laboratory

, .

" works to develop a new technology, where the chances of success are

either low or very long term, but where the payoff would be high.

..

Examples of such work would be programs to develop an inexpensive

_ method of extracting oil from shale, or to create temperatures hot enough

_ for hydrogen fusion to occur. (2) Several laboratories work on different

pieces of a major technology development program, in the hope that their

work will coalesce to form one "solution." This really reduces itself to

Scenario 1, except that the work is now parcelled out among several

institutions. (3) A laboratory takes on new programs simply because of

.. their intrinsic worth or importance and without thought of a global

solution to major national problems. Examples of such work are legion,

and they are the kinds of diversification with which we are concerned. It

-, is often very difficult to predict what line of research will be most fruitful,

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217
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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and it is probably well for a research executive to dismiss out of hand the

possibility of solving (say) the energy crisis as a result of work pursued in

his laboratory. With the greatest of luck and effort, the preconditions may

be created for removing bottlenecks to resolving a major problem in the

development of a specific technology.

Nonnuclear energy research and development is one area which did

attract the multiprogram laboratories, once the amended Atomic Energy

Act enabled them to engage in it.* However, it is still a relatively small

proportion of the laboratories' total workload, only rising from 8.9

percent in 1977 to 9.5 percent in 1982 (ref. 230). It is not that the

laboratories failed to make impressive use o the expertise gained in work

on nuclear energy. To take a few cases at random. Sandia Laboratories,

whose activities used to be 100 percent defense-related, has developed

more than two dozen devices used by industry coring devices, new

hardrock drill bits, hot gas solder levelers, and the like. Lawrence

Livermore is developing a prototype metal-air power cell for use as an

alternative energy source. The Ames Laboratory developed a method for

preparing large-area films for solar cells. And there are many othe,

examples. If the laboratories' nonnuclear energy research has not grown

significantly since the late 1970s, it is less for lack of technical skills or

enthusiasm than because of features inherent in the relations between the

laboratories and DOE, features singled out by the General Accounting

Office in a 1978 report and confirmed in part by DOE's Energy Research

Advisory Board in 1982.

The roles of the laboratories in nonnuclear energy research and

development have been far less clearly defined than they were for nuclea_

energy and weapons R&D. The laboratories report to at least three

different Assistant Secretaries, as well as a Director of Energy Research.

There has been, in short, a real lack of uniformity in program planning.

The Institutional Plan has been only one of several vehicles by which the

DOE defines its laboratories' agenda. The same holds for projecl

evaluation: Headquarters program offices use support contractors,

technical review panels, and consultants in reviewing laboratory work.

Whatever one may say about the AEC's shortcomings and they were

many the Headquarters program officers usually knew what they

wanted. The DOE, by comparison, is a multiheaded monster, charged

with regulatory, data-gathering, and project management functions (like

filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve), as well as research planning and

k.

...,

* As defined here, nonnuclear energy research and development includes work in

(1) solar, geothermal, electrical energy, and storage, as well as (2) conservation. A:

shown, these activities are broken out as two separate budget categories. It does no

include work for others, a separate category, although some nonnuclear energy research i:

incidentally performed for other Federal agencies.

218
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT, LABORATORIES

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management. For the laboratories, the danger is a combination of

micromanagement by Headquarters and Congress, and a crossfire of

demands from line and staff officers who do not communicate with each

other. Since the time of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, both

Congress and congressional staff have been involved in directing energy

research down to the field level. As the Department's own advisory board

concedes, the laboratories are grossly overburdened with reporting

requirements; and it cites the case of Argonne National Laboratory,

which must respond to 137 separate DOE orders and policy directives and

which receives funding from 129 separate, noninterchangeable accounts.

This is micromanagement with a vengeance! (ref. 231.) Carried to a

conclusion, such policies (or lack of policies) would drain all flexibility

from the system under which the laboratories must perforce operate.

But this does not exhaust the reasons for the laboratories' failure to

do more nonnuclear research. First, the DOE's attempt to place each

laboratory under an Assistant Secretary responsible for specific program

areas has not worked well. Under this system, for example, the Lawrence

Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia Laboratories report to an Assistant

Secretary for Defense Programs. But such a system tends to increase

pressure on the laboratories to intensify specialization, and it makes it

more difficult for one laboratory to "cross service" another. Work outside

the core program becomes expendable, especially if it is only a small

portion of the laboratory's budget. Under ERDA and DOE, there has

been a reluctance to expand the multiprogram laboratories, for fear that

such expansion would blunt their effectiveness in weapons development.

Second, the multiprogram laboratories face competition from other,

in-house research facilities. It is not quite correct to say that the DOE has

no government-owned, government-operated facilities. The DOE has set

up, as Congress required, a Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI); and

it inherited from the ERDA five "energy research centers" specializing in

fossil energy research and technology development. DOE officials have

strong incentives to place work with S ERI and the energy centers. In so

doing, they avoid the appearance of duplication, free the multiprogram

laboratories to concentrate on their core areas, and save the money that

would be needed to bring the laboratories up to scratch in, what is for

them, an unfamiliar technology, when the capability for getting the work

done already exists.

As paradoxical as it may appear, the laboratories' missions do not

ultimately depend on the existence of consensus as to a national energy

policy. It cannot be said that such a policy, or such consensus, exists;

there is at this time no policy as to the roles of fossil, nuclear, and solar

technologies. Moreover, even if the nonnuclear work being pursued at the

laboratories continues, more thought must be given to marketing new

technologies and getting them into use. What are the "national" needs to

219
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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which the laboratories are being invited to respond? Does it make sense,

for example, to pursue research into synthetic fuel technology, in the

absence of projected demand for shale oil, liquefied natural gas, or

liquefied coal? At what point can the laboratories hand over a prototype

technology for commercial development by the private sector? The

existence of a coherent policy on energy research and development would

certainly help the laboratories to answer these questions and to sort out

their various functions. However, it is unrealistic to expect the laboratory

managements to wait until such a policy exists (if it ever does) before

coming to grips with the problems they face. Indeed, the converse is more

likely to be true" An energy policy may emerge (at least in part) because

the management of the various laboratories responsible for energy related

research and development will create one either explicitly or at the

very least implicitly.

It is at the crossroads of policy making that relations between

Federal technology development institutions and their sponsoring

agencies are ultimately determined. It has become fashionable in many

quarters to blame the "lack of a rational policy for X (whatever X happens

to be)" for all our troubles. This view is naive, to say the least, especially

when it comes to technology development. People who demand

"policies" generally do not distinguish between genuine policies and

individual programs that they support or oppose for one reason or

another. The fact is that in a democracy, the policy-making process is

difficult and lengthy and there may be long periods in which '"there is no

policy." This is not necessarily bad because many individuals and

groups are still forced to do things that will eventually be beneficial and

may even lead to a '"policy." Furthermore, having a bad policy is much

worse than following the democratic practice of leaving people (including

laboratory directors) free, within broad limits, to do their own thing. In

other words, no policy at all is better than a bad one.*

Most of the individuals in the leadership of our technology

development insititutions are completely aware of the situation just

described. They also recognize something else, which is that policy

making often starts in their own institutions. It is no exaggeration to say

that their policy of deterrence that is deterring the Russians from

major military adventures is based on nuclear weapons that originated

either at Los Alamos or at Lawrence Livermore. It is possible to assert

(although perhaps difficult to prove) that we would not be in a position to

pursue the activist foreign policy that we have adopted since the end of

* In reviewing an earlier draft of this book, one official observed that "no policy"

usually means "I don't like the President's (or whoever) policy." Having a "policy" is

synonymous in an advocate's mind with proposing major Federal initiatives.

220
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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the Second World War were it not for our leadership in areas such as air

transportation and communications. Both of these technologies grew

from work done in the institutions that are the subject of this book. This,

then, is the really important point: In the policy-making process, there is a

vital interplay between technology development laboratories and the

political establishment. The technical capability to do something is often

the trigger that causes the establishment of a national policy based upon

that capability. This has been generally recognized by the political

establishment and it is, of course, for this reason that the nation's

technology development laboratories continue to enjoy broad political

support.

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Conclusions

In this book we have tried to explain the workings of a special kind

of research institution, rather than research institutions in general. The

technology development laboratories we have dealt with, whether

federally funded or the "corporate" laboratories of such large corporations

as DuPont, General Electric, or General Motors, require that three basic

irreducible conditions be fulfilled: There must be a "critical mass" of

personnel and facilities; the laboratories must have the multidisciplinary

capabilities needed to move from one mission to the next; and there must

be a promise of relatively stable financial support extending over several

years or even decades.

The missions of the laboratories range from developing new

spacecraft or non-conventional hard materials to devising new measurement techniques. All of these entail the development of some new

process, procedure, technique, or capability, and this is essentially what

the term "technology development" means. The missions of these

laboratories differ from that of a university, which is the creation of new

knowledge in a series of we!l-defined disciplines. This distinction is easy

to draw. It is not quite as easy to define the difference between what we

have called technology development and product development, as it is

usually understood in the industrial sense. Very often, the precise

function of technology development laboratories is determined by the

attitude of their sponsoring agencies or corporations toward product

development. Some, particularly the National Bureau of Standards, elect

to stop well short of final products; while others, like the multiprogram

laboratories under the Atomic Energy Commission and later the Energy

Department, have preferred to push a given technology say, a fast

breeder reactor- all the way to a demonstration prototype. In the

private sector, General Electric's corporate laboratory at Schenectady

does no product development, but in smaller corporations the process of

technology development and product development may be combined.

Depending on the agency's philosophy, each laboratory will provide

a different answer to the question of when the mission, or the project

within the mission, has been accomplished. That point may come at any

one of a number of stages: when4aA_rototype of flight hardware has been

223
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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successfully tested; when a component of a new weapons system is

delivered to a contractor for systems integration; when research into the

structure of composite materials leads to improvements in the design of

helicopter blades; or when a deep-space probe returns new knowledge

about the structure of Saturn's rings. The point to be emphasized is that,

in a good laboratory, there is something open-ended about its mission.

Research tasks and projects will have discrete beginnings and ends, but

the mission itself will continue in some other manifestation.

It may go without saying, but let it be said anyway" This book is

about successful technology development laboratories. In the case

material in earlier chapters, we have postulated certain features of the

successful mission-oriented laboratory. We find a small but significant

segment of laboratory resources devoted to basic research and, along with

it, considerable discretion in the allocation of funds to promising new

areas; good communications between groups involved in basic research

and those in applied research and subsequent development; an ability to

diversify creatively within the organization's primary mission; strong

overlap of all phases of research and development; a policy of early

identification of future managers among professional staff; and emphasis

on a lateral, rather than a vertical, direction of communications (ref.

232). The great research executives of the last thirty years have had an

uncanny insight into the relation of the work done at the division and

directorate level to their laboratories' missions. What is more, they have

often been able to move their organizations into new areas, even or

should we say especially? in the absence of a guiding national policy.

It was not foreordained that the next step after Apollo would be the Space

Shuttle or that ship nuclear propulsion might become the basis for a new

commercial technology.

Thus, the tendency of a successful technology development

laboratory is to apply the word "mission" in both a very narrow and a very

broad sense. In the former case, the emphasis is on getting the immediate

job done; in the latter, it is more a matter of maintaining the

organization's technical competence over the long run. Why is this

competence building so important? Because it positions the organization

to exploit its own discoveries and, as desirable, to move into new areas.

As Harvey Brooks has observed, "A company or for that matter, a

nation that has a broad technical capability can quickly exploit the

ideas of others, and can catch up on the bets that it misses provided it has

the technical sophistication to identify promising ideas at a sufficiently

early stage . . . Just as a company or a nation cannot expect to exploit

every promising scientific discovery, so every discovery that it exploits

need not be its own." (ref. 233.) Viewed in this light, mission and

capability tend to blend into one another. It cannot be emphasized too

strongly that, while most research organizations live to an extent from an

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224
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inherited intellectual capital, this can lead to stagnation and decline

without the stimulus of new ideas. Building on an organization's

.;:: scientific competence then becomes almost as important as any

.... :_' programmatic mission, because it is the principal way of assuring that

such missions can be accomplished.

It is time to consider what conclusions can be derived from the

analyses of the preceding chapters. It is not to be expected that we can

here offer specific recommendations about what should be done in space,

defense, or energy. Nor can we be certain that the structure of the U.S.

science and technology base will resemble the present state five or ten

years hence. But if we assume, not unreasonably, that the Federal

Government and our large industries will have a continuing stake in

promoting scientific research and technology development, then the

following conclusions should prove useful.

1. The particular management arrangement under which a

laboratory is operated is, and should be, primarily a matter of

" administrative convenience.

Technology development has occurred in a large variety of

organizational arrangements. Laboratories may be operated by government employees or by contractors; they may be Federal contract research

centers, like RAND, working primarily for one sponsor; or they may

have a variety of sponsors, as in the case of SRI International. One

mission may be perfectly compatible with different arrangements, while a

changing mission may provoke the sponsoring agency into changing the

structure of its laboratories. There is nothing final about the structure of a

research organization. To take one example: Within the past decade the

Air Force has converted its Cambridge Research Laboratories from basic

research to an "exploratory development" institution, closed the

Aerospace Research Laboratory and transferred part of its staff to other

Air Force installations, converted one Federal contract research center,

ANSER, into a conventional contractor, and authorized other contract

centers to create units separate from their work for the Air Force (ref.

234). Since a laboratory may well outlive its original functions, there is

no reason to expect its structure to remain unchanged.

As a corollary, the distinction between government-owned,

government-operated laboratories and those run by contractors is losing

much of its sharpness. One reason was given in Chapter VII" No Federal

agency can abdicate responsibility for seeing that congressional

appropriations are used properly. But the nature of Federally-sponsored

research and development is itself changing, to the point where the

distinctions we are talking about have become, if not meaningless, then at

least less relevant than they might have been in the 1960s. These changes

are of several kinds. First, the distinction between research and

development functions, which are reserved to government employees,

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and support services, which may be contracted out, is eroding. It is

difficult to draw an absolute boundary between a support service, such as

writing a complex computer program, from ostensible research and

development functions like designing the spacecraft for which the

program is being written. Both may be-- indeed, they usually are--

performed under contract. Second, the kinds of technology that support

large mission-oriented projects are also changing. No Federal laboratory

any longer has the capability for designing and building all the major

components of systems as complex as the Space Shuttle or a

ship-launched cruise missile. What the laboratory must retain is the

ability to specify the research or systems concepts, select its prime

contractors, and certify at any point along the line that the system meets

all requirements. At an agency like NASA, these functions would be

performed by government employees, with guidance from Headquarters;

at the multiprogram laboratories of the Energy Department, the ultimate

authority to specify the work to be done would reside at the Washington

headquarters, with field offices monitoring work in progress. But the

point to bear in mind is that the structure of the NASA centers, on the one

hand and of the Energy laboratories, on the other, reveals very little about

what these institutions actually do. Even within NASA, the work done at

the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is not easily to be distinguished in kind

from work carried on at the centers that are staffed largely by civil service

employees.

What emerges from this analysis is the conclusion that the

organization of most laboratories owes as much to the origin of the

institution as to the present purpose. We believe that if a mission is of

sufficient importance to justify establishing an installation to carry it out,

then that mission can be carried out even as the institution changes. What

is remarkable about older laboratories like the National Bureau of

Standards and the Langley Research Center is how closely they have

adhered to their original mission to maintain a national measurement

system in one case, to conduct advanced aeronautical research in the

other--despite all the changes that have intervened. With some sligh¢

exaggeration, we would assert that any institutional arrangement that

sustains the laboratory's mission is justified. The right arrangement,

under any regime, means that laboratory executives have the discretion to

assign work and to start research in new areas without the need to seek

prior approval; that professional staff are involved in defining the design

of major systems; and that the laboratory is something more than a funnel

through which funds from the sponsoring agency pass through to

contractors.

2. A capability for performing basic research is essential to the

work of a technology development laboratory.

Mention has been made of the importance of basic research in a

226
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

laboratory oriented to long-term missions. But we would like to draw out

the implications of this conclusion still further. Whether research is

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'.....,_ context. Research ceases to be basic at just the point where it suggests

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:ii_;. i,!)_.:+.,, . . interesting laboratory curiosity; it is now recognized as a phenomenon

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:_""_" medical imaging, and research on superconductivity has now moved into i_:i":i_.._:'!i__

!:_.i._,:._,, the applied category. This is true even though some work in

_..... .-. superconductivity remains research about fundamental properties of

:._.,":_ ".:_.._, matter. Or consider a more famous case, the development of the

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_,._.._,--_._,. any research on the properties of Group IV semiconducting materials

.:-_- could be considered to be potentially applicable, and this has indeed

proved to be the case . . ." (ref. 235.)

• To put the matter briefly, basic research in a mission-oriented

i laboratory serves several closely-related purposes. It explores areas

contiguous to the laboratory's mission, in the hope that such areas may

., _. later become relevant to that mission As we saw in Chapter X this was

" ."' .,5._ _ " "

__._._-.:..:_:,,ithe rationale for much of the work sponsored by the Office of Naval

:."_""_: Research and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

_ (DARPA). But even within the compass of a single laboratory, units may

• be set up with "DARPA-like" characteristics; that is, units may be created ..

which, without getting into development work themselves, sponsor new

i ideas, particularly in those fundamental areas where with "time, strength,

_ cash, and patience" (Herman Melville) basic research may transcend into

new technology.

Thus a commitment to some basic research positions a laboratory to

", move into new areas, while sustaining its ability to work in current

programs. The importance of such research may be gauged by the

• differing philosophies of Federal and industrial laboratories. In the former

case, the majority of large laboratories have their own basic research

• units; in the latter, it tends to be concentrated at one or (at most) a few

i.._"_.. facilities. But whatever the institutional arrangement, it is important that

laboratory executives encourage a spillover of such research into applied

work, whether by encouraging scientists to publish their work in

professional journals, by encouraging collaboration with university

researchers, by sponsoring interchanges of personnel between laboratory

divisions and private firms, or by sponsoring improved instrumentation

as a link between basic and more applied work.

3. Successful diversification is most likely to occur where it has a

. . .

particular relevance to the laboratory's mission.

The emphasis here is on "particular." When an agency is large and

_._ has many laboratories, there may be few problems in other agencies

227
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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which are not, in some sense, relevant to it. The issue for laboratory

executives becomes one of particular relevance" Is work in a new area

related to work currently being pursued in this laboratory? Does it

represent an addition to our capabilities, or is it merely a reimbursable

service for another agency? Can we get into new areas which are

interesting in themselves but might be construed by our sponsor as

interfering with our primary mission? But relevance is not a simple

concept; it needs to be analyzed. Where a laboratory is charged with a

broad mission, such as research into the peaceful uses of atomic energy,

there is in principle almost no limit to the disciplines which impinge on

the mission.

How, then, do laboratories diversify successfully? Almost by

definition, diversification means establishing links with organizations

outside the system. In a laboratory where scientists and engineers may

talk mainly to each other, the possibility of diversifying will be somewhat

remote. As a necessary (though not sufficient) condition, laboratories

need to cultivate external relationships; the richer and more varied these

relationships, the greater the number of opportunities for new work that

will suggest themselves. The multiprogram Energy laboratories are a case

in point (ref. 236). They have been charged by the Atomic Energy Acts

and subsequent legislation with transferring technology generated by the

laboratories to external users. They have made their facilities available to

industry, frequently without charge; subcontracted research tasks to

industry; collaborated with industry on subjects of mutual interest; and

selected individuals from industry to serve on advisory committees. Note

that these are continuing relationships. It is not as though a laboratory

director must stake everything on an all-or-nothing decision to commit his

institution to something radically new and unfamiliar. This is not how

successful diversification comes about. Rather, the network of

relationships is drawn tighter; opportunities for new work seem to arise

"serendipitously"; the laboratory exchanges personnel and equipment

with industry, universities, or both at once; and by a judicious mix of

subcontracting, advisory services, and published summaries of work in

progress, it creates a climate favorable to research collaboration and joint

ventures.

But a description of how diversification does in fact occur leaves our

earlier question unanswered. Put differently, what are the preconditions

for successful diversification? The first is the presence of a second party

willing to sponsor the laboratory's venture into new fields, whether it is

industry sponsoring Sandia's work in drilling technologies, the Interior

Department's Office of Saline Water sponsoring Oak Ridge's work in

water desalination, or in the work conducted jointly by Argonne National

Laboratory and DuPont on neutron diffraction studies of catalysts.

Second, there should be a feeling on the part of laboratory executives that

228
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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while the organization's mission remains relevant, current programs do

not exhaust the organization's capacity to carry it out. Third, there should

be few institutional barriers preventing laboratories from taking the

broadest view of their mission. Here, the sponsoring agency can play an

important part by, for example, drafting a liberal policy of permitting

work for others, bringing in scientists and engineers from industry for

advice and technical assistance, and improving conditions for cooperative

work. Indeed, the removal of obstacles may accomplish more than

well-intentioned, but largely fruitless, efforts to stimulate two-party

ventures.

In the latter category we would include the various congressional

mandates imposed on the National Bureau of Standards in the 1970s,

many of which have fallen into desuetude. Or consider the case of

technology transfer. In the 1960s, there were two opinions at NASA

regarding the best way to transfer technology from Apollo and the larger

unmanned programs to commercial users. One view held that technology

transfer or utilization could best be promoted by creating an office with

direct responsibility for technology utilization, and distinct from the line

organization. This was created, but was never quite able to overcome the

obstacles to transferring technology that most agencies encounter at some

point. The other view held that a program of Apollo's magnitude would

inevitably spill over into the commercial sector, stimulating (or some

would say, forcing) the growth of data-processing, integrated-circuit, and

materials technologies. And this is precisely what happened.

Commercial and government diversification are similar, in that both

expand outward from what Peter Drucker has called a '"core of unity." The

industrial executive, every bit as much as the Federal executive, needs to

ask, What business are we really in? (What a company does and what its

executives think it does do not always coincide. For decades AT&T

executives believed that AT&T was in the business of providing universal

phone service. In the 1970s, under pressure from Justice Department,

AT&T decided that as the boundaries between telecommunications and

data processing blurred, AT&T had to get into nonregulated areas in

order to gain a market share in a major industry. It was this which led

AT&T to acquiesce in the largest corporate divestiture in history.) As

Drucker points out, companies may and do answer this question in very

different ways. Sears, Roebuck "is willing to buy anything which the

American family needs, whether it be fabric, underwear, life insurance,

or garden furniture. As long as the family buys it, it is Sears, Roebuck's

business, because Sears, Roebuck understands what the family is as an

economic unit, and is the expert buyer for the family . . . At the other

extreme, Coming Glass is willing to go into any market, as long as it is

based on glass technology. It is in the customer market, it is the largest

producer of television tubes any market, as long as it is glass

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firms Boeing, Martin Marietta, McDonnell Douglas, and General

Electric, although that company is involved in other areas as well. These

units were originally created to handle their parent companies' internal

data-processing needs. As excess computer time became available, the

companies began to sell some of it to commercial and government users;

and through internal growth, acquisitions, and the development of new

products, these units, have become among the most profitable and

fastest-growing within their parent companies.

At the beginning of this section, we said that diversification should

have a particular relevance to a laboratory's (or company's) mission. So

stated, this advice may appear obvious. But diversification has many

turnings and byways; the logic of successful diversification often appears

obvious only in retrospect. There is something a little mysterious about

the process; a laboratory director may choose one of several courses of

action, when others might have appeared, at the time, to be as logical. All

we have done here has been to list preconditions for successful

diversification and give some examples of how the process occurs.

4. The principal role of technology development laboratories is to

strengthen the research and engineering base of new technologies, rather

than to serve as managers of large systems or to develop new products.

Because of the difficulty in distinguishing between technology

development and product development, we would stress that the principal

role of the technology development laboratories is to strengthen the

technological base rather than to do projects or to develop products. But it

is also important to understand that occasionally a technology

development laboratory should undertake a project _ such as Voyager in

the case of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory_just as it should conduct

basic research. At any given point, there are a great many projects that

can be undertaken. The function of the technology development

laboratories is to provide technology capability to undertake one or

another of these projects. Thus, the Apollo program stemmed from well

over half a century of technology development carried out in the

laboratories of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and the

U.S. Army's Ballistic Missile Agency.

Note, however, that the existence of technology is necessary but not

sufficient for carrying through successful projects. It is also necessary to

have the proper organization to carry the projects through. The execution

of the Apollo program required entirely new approaches to organization

and this is, of course, where the Washington headquarters has to play a

leading part. As James Webb has written, "It is the new and different way

of doing things of organizing the use of knowledge and technology

and human and material resources rather than the new things

themselves that is of most importance in the large-scale endeavor." (ref.

238.) While all of this is true, it is still the creation of new technology that

231
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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constitutes the central role of the laboratories. If this is not carried out on

a continuing basis, there will be no projects.

The history of the Shuttle program also shows how the laboratories

can provide the technology base on which such systems are built. The

Shuttle was possible because NASA and its predecessor agency had fifty

years' experience of research on the boundaries of flight. The Shuttle

was, so to speak, at the interface of aeronautics and space technology.

The NASA centers had the test facilities for studying reentry systems,

launch vehicle design, the feasibility of an unpowered landing, the

separation of the orbiter from the external fuel tank indeed, all the

parameters that defined the Shuttle as an operating system (ref. 239). The

design and test of the Shuttle preceded, ran concurrently with, and

followed on the manufacture of its components. The experience that

centers like Langley, Ames, and Marshall could bring to bear on defining

the system was absolutely essential, and it could not have been obtained

elsewhere. And this, we believe, is precisely what justifies both the

continued existence of large multidisciplinary government research

establishments and their commitment to basic and applied research.*

5. The Federal laboratory is best thought of and best administered,

as a number of loosely coupled units rather than a classical hierarchical

system.

This is probably the least controversial of our conclusions A

top-down style is incompatible with an organization's task when that task

is advancing our knowledge of physical processes or applying that

knowledge to complex technological systems. Success in missionoriented work requires that professional staff accept the responsibility for

defining their own goals, that there be mobility between basic and applied

units, and that (within limits) laboratory executives give division chiefs

the freedom to strike out on their own. Here, if anywhere, those

laboratories operated under contract are marginally superior to those

operated by government employees. Brooks has called attention to the

paradox of those civil service laboratories where "... the high level of

scientific performance of individuals [is] contrasted with the often

disappointing results from the organization. A good scientific performance often does not add up to an effective overall performance, partly

because of the cumbersomeness of the decision-making process, and

partly because of poor communication between the working scientists and

* There also comes a time when a laboratory and its parent agency withdraw from a

particular kind of technology development. Under pressure from Congress, NASA, in the

early 1970s, withdrew from communications satellite technology. The technology so

many Congressmen thought was sufficiently advanced for private corporations to

develop it still further. In fact, all of the satellites built for INTELSAT have been

manufactured by two companies Hughes Aircraft and Ford Aerospace and

Communications.

232
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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the headquarters organization that supports and administers his work...

These faults are by no means confined to government laboratories, but the

strongly hierarchical nature of government tends to aggravate the

problem." (ref. 240.)

Recall our analysis of the Federal research executive in Chapter IX.

We said there that the executive's task is to make a mechanistic

organization behave like a living organism. The research executive's role

becomes one of sensing or setting the direction in which the organization

should move and then bringing the rest of the organization with him. The

great laboratory directors have had very different management styles, but

they have all shown an ability to set goals which they persuaded their

subordinates first to understand, then to accept, and finally to make their

own. From this viewpoint, too close a coupling of science and

engineering or of basic and applied work might be almost as bad as too

little. The organization's mission is compromised when every division

has its marching orders or when a tentative move into new areas requires

level on level of approval or finally, when Headquarters insists that such

moves be embodied in a formal long-range plan.

6. The multifaceted nature of the Federal and private-sector

technology establishment is a necessary feature of the system described in

this book.

In the United States, research is a function attached to an agency or a

company or a laboratory, not a separate institution in its own right.

Although the National Science Foundation was created with the mission

of fostering basic research, it is well to recall that it has no laboratories of

its own and that its mission did not and does not preclude other agencies

from conducting their own research. This decentralized system owes its

effectiveness to several features" the complex interchanges of personnel

among universities, industry, and government laboratories; the parallel

investigations of similar problems by different agencies, which is not to

be confused with wasteful duplication; the public accountability of

presidential advisors; and the high turnover in scientific advisors to

agencies and the Executive Office of the President. This decentralized

style is different, not only from the way scientific research is sponsored in

countries like Soviet Russia, where centralization of science has been the

rule since the Russian Academy of Science was established by Peter the

Great over two and a half centuries ago, but even from Britain, where a

tradition of quasi-permanent scientific administrators has been the rule.

This distinction has been neatly drawn by Rose and Rose" "One has only

to contrast the two decades and more of science policy-making by Sir

Solly Zuckerman with the rapid turnover of scientific advisors to the...

President, all coming into government science administration from

outside and returning to the outside when their term of office is over."

(ref. 241.)

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233
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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From time to time there have been proposals to centralize American

science policy, either by establishing a Cabinet-level Department of

Science and Technology or by strengthening the authority of the

President's Science Advisor. We believe that neither measure is

necessary. The reasons for separate research installations at NASA, the

Defense Department, the Energy Department, the National Institutes of

Health, and the National Bureau of Standards are as different as the

missions of those agencies are. A decentralized scheme requires much

less information than a centralized scheme would require (ref. 242). The

budgetary and authorization cycles provide a bargaining mechanism by

which tradeoffs within and between programs can be made.

The majority of American scientific and technical opinion opposes

the degree of centralization inherent in the organizational changes

mentioned above. Were American science and technology to be

concentrated in one Federal department, it would be a reversion to much

of what is done in Soviet Russia. The Soviet Academy of Sciences

exercises a much tighter degree of control over Russian technology

development than any government or non-governmental unit exercises in

this country. The great danger in centralization is, of course, that the

"innovators" and the "mavericks" will have real trouble in promoting

their ideas. One need only compare the fates of Andrei Sakharov in the

Soviet Union and J. Robert Oppenheimer in the United States. Both

individuals took positions opposed to the orthodox lines of their

governments. Sakharov, although he is a member of the Soviet Academy,

lives in disgrace and cannot move freely within the Soviet Union or

abroad. Oppenheimer, on the other hand, retained his full citizenship

fights, was permitted to travel, and was perfectly free to hold high and

honored positions in the country's decentralized scientific establishment.

He suffered in that he lost his security clearance, but this is by no means a

loss which crippled his activities as a scientist, scientific administrator,

and public figure. Our decentralized system, therefore, has the virtue that

a person can disagree with the established government line but still

maintain his standing in the scientific community.

There is one final point that should be emphasized. In research and

in technology development we are dealing with that most precious of all

commodities, the human imagination. While it is true that the very best

people, such as Sakharov, will not be intimidated by any kind of

organization structure, we cannot arrange our science and technology

around behavior patterns that require genuine heroism. We must see to it

that even people who are not in the heroic mold can exercise their talents

to make important technical contributions. These people can be more

easily stifled, and it is most important that whatever organization is

adopted for the conduct of science and technology in the United States,

that the imagination be left free to work. Most people involved in

234
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scientific and technical matters in the United States believe that this

objective is best accomplished under a decentralized system, where

decision-making is not monolithic but yet is well enough organized to

make the importance of science and technology felt.

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REFERENCES

1. Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New

York: Free Press, 1967), p. 96. Originally published in 1925.

2. Nathan Rosenberg, Inside the Black Box" Technology and

Economics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p.

189.

3. This definition is adopted from the definition of "Development"

given in Congressional Research Service, Science Policy, A

Working Glossary, prepared for the Subcommittee on Science,

Research, and Development, U. S. House of Representatives,

Committee on Science and Astronautics, 93rd Congress, 1st

Session (July 1973), p. 11.

4. Rosenberg, Inside the Black Box, p. 189.

5. James E. Webb, Space Age Management" The Large-Scale

Approach, McKinsey Foundation Lecture Series, Graduate School

of Business, Columbia University (New York: McGraw-Hill,

1969), pp. 60-65.

6. Ibid., p. 62.

7. Ibid., p. 143.

8. Charles E. Lindblom and David K. Cohen, Usable Knowledge"

Social Science and Social Problem Solving (New Haven: Yale

University Press, 1979), p. 86.

9. Tom Alexander, "The Right Remedy for R&D Lag," in Fortune

(January 25, 1982), p. 61.

10. Richard L. Chapman, et al., Project Management in NASA

(Washington, DC: NASA SP-324, 1973), p. 4.

11. Tom Alexander, "The Right Remedy for R&D Lag," p. 66.

12. William P. Dunk and Courtenay W. Beinhorn, "Making R&D

Dollars Work Harder," in High Technology, vol. 4, no. 4 (April

1984), p. 67.

13. George Sarton, A History of Science (New York: John Wiley &

Sons, 1964), pp. 492-493.

14. J.H. Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance (New York" Mentor, 1963),

p. 51 and Marie Boas, The Scientific Renaissance, 1450-1630 (New

York: Harper & Row, 1962), pp. 36-37.

15. Ibid., p. 50.

16 • A.R. Hall, The Scientific Revol_4tion, 1500-1800, 2nd ed. (Boston"

Beacon Press, 1962), P_N|I_N]_ __.__2__

237

PRECEDING .PAGE BLANK. NO"_. FiLMEID*"
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17. R.K. Merton, Science, Technology and Society in SeventeenthCentury England (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), pp. 239-261.

18. Ibid., p. XX.

19. Hall, The Scientific Revolution, p. 198.

20. See John Noble Wilford, The Mapmakers (New York" Knopf,

1981), Chapter 9 (Harrison) and Chapter 10 (Cook).

21. Arnold Levine, "The Structure of Scientific and Technical

Education in Britain, 1859-1899," in Yearbook of the Nederlandsch

Economisch-Historisch Archief (The Hague" Nijhoff, 1975), pp.

308-313.

22. Joseph Ben-David, The Scientist's Role in Society" A Comparative

Study (Englewood Cliffs, NJ" Prentice-Hall, 1971).

23. A. Hunter Dupree, Science in the Federal Government: A History

of Policies and Activities to 1940 (Cambridge, Mass." Belknap

Press of Harvard University Press, 1957), p. 126.

24. Ibid., p. 170.

25. Don K. Price, The Scientific Estate (Cambridge: Harvard

University Press, 1965), p. 92.

26. Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists (New York" Vintage Books,

1979), p. 189.

27. Alex Roland, Research By Committee" A History of the National

Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 1915-1958 (in process), p.

417.

28. J.L. Penick, et al., The Politics of American Science, 1939 to the

Present, revised ed. (Cambridge" MIT Press, 1972), pp. 5-6.

29. Kevles, The Physicists, p. 296.

30. Clarence H. Danhof, Government Contracting and Technological

Change (Washington, DC" The Brookings Institution, 1968), p. 31.

31. Daniel S. Greenberg, The Politics of Pure Science (New York" New

American Library, 1967), p. 80.

32. Kevles, The Physicists, p. 328.

33. Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr., The New World,

1939/1946, vol. I of A History of the United States Atomic Energy

Commission (University Park, Pa." Pennsylvania State University

Press, 1962), p. 14.

34. Ibid., pp. 23, 27-28.

35. Ibid., p. 112.

36. Ibid., pp. 33-34.

37. Kevles, The Physicists, p. 329.

38. Richard R. Nelson, The Moon and the Ghetto (New York: W.W.

Norton & Company, 1977), p. 119.

39. Reprinted in Seymour Melman, Pentagon Capitalism (New York"

McGraw-Hill, 1970), pp. 231-234.

40. Danhof, Government Contracting and Technological Change, p.

51.

238
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A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT ' LABORATORIES

41. Bruce L.R. Smith, The RAND Corporation (Cambridge, Mass.-

Harvard University Press, 1966), p. 302.

42. Harold Orlans, Contracting for Atoms (Washington, DC" The

Brookings Institution, 1967), p. 44.

43. Richard G. Hewlett and Francis Duncan, Nuclear Navy, 1946-1962

(Chicago" The University of Chicago Press, 1974), p. 98.

44. Harvey Sapolsky, The Polaris System Development (Cambridge,

Mass." Harvard University Press, 1972), p. 78, n. 32.

45. Robert L. Perry, "The Atlas, Thor, Titan, and Minuteman," in

Eugene M. Emme, ed., The History of Rocket Technology: Essays

on Research, Development, and Utility (Detroit: Wayne State

University Press, 1964), p. 149.

46. Sapolsky, The Polaris System Development, pp. 90-91.

47. The remainder of this section is based on Arnold S. Levine, "The

Management of Large-Scale Technology," read at conference at

Yale University, February 6, 1981.

48. See National Science Foundation. National Patterns of R&D

Resources: Funds and Manpower in the United States, 1953-1976,

(Washington, DC" NSF 76-310, 1976).

49. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United

States: 1984 (Washington, DC" U.S. Government Printing Office,

1983) p. 594.

50. Orlans, Contracting for Atoms, pp. 106-107.

51. Kevles, The Physicists, p. 415.

52. Hans Mark, "Technology and the Strategic Balance," lecture

delivered before the students and faculty of the Naval War College,

Newport, R. I. (May 6, 1981), pp. 24, 27.

53. Ibid.

54. Jim Fawcette, "Pentagon Push for Software Development Tools,"

High Technology, vol. 3, no. 10 (October 1983), pp. 78-79.

55. Samuel Florman, "Technology's Minor Moments," in Harper's,

vol. 256 (June 1978), p. 16-19.

56. Orr Kelly, "While Protesters March, Bomb Business Flourishes,"

in U.S. News & World Report, vol. 94 (March 21, 1983), pp.

27-28.

57. U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Science and

Astronautics, Subcommittee on Science, Research and Development, Utilization of Federal Laboratories, 90th Congress, 2nd

Session (March 26-28, April 2-4, 1968), p. 150.

58. Robert D. Behn, "Closing a Government Facility," in Public

Administration Review, vol. 38, no. 4 (July/August 1978), p. 333.

59. W. Henry Lambright, Governing Science and Technology (New

York: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 176.

60. Ibid., p. 177.

61. Ibid., p. 179.

239
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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62. U.S. News & World Report, "While Protesters March," p. 27.

63. See, for example, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Manual (March

15, 1967), Chapter 0701, "Appraisal of AEC and AEC Contractor

Performance."

64. Defense Science Board Task Force, "Department of Defense

In-House Laboratories" (Washington, DC" Office of the Director of

Defense Research and Engineering, October 31, 1966), p. 8.

65. Ibid., p. 9.

66. House Committee on Science and Astronautics, Utilization of

Federal Laboratories, p. 154.

67. This account is based on a NASA-Ames Research Center paper,

"Helicopter Program Consolidation" (October 17, 1975).

68. Arnold Levine, Managing NASA in the Apollo Era (Washington,

DC" NASA SP-4102, 1982), p. 135.

69. N. Brun and E. Ritchie, Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1975

(Washington, DC" SP-4020, 1979), p. 50.

70. Chapman, et al., Project Management in NASA, p. 105.

71. Donald D. Baals and William R. Corliss, Wind Tunnels of NASA

(Washington, DC" SP-440, 1981), p. 136.

72. Herbert Kaufman, Are Government Organizations Immortal?

(Washington, DC" The Brookings Institution, 1976), p. 68.

73. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Productivity in

Aerospace Research and Development (Washington, DC" NASA

Technical Memorandum 82388, 1980), p. 2.

74. Chapman et al., Project Management in NASA, p. 60.

75. Donald Schon, "The Fear of Innovation," in David Allison, ed.,

The R&D Game (Cambridge, Mass." MIT Press, 1969), p. 131.

76. John Greenwood, "The Air Force Ballistic Missile and Space

Program," Aerospace Historian (December 1974), p. 195.

77. Exxon Corp., Public Affairs Dept., "Improved Oil Recovery,"

(New York" Exxon Corp., December 1982), p. 14.

78. Schon, "The Fear of Innovation," p. 127.

79. John Jewkes, David Sawers, Richard Stillerman, The Sources of

Invention, 2nd ed. (New York" W.W. Norton & Co., 1969), p.

228.

80. Ibid., p. 210.

81. Ibid., pp. 262-266.

82. Frank W. Anderson, Jr., Orders of Magnitude" A History of NACA

and NASA, 1915-1980, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC" NASA SP-4403,

1981), p. 31.

83. Baals and Corliss, Wind Tunnels of NASA, pp. 62-63.

84. Ibid., pp. 113, 115.

85. Charles Moritz, ed., Current Biography, 1965 (New York" H.W.

Wilson Co., 1965), pp. 82-84.

240
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86. "NASA's Management of Its Research and Technology" A Study of

the Process" (January 1977), p. 3. The study committee, a mixed

body of Headquarters and center representatives, was chaired by

Bruce Lundin, director of the Lewis Research Center.

87. Levine, Managing NASA in the Apollo Era, especially Chapters 3

and 6.

88. On the tension between project work and basic research, see

"NASA's Aeronautics Research and Technology Base," a report of

the Ad Hoc Aeronautics Assessment Committee, Aeronautics and

Space Engineering Board, National Research Council (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1979), pp. 5-7.

89. Chapman, et al., Project Management in NASA, p. 38.

90. "NASA's Management of Its Research and Technology," pp.

11-12.

91. Ibid., p. 21.

92. Ibid., pp. 22-23.

93. Ibid., p. 27.

94. Leonard R. Sayles and Margaret K. Chandler, Managing Large

Systems" Organizations for the Future (New York: Harper & Row,

1971), p. 178.

95. Nick A. Komons, Science and the Air Force" A History of the Air

Force Office of Scientific Research (Arlington, Va." Office of

Aerospace Research, 1966), p. 68.

96. Ibid., pp. 69-70.

97. Lambright, Governing Science and Technology, Chapter 4.

98. Chapman, et al., Project Management in NASA, pp. 52-53.

99. "NASA's Aeronautics Research and Technology Base," p. 6.

100. Bruno W. Augenstein, "Policy Analysis in the National Space

Program" (July 1969), p. 60. Prepared at the request of the

Subcommittee on Economy of the Joint Economic Committee,

U.S. Congress.

101. Nelson, The Moon and the Ghetto, p. 117.

102. Jewkes, et al., The Sources of lnvention, Parts II and III.

103. Ibid., p. 289.

104. Alan E. Puckett, "Independent Research and Development" Drive

to Innovate, Aerospace, vol. 21, no. 2 (Spring 1983), p. 13.

105. Science Policy Research Division, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, Science Policy: A Working Glossary

(Washington, DC" USGPO, July 1973), p. 67. Prepared for the

House Committee on Science and Astronautics.

106. Richard R. Nelson, Merton J. Peck, Edward D. Kalachek,

Technology, Economic Growth and Public Policy, (Washington,

DC" The Brookings Institution, 1967), pp. 184-187.

107. Levine, Managing NASA in the Apollo Era, p. 288.

241
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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108. Ibid., p. 124.

109. Ibid., p. 131.

110. Sayles and Chandler, Managing Large Systems" Organizations for

the Future, p. 185.

111. Ibid., p. 185.

112. This case study is based on an unpublished manuscript by Robert

Rudney, "A Preliminary History of the OAO Program" (NASA

Historical Office, September 1971) and John N. Bahcall and Lyman

Spitzer, Jr., "The Space Telescope," Scientific American, vol. 247,

no. 1 (July 1982), pp. 40-51.

113. Norris S. Hetherington, "Winning the Initiative: NASA and the

U.S. Space Science Program," Prologue (Summer 1975), p. 105.

114. Bahcall and Spitzer, "The Space Telescope," p. 42.

115. Hetherington, "Winning the Initiative" NASA and the U.S. Space

Science Program," p. 105.

116. Rudney, "Preliminary History," p. 13.

117. Ibid., p. 14 and n. 27.

118. Ibid., pp. 29-30.

119. Bahcall and Spitzer, "The Space Telescope," p. 42.

120. Rudney, "A Preliminary History of the OAO Program," p. 45.

121. Chapman, et al., Project Management in NASA, p. 9.

122. Transcript of briefing for NASA Administrator on OAO-1 failure

(.November 4,1966), pp. 53-54. Speaker is Dr. John Townsend,

Deputy Director of Goddard Space Flight Center.

123. Rudney, "A Preliminary History of the OAO Program," p. 34.

124. Homer E. Newell, Beyond the Atmosphere" Early Years of Space

Science (Washington, DC: NASA Scientific & Technical Information Branch, SP-4211, 1980), pp. 165, 356.

125. Rudney, "A Preliminary History of the OAO Program," pp. 62-63.

126. This case study is based on Harvey M. Sapolsky, The Polaris

System Development (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,

1972).

127. Sapolsky, The Polaris System Development, p. 61.

128. Ibid., p. 142.

129. Ibid., p. 145.

130. Ibid., p. 103.

131. Ibid., pp. 123-124.

132. Ibid., p. 106.

133. For these and other examples see Members of the Technical Staff,

Bell Telephone Laboratories, A History of Engineering and Science

in the Bell System" National Service in War and Peace (1925-1975)

(Bell Telephone Laboratories, 1978).

134. Hendrick W. Bode, "The Systems Approach," in Applied Science

and Technological Progress, A Report to the Committee on

242
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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Science and Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives, by the

National Academy of Sciences (Washington DC; USGPO, 1967),

p. 75.

135. Ibid., p. 93.

136. History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System, p. 340.

137. Jack Morton, "From Research to Technology," in David Allison,

ed., The R&D Game (Cambridge, MA" MIT Press, 1969), pp.

225-226.

138. A.E. Joel, Jr., et al., A History of Engineering and Science in the

Bell System" Switching Technology (1925-1975) (Bell Telephone

Laboratories, 1982), p. 239.

139. Arnold R. Deutsch, "The Growing Job of Technical Recruiting," in

Jerome W. Blood, ed., The Management of Scientific Talent (New

York: American Management Association, 1963), p. 105.

140. C.M. Van Atta, W.D. Decker, T. Wilson, Professional Personnel

Policies and Practices of R&D Organizations (Livermore, Cal."

Lawrence Laboratory, December 1971), p. 46.

141. Ibid., pp. 47-48.

142. National Aeronautics & Space Administration, Productivity in

Aerospace Research and Development (Washington, DC: NASA

Technical Memorandum 82388, 1980), pp. 33-36.

143. Howard M. Vollmer, "Evaluating Two Aspects of Quality in

Research Program Effectiveness," in M.C. Yovits et al., eds.,

Research Program Effectiveness (New York: Gordon & Breach,

1966), pp. 149-150.

144. Letter from Ames Research Center Director Hans Mark to NASA

Deputy Administrator George Low, July 2, 1973.

145. Vollmer, "Evaluating Two Aspects of Quality," pp. 158-163.

146. See especially Report to the President on Government Contracting

for Research and Development (the "Bell Report") reprinted in

W.R. Nelson, ed., The Politics of Science (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1968), pp. 193-220; Report of the Working Group

on Basic Research in the Department of Defense (Executive Office

of the President, Office of Science and Technology Policy, June 22,

1978); Federal R&D Laboratories_Directors' Perspectives on

Management (U. S. General Accounting Office, B- 164912, November 28, 1979); The Department of Energy Multiprogram Laboratories (Multiprogram Laboratory Panel, Energy Research Advisory

Board, September 1982); and source cited immediately below.

147. Report of the White House Science Council, Federal Laboratory

Review Panel (Executive Office of the President, Office of Science

and Technology Policy, May 1983), p. 7.

148. The task force's report was entitled "Considerations in the

Management of Manpower in NASA." See below for summary.

243
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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149. Levine, Managing NASA in the Apollo Era, pp. 128-129.

150. "Study Faults CSRA as 'Fatally Flawed,'" Public Administration

Times, vol. 6 (August 1, 1983), p. 1. The study to which the article

refers was conducted by the University of California (Irvine) unde_

contract to NASA and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

151. "NASA In-House Manpower Management" (February 10, 1976),

Section C-3, pp. 2-3, 5. Emphasis in original.

152. Report of the Ad Hoc Panel on Attracting New Staff and Retaining

Capability During a Period of Declining Manpower Ceilings

(National Academy of Public Administration, June 1973), p. 27.

153. James A. Bayton and Richard L. Chapman, Transformation 03

Scientists and Engineers into Managers (Washington, DC" NASA

Scientific & Technical Information Office, SP-291, 1972), p. 8.

154. Ibid., p. 3.

155. Levine, Managing NASA in the Apollo Era, p. 115.

156. Report of the White House Science Council, p. 7.

157. Ibid., Appendix E.

158. Ibid., p. E-2.

159. See Vollmer, "Evaluating Two Aspects of Quality."

160. Office of Federal Procurement Policy, A Guide for Writing and

Administering Performance Statements of Work for Service

Contracts, OFPP Pamphlet No. 4 (October 1980), p. 20. This is a

supplement to OMB Circular A-76.

161. Ibid., p. 26. The acceptable quality levels used in this project were

based on sampling procedures set forth in Military Standard 105D.

162. Office of Management and Budget, Bulletin 81-15 (April 8, 1981),

p. 1. This bulletin deals with the implementation of Circular A-76.

163. Levine, Managing NASA in the Apollo Era, p. 87.

164. Office of Management and Budget, "Issuance of OMB Circular No.

A-76 (Revised), 'Performance of Commercial Activities,' "Federal

Register, vol. 48, no. 159 (August 16, 1983), p. 37114.

165. Levine, Managing NASA in the Apollo Era, p. 67. The citation is

from the testimony of David E. Bell, Director, Bureau of the

Budget, before a subcommittee of the House Government

Operations Committee, June 21, 1962.

166. Office of Management and Budget, "Issuance of OMB Circular No.

A-76 . . .," p. 37114.

167. Energy Research Advisory Board, Final Report of the Multiprogram Laboratory Panel, Vol. II: Special Studies (Oak Ridge,

Tenn." OakRidge National Laboratory, September 1982), p. 63.

168. U.S. General Accounting Office, Civil Servants and Contract

Employees: Who Should Do What For the Federal Government?

(FPCD-81-43, June 19, 1981).

169. Ibid., p. 19.

244
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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170. General Electric Co., Space Systems Division, "Lanham Center

Operations Team Stamps 'Mission" Accomplished' Label on

Landsat-D Ground Segment," Horizons, vol. 3, no. 4 (Valley

Forge, Pa." April 1982), 5.

171. Ibid.

172. Baals and Corliss, Wind Tunnels of NASA, pp. 137-138.

173. Executive Office of the President, Office of Science and

Technology Policy, Aeronautical Research and Technology Policy,

Vol. II: Final Report (November 1983), p. F-85.

174. Association of the United States Army, "Where Did All the People

Go? The Army's Vanishing Civilian Work Force" (Arlington, Va •

Association of the United States Army, 1979), p. 14.

175. Ibid.

176. James G. March and Herbert A. Simon, Organizations (New York:

John Wiley & Sons, 1958), pp. 165, 159, and 119.

177. Ibid., pp. 140-141.

178. Harold Seidman, Politics, Position and Power, 2nd ed. (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 158.

179. T. Bums, "Mechanistic and Organismic Structures," in D.S. Pugh,

ed., Organization Theory (New York: Penguin Books, 1971), pp.

43-55, especially pp. 49-51.

180. Ibid., p. 49.

181. Energy Research Advisory Board, Final Report of the Multiprogram Laboratory Panel, Vol. II: Special Studies, p. 75.

182. Chester Barnard, "The Executive Functions," in D.S. Pugh, ed.,

Organization Theory, pp. 179-180.

183. S.H. Dole, et al., Establishment of a Long-Range Planning

Capability (Santa Monica, Cal." The RAND Corporation, Memorandum RM-6151-NASA, September 1969), pp. 88, 91-92.

184. Science Policy Research Division, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, The National Bureau of Standards" A

Review of Its Organization and Operations, 1971-1980 (May

1981), pp. 144-145.

185. T. Bums, "Mechanistic and Organismic Structures," p. 48.

186. Russell L. Ackoff, "Specialized Versus Generalized Models in

Research Budgeting," in M.C. Yovits, et al., eds., Research

Program Effectiveness (New York" Gordon & Breach, 1966), p.

173.

187. Nelson, The Moon and the Ghetto, p. 145.

188. C.M. Van Atta, W.D. Decker, T. Wilson, Professional Personnel

Policies and Practices of R&D Organizations (Livermore, Cal."

Lawrence Laboratory, December 1971), p. 26.

189. Letter from Langley Research Center Director Edgar Cortright to

NASA Deputy Administrator George Low, May 29, 1973.

245
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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190. Letter from Ames Research Center Director Hans Mark to NASA

Deputy Administrator George Low, July 2, 1973.

191. Letter from Lewis Research Center Director Bruce Lundin to

NASA Deputy Administrator George Low, May 7, 1973.

192. John A. Field, "Techniques for Utilizing Research," in Jerome W.

Blood, ed.-, The Management of Scientific Talent (New York"

American Management Association, 1963), p. 93.

193. William P. Gage, "Organizing Research in a Growth Industry," in

Ibid., p. 85.

194. Levine, Managing NASA in the Apollo Era, p. 197.

195. On these questions, see Science Policy Research Division, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, The National

Bureau of Standards: A Review of Its Organization and Operations, 1971-1980, pp. 74-77. Issued as a committee print by U.S.

House of Representatives, Committee on Science and Technology, Subcommittee on Science, Research and Technology,

97th Cong., 1st Sess., May 1981. Hereafter cited as NBS,

1971-1980.

196. Richard R. Nelson, "Industrial Innovation Policy" Lessons from

American History," Science, vol. 219, (February 18, 1983), p.

816.

197. This term was taken from Emmette S. Redford and Orion F.

White, What Manned Space Program After Reaching the Moon ?

Government A ttempts to Decide: 1962-1968 (Syracuse" Syracuse

University/NASA Program, 1971), p. 46.

198. NBS, 1971-1980, p. 38.

199. Ibid.

200. Ibid., p. 68.

201. See James L. Penick, Jr., et al., eds., The Politics of American

Science, 1939 to the Present, revised ed. (Cambridge, Mass." MIT

Press, 1972), pp. 196-208, for documents relating to the battery

additive affair.

202. Nelson, The Moon and the Ghetto, p. 113.

203. I.C. Bupp, "The Nuclear Stalemate," in Robert Stobaugh and

Daniel Yergin, eds., Energy Future: Report of the Energy Project at the Harvard Business School (New York" Random House,

1979), p. 117.

204. Lambright, Governing Science and Technology, p. 117.

205. Harvey Brooks, "Basic Science and Agency Missions," in Harvey

Brooks, The Government of Science (Cambridge, Mass." MIT

Press, 1968), pp. 123-124.

206. Michael Schrage, "Transporting the Pentagon Into the Future,"

The Washington Post (July 24, 1983), pp. F5-F8.

246
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT, LABORATORIES

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,

207. This section draws on the following sources" Congressional

Research Service, NBS, 1971-1980; General Accounting Office,

Information on Mission and Functions of the National Bureau of

Standards (CED-81-39, April 22, 1981); and a U.S. Department of

Commerce brochure, "National Bureau of Standards" (NBS Special

Publication 643, February 1983).

208. NBS, 1971-1980, p. 186.

209. On other-agency funding, see GAO, Mission and Functions of

NBS, pp. 33-34.

210. Ibid., p. 35.

211. Information on AMRF supplied by NBS Director, Dr. Ernest

Ambler.

212. Margie Ploch, "Industry Invests in Research Centers," in High

Technology, vol. 3, no. 5 (May 1983), pp. 15-18.

213. See NBS, 1971-1980, pp. 197-206, for text of Stevenson-Wydler

Act, P.L. 96-480.

214. Samuel I. Doctors, The Role of Federal Agencies in Technology

Transfer (Cambridge, Mass." MIT Press, 1969).

215. NBS, 1971-1980, p. 73.

216. GAO, Mission and Functions of NBS, pp. 57-59.

217. NBS, 1971-1980, p. 131. Emphasis in original.

218. Information supplied by NBS Director, Dr. Ernest Ambler.

219. NBS, 1971-1980, p. 101.

220. This section draws on the following sources" U.S. Congress, Joint

Committee on Atomic Energy, The Future Role of the Atomic

Energy Commission Laboratories, 86th Cong., 2nd Sess. (October

1960); General Accounting Office, The Multiprogram Laboratories: A National Resource for Nonnuclear Energy Research,

Development and Demonstration (EMD-78-62, May 22, 1978); and

Energy Research Advisory Board (ERAB), Multiprogram Laboratory Panel, The Department of Energy Multiprogram Laboratories,

3 vols. (September 1982). Reprinted in U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Science and Technology, Subcommittees on

Energy Development and Applications and Energy Research and

Production, 97th Cong., 2nd Sess., heating on The Future of the

Department of Energy's Multiprogram Laboratories (December 2,

1982). References to ERAB Report will be to volume and page

number of the report, not the committee hearing.

221. ERAB, The Department of Energy Multiprogram Laboratories,

vol. II, p. 1.

222. Ibid., vol. I, pp. 9-10.

223. Alvin M. Weinberg, Reflections on Big Science (Cambridge,

Mass." MIT Press, 1967), pp. 135-136. Emphasis in original.

247
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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224. GAO, The Multiprogram Laboratories, p. 6.

225. ERAB, The Department of Energy Multiprogram Laboratories,

vol. I, p. 22.

226. Ibid., vol. I, p. 21.

227. Ibid., vol. I, pp. 37, 44, and 46.

228. GAO, The Multiprogram Laboratories, p. 33.

229. Ibid., p. 34.

230. Ibid., p. 8., and ERAB, The Department of Energy Multiprogram

Laboratories, vol. II, p. 20. The GAO report omits the Ames

Laboratory, while the ERAB Report includes it. Had GAO included

the Ames Laboratory, it would have further reduced the rise in

nonnuclear energy R&D to no more than one-half of one percent

from 9 to 9.5 percent.

231. ERAB, The Department of Energy Multiprogram Laboratories,

vol. I, p. 22.

232. Compare with Harvey Brooks, "Applied Research" Definitions,

Concepts, Themes," in Harvey Brooks, The Government of Science

(Cambridge, Mass." MIT Press, 1968), especially pp. 319-325.

233. Ibid., pp. 317-318.

234. ERAB, The Department of Energy Multiprogram Laboratories,

vol. II. p. 66. See note 220 supra, for full citation.

235. Brooks, "Applied Research," p. 284.

236. ERAB, vol. II, Section 5.

237. Drucker, Peter S., Technology, Management and Society (New

York" Harper and Row, 1977), pp. 97-98.

238. Webb, Space Age Management: The Large-Scale Approach, p. 61.

239. Baals and Corliss, Wind Tunnels of NASA, pp. 117-120.

240. Brooks, "Applied Research," pp. 318-319.

241. Hilary Rose and Steven Rose, Science and Society (Baltimore"

Pelican Books, 1970), p. 266.

242. On the principle of bounded rationality, see James G. March and

Herbert A. Simon, Organizations (New York: John Wiley and

Sons, 1958), pp. 203-204.

.o.,

248
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BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY

There is no book that corresponds precisely to what we have attempted here--namely, to provide an up-to-date account of what a

certain kind of Federal laboratory does. In the course of our

research, we have drawn heavily on the internal documents of many

agencies, our own experience in Federal research establishments, and

the printed sources cited below. Our aim in this essay is perhaps less

to indicate the scope of our investigations than to encourage readers

to explore the ramifications of science and technology policies on

their own. Our approach is to go from the general to the more particular. We begin by citing the more accessible works in organization

theory, list works dealing with the theory of scientific method and the

history of science and technology, and conclude with contemporary

accounts of technology development sponsored by the Federal

Government.

Theories of Organization. The work of Herbert Simon is indispensable to an understanding of modern organization theory, particularly Administrative Behavior, 2nd ed. (New York" Free Press,

1957) and (with James March) Organizations (New York" John Wiley

& Sons, 1958). Also important is Chester Barnard, The Functions of

the Executive (Cambridge, Mass.- Harvard University Press, 1938)

and its emphasis on informal organization. Peter Blau and Marshall

Meyer, Bureaucracy in Modern Society, 2nd ed. (New York" Random House, 1971), is a useful introduction to its subject, and it may

be supplemented by D.S. Pugh, ed., Organization Theory (New

York" Penguin Books, 1971) and Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills,

eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York" Oxford

University Press, 1947), which contains essays by the classic theorist

of bureacracy. A work that discusses both organizations and the relations between them is Theodore Caplow, Principles of Organization

(New York" Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1964).

Among the empirical studies of organizations, the following are

noteworthy: Philip Selznick, TVA and the Grass Roots (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1949); Alfred Chandler, Strategy and

Structure (Cambridge, Mass." MIT Press, 1962), uses case studies of

DuPont, Sears, Roebuck, General Motors, and Standard Oil to illustrate the transformation of huge centralized organizations into

249
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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more decentralized ones; while Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman, In Search of Excellence (New York" Warner Books, 1982), have

discussed (with a wealth of illustrations) the lessons to be learned

from "the best-run American companies." Finally, Herbert Kaufman

has contributed three well-written, frequently witty, studies in public

administration" The Forest Ranger (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins

Press, 1967), which examines the ways in which a large and decentralized organization gains the cooperation of its field officers by

means of "preformed" decisions; Administrative Feedback (written

with Michael Couzens) (Washington, DC" The Brookings Institution, 1973); and Are Government Organizations Immortal?

(Washington, DC" The Brookings Institution, 1976).

Scientific Method. The most influential philosopher of science

in the English-speaking world in this century is probably Karl Popper. His Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York" Harper & Row

1968), originally published in Vienna in 1934 as Logik aver Forschung,

and his Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific

Knowledge (New York: Harper & Row, 1965) have as their aim the

demarcation of science from metaphysics. According to Popper, a

theory is scientific insofar as it is testable or falsifiable or refutable;

put differently, "repeated observations and experiments function in

science as tests of our conjectures or hypotheses, i.e., as attempted

refutations" (Conjectures and Refutations, p. 53).

Some of the most interesting work in the philosophy of scientific

method blends history with analyses of what working scientists do.

There is a tradition, dating from the last quarter of the nineteenth

century, of scientists examining philosophical problems growing out

of their work. The most important figures are Ernst Mach

(1838-1916), Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894), Henri Poincare

(1854-1912), and Pierre Duhem (1861-1916), the last-named also

being an eminent historian of medieval science. The work of these

men is discussed in Peter Alexander, "The Philosophy of Science,

1850-1910," in D.J. O'Connor, ed., A Critical History of Western

Philosophy (New York" Free Press, 1964), pp. 402-425. More recently, Alfred North Whitehead's Science and the Modern World (New

York" Free Press, 1967, originally published in 1925) is a beautifullywritten account of the evolution of the scientific world view. Thomas

Kuhn's The Copernican Revolution (Cambridge, Mass." Harvard

University Press, 1957) deals with the role of planetary astronomy in

the development of western thought; his Structure of Scientific

Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago" University of Chicago Press, 1970), is

the most influential recent analysis of how scientific world views

originate, become accepted, and are ultimately supplanted as "normal science."

250
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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On the sociology of science and scientific institutions, the

following are recommended" Peter Medawar, The Hope of Progress

(Garden City, N.Y." Doubleday, 1973) and Joseph Ben-David, The

Scientist's Role in Society (Englewood Cliffs, N.J." Prentice-Hall,

1971). Two works dealing with the exponential growth of science and

its effects on scientists are Derek de Solla Price, Little Science, Big

Science (New York" Columbia University Press, 1971) and Henry

Menard, Science: Growth and Change (Cambridge, Mass." Harvard

University Press, 1971).

On the relation between technology, science, and economic

development, Nathan Rosenberg, Inside the Black Box: Technology

and Economics (New York" Cambridge University Press, 1982), is illuminating. John Jewkes, David Sawers, and Richard Stillerman,

The Sources of Invention, 2nd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1969),

is the most exhaustive review of the causes and consequences of industrial innovation, as well as its relation to applied science. Richard

Nelson, Merton Peck, and Edward Kalachek, Technology,

Economic Growth and Public Policy (Washington, DC" The Brookings Institution, 1967), analyze the way in which technical advances

occur, the impact of new technology on the economy, and the

changes in governmental policy needed to stimulate technical advances. Finally, David Billington, The Bridge and the Tower (New

York: Basic Books, 1983), shows how the structural art of the

engineer is distinct from both architecture and modern design.

History of Science and Technology (General). In the history of

science and technology, there are two basic works in English: George

Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science, 5 vols. (Baltimore:

The Johns Hopkins Press, 1927-1948), and Charles Singer, E.J.

Holmyard, and A.R. Hall, eds., A History of Technology, 5 vols.

(New York" Oxford University Press, 1954-1958). A particularly

useful collection of short pieces is Melvin Kranzberg and William

Davenport, Technology and Culture, An Anthology (New York"

New American Library, 1972).

Useful shorter histories of science include" Herbert Butterfield,

The Origins of Modern Science (New York" Free Press, 1965);

Stephen Toulmin and June Goodfield, The Fabric of the Heavens:

The Development of Astronomy and Dynamics (New York" Harper

& Row, 1965); Alexander Koyre, From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe (New York: Harper & Row, 1958); A.R. Hall, The

Scientific Revolution 1500-1800: The Formation of the Modern

Scientific Attitude, 2nd ed. (Boston- Beacon Press, 1962); and

Robert Merton, Science, Technology and Society in SeventeenthCentury England (New York" Harper & Row, 1970).

251
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Finally, we would cite three quite unclassifiable works in the

history of science and technology. Lynn White, Jr., Medieval

Technology and Social Change (New York" Oxford University Press,

1966), is one of the great works in the history of technology.

Siegfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command (New York"

W.W. Norton, 1969), is a contribution to what the author calls

"anonymous history," a study of the evolution of mechanization and

its effects on modern civilization. Pierre Duhem, Le Systeme du

Monde, 8 vols. (Paris, 1913-1958), is a monumental account of scientific concepts from classical Greece to the Renaissance.

History of Science and Technology in the United States. A.

Hunter Dupree, Science in the Federal Government (Cambridge,

Mass." Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1957), is an indispensable survey of the subject, from Revolutionary times to 1940.

H.J. Habakkuk, American and British Technology in the Nineteenth

Century: The Search for Labour-Saving Inventions (New York"

Cambridge University Press, 1967), is an important essay in comparative history. Daniel Kevles, The Physicists (New York" Random

House, 1979), is, in the words of its subtitle, a "history of a scientific

community in modern America." It is an outstanding work of

scholarship. In industrial research and technology development, Bell

Laboratories has sponsored a monumental history of the organization. To date, three volumes have appeared, all published by Bell

Laboratories" M. D. Fagen, ed., A History of Engineering and

Science in the Bell System: The Early Years, 1875-1925 (1975);

Members of the Technical Staff, Bell Telephone Laboratories, A

History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System: National

Service in War and Peace, 1925-1975 (1978); and A.E. Joel, et al., A

History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System: Switching

Technology, 1925-1975 (1982). On General Electric, see Kendall Birr,

Pioneering in Industrial Research: The Story of the General Electric

Research Laboratory (Washington, DC" Public Affairs Press, 1957).

A very useful source book for the post-World War II period is

James Penick et al., The Politics of American Science, 1939 to the

Present, revised ed. (Cambridge, Mass." MIT Press, 1972). On the

wartime mobilization of scientists in general and for the Manhattan

Project in particular, the following are important" James Phinney

Baxter, Scientists Against Time (Cambridge, Mass." MIT Press,

1968); Irvin Stewart, Organizing Scientific Research for War: The

Administrative History of the Office of Scientific Research and

Development (Boston" Little, Brown, 1948); and Richard Hewlett

and Oscar Anderson, Jr., The New World, 1939-1946 (University

Park, Pa." Pennsylvania State University Press, 1962). The New

252
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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World book is the first volume of a history of the United States

Atomic Energy Commission. The Atomic Energy Commission has

since published volumes 2 and 3 of its official history" Richard

Hewlett and Francis Duncan, Atomic Shield, 1947-1952 (University

Park, Pa.; Pennsylvania State University Press, 1969) and by the

same authors, Nuclear Navy, 1946-1962 (Chicago" University of

Chicago Press, 1974). On the early history of NASA, Arnold Levine,

Managing NASA in the Apollo Era (Washington, DC" NASA Scientific & Technical Information Branch, 1982) and Homer Newell,

Beyond the Atmosphere: Early Years of Space Science (Washington,

DC" NASA Scientific & Technical Information Branch, 1980), may

be consulted. On the National Bureau of Standards, see Rexmond

Cochrane, Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau

of Standards (Washington, DC" U.S. Department of Commerce,

1966). Milton Lomask, A Minor Miracle: An Informal History of the

National Science Foundation (Washington, DC" National Science

Foundation, 1976), is a lively history of that agency. In a special

category is Harvey Sapolsky, The Polaris System Development

(Cambridge, Mass." Harvard University Press, 1972), for its searching analysis of the bureaucratic politics underlying the development

of a major weapons system.

Federal Technology Development. Although incidentally concerned with Federal technology development, David Allison, ed.,

The R&D Game: Technical Men, Technical Managers and Research.

Productivity (Cambridge, Mass.- MIT Press, 1969), is, of all the

books listed here, the one closest in purpose to our work. It consists

of nineteen essays by the editor and industrial research managers on

freedom in research, diversity in research, designing a technical company, and how the U.S. buys research. This book is highly recommended for anyone interested in the nature of industrial technology

development. Peter Drucker, Technology, Management and Society

(New York" Harper & Row, 1977), examines the social implications

of the large technology-based corporation.

Don Price has written with an insider's knowledge of science

policy in the Federal Government. His Government and Science

(New York" New York University Press, 1954) and The Scientific

Estate (Cambridge, Mass.- Harvard University Press, 1965) were

among the first books to analyze the political implications of government by contract. The implications of large-scale contracting are further explored in different ways by Clarence Danhof, Government

Contracting and Technological Change (Washington, DC" The

Brookings Institution, 1968), Richard Nelson, The Moon and the

Ghetto (New York" W.W. Norton, 1977) and Harold Orlans, Con253
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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tracting for Atoms (Washington, DC." The Brookings Institution,

1967).

On the mechanisms of science policymaking, the following ar_

recommended" Alvin Weinberg, Reflections on Big Science (Cambridge, Mass." MIT Press, 1967); Daniel Greenberg, The Politics 09

Pure Science (New York" New American Library, 1967); Harve)

Brooks, The Government of Science (Cambridge, Mass." MIT Press,

1968); Joel Primack and Frank von Hippel, Advice andDissent (Nex_

York" New American Library, 1974), and W. Henry Lambright,

Governing Science and Technology (New York: Oxford Universit)

Press, 1976).

Much of the recent policy literature on the role of Federal

laboratories has appeared in government publications. The report oJ

the Congressional Research Service, The National Bureau of Stand.

ards: A Review of Its Organization and Operations, 1971-1980.

which was published by the House Committee on Science anc

Technology in May 1981, is an exhaustive analysis of its subject. Or

the multiprogram laboratories of the Energy Department, see th_

September 1982 report of the Energy Advisory Board, The Depart.

ment of Energy Multiprogram Laboratories, reprinted (along witt

two volumes of supporting studies) in U.S. House of Represen.

tatives, Committee on Science and Technology, Subcommittees or

Energy Development and Applications and Energy Research ant

Production, The Future of the Department of Energy's Multi.

program Laboratories, 97th Congress, 1st Session, December 2

1982. On NASA, see the hearings held by the House Committee or

Science and Technology, Subcommittee on Space Science and Ap.

plications, Review of the National Aeronautics and Space Act 05

1958, 98th Congress, 1st Session, October 18-19 and 25-26, 1983. Or

the Department of Defense, see Jacques Gansler, The Defense In.

dustry (Cambridge, Mass." MIT Press, 1980).

For statistics on Federal technology development, the officia

sources to consult are the annual reports of the National Scienc_

Foundation on Federal funds for research and development, and th_

Statistical Abstract of the United States, published annually by th_

U.S. Bureau of the Census.

254
i'

ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

FREQUENTLY CITED IN TEXT

AEC

DOD

ERDA

GE

JPL

NACA

NASA

NBS

OAO

OMB

PERT

R&D

RTOP

SPO

Atomic Energy Commission

Department of Defense

Energy Research and Development Administration

General Electric Company

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

National Bureau of Standards

Orbiting Astronomical Observatory

Office of Management and Budget

Program Evaluation and Review Technique

Research and Development

Research and Technology Operating Plan

Special Projects Office

255
i_:._'_' _ "_ Ul

• i

APPE N DIX I

Glossary of Science and

Technology Terms*

Development--The systematic use of the knowledge and

understanding gained from scientific research directed toward the

production of useful materials, devices or methods, including design

and construction of prototypes and demonstration of processes.

Engineering--The profession in which a knowledge of the

mathematical and natural sciences gained by experience, study, and

practice is applied to develop ways to utilize economically the

materials and forces of nature for the benefit of mankind.

Innovation -- A term used to signify either the product of a complex series of activities, or the process itself. It includes (1) a perception of a problem or opportunity; (2) a "first conception" or invention of an original idea; (3) a succession of interwoven steps of

research, development, engineering, design, market analysis, and

management decisionmaking; and (4) a "first realization" of

"culmination" when an industrially successful thing--a product, industrial procedure, or technique--is first used in an economic, industrial, or social context, and perhaps also the adoption of the process or manufacture of the product by others in competition.

Lead Time--The time between two designated events, the second one generally being an objective or goal. In research and

technology development, usually refers to the time between the

beginning of a project, like the commitment of funds to develop an

airplane, and the project's successful completion, which may be when

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*Source: This glossary is extracted from Congressional Research Service, Library of

Congress, Science Policy, A Working Glossary, prepared for the Subcommittee on

Science, Research and Development, Committee on Science and Astronautics, U.S.

House of Representatives, 93rd Congress, 1st Session, July 1973.

PRECEDING PAGE BLANK NOT F_?_D"

257
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a successful prototype flies or when new planes are in mass production. However, the term has come to be applied widely to any

preparatory period, decision sequence, or time lag between signal

and response.

Mission--A single large operation or task, or a continuing

specific function. Examples of missions might include the construction of a number of housing units, capture of a hill, development of a

prototype breeder reactor, or achievement of improved pollution

control. A distinction may be made between an agency of government performing a continuous or repetitive function such as

budgetary control or revenue administration, and an agency responsible for carrying out some one of the missions listed. The latter

might be called a "Mission Agency," but probably not the former.

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Operations Research--Defined by Lord Rothschild as "the application of objective and quantitative criteria to decision making

previously tackled by experience, intuition, or prejudice."

PERT--Acronym for Program Evaluation and Review Technique. The concept involves identifying significant actions or accomplishments, identifying actions that must precede these,

estimating the time required to accomplish each, and presenting this

information graphically (PERT chart) and as a computer printout.

The scheme strengthens management by enabling flexible scheduling,

identifying long leadtime tasks, and calling attention to problems

needing correction. It speeds the process by showing the "critical

path" to completion, and identifying the sequence of events that

must take place so that management attention can be focused on

them.

Program (noun)- A set of actions to implement an agency's mission, or a major part of the mission; also, a pattern of instructions to

a computer.

RDT&E--Research, Development, Testing, and Engineering (or

Evaluation). An abbreviation used primarily in the management of

military hardware; it covers the spectrum of basic research, applied

research and development--including the design and development of

prototypes. It extends from initial determination of a strategic requirement for a system with defined performance capabilities to the

operational deployment of the system.

258
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Research-- Loosely, any gathering of information. More

precisely, the gathering, ordering, and analysis of information

systematically and according to predetermined criteria. Scientific

research--research in accordance with scientific method--is defined

by the National Science Foundation as "systematic, intensive study

directed toward fuller scientific knowledge of the subject studied."

Research, Applied-- Systematic application of information,

systematically acquired and validated. The National Science Foundation defines it as research directed "toward practical application of

knowledge--it covers 'research projects' which represent investigations directed to discovery of new scientific knowledge and which

have specific commercial objectives with respect to either products or

processes. By this definition, applied research in industry differs

from basic research chiefly in terms of objectives of the reporting

company."

Research, Basic--The systematic acquisition and validation of

structured information or knowlege about the universe, employing

for the purpose the methods and assumptions of science. In particular, basic research is directed toward a fuller knowledge or

understanding of the subject under study, rather than toward the

practical application of the knowledge or understanding. One view of

this activity stresses that its motivation is curiosity about nature,

leading the practitioner "to proceed along sophisticated disciplinary

lines as delineated by peer judgment as to the frontier problem

areas." Moreover, "open and free dissemination of the results of such

inquiries is an international tradition of the scientific community."

Basic research is sometimes distinguished from fundamental

research, which is "the search for new knowledge in a broad but

definite scientific field without reference to specific applications."

Fundamental research is not the pursuit of knowledge for its own

sake. It seeks knowledge which is intended to benefit someone someday. But the specific nature of its eventual application is not known

at the time the research is performed.

Research, Exploratory--This category of investigation may be

thought of as an intermediate stage between basic and applied

research. Administratively, exploratory research is defined by the

National Science Foundation as "the early stages of research in areas

not yet well enough defined or understood to merit full programmatic support."

259
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Satisfice (verb)- This is an activity of "administrative man" who

looks for a course of action that is adequate, reasonably satisfactory,

or "good enough." It may be contrasted with "maximize," an activity

of "economic man" who selects the best alternative from among

those available. A significant aspect of satisficing behavior is that administrative man, because he satisfices rather than maximizes, can

make his choices without first examining all possible behavioral alternatives and without ascertaining that these are in fact all the alternatives. Herbert Simon introduced the term in his Administrative

Behavior, 2nd edition (New York" Free Press, 1957), pp. XXIVXXV.

Science--A term for a broad area of human activity based on

the unifying assumption of the universal relationship of effects to

causes. It is aimed at discovering, characterizing, organizing, and explaining facts and relations according to principles of systematic and

logical thought. Characteristic of science is the method of developing

and testing hypotheses through empirical observation, the validation

of findings through replication, the construction of orderly taxonomies of related information, and reliance on quantitative

measurements employing accepted standards.

The term is loosely applied to encompass not only the activity

itself but also the community of practitioners of science, who are also

governed by the rules and constraints of science. The term also embraces the products of science, in the form of discovered factual information, laws, concepts, inventions, and even novel artifacts relying on scientific discoveries for their inception.

Science Infrastructure--The institutions necessary for the support of scientific research but which neither perform research nor

control it. They include the industries producing instruments, the institutions establishing scientific standards, the institutions and other

arrangements for documentation, exchange of scientific communications, interpersonal contacts among scientists, and for the training of

technical support personnel in skills required in the laboratory, such

as glass-blowing, electronic circuitry, instrument calibration, and the

like.

i.

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Standards(s) -- Units, quantities, procedures, agreed to by consensus or imposed by decree, and available for reference in the reporting of scientific discoveries, in specifications and other procurement documents, and in international or other technical communications of all kinds.

260
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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State-of-the-Art--A general term of applied science, engineering, and systems engineering. It refers to the level of useful development in some category of technology; it carries the implication that if

design should call for performance requirements or a level of

sophistication that exceeds the present stage of development, it will

invite a significantly increased level of engineering risk. In general,

applied research has the purpose of advancing the state of the art in

the subject to which it is addressed, to reduce the engineering risk

that might otherwise be involved.

System--This term involves the idea of complex, interrelated

elements or components working effectively together in harmony to

yield a single desired result. Most systems also involve communications from a central control point, governing the operation of subsystems and reporting back to the control point, at which operating

decisions are made (so that the system possesses the capability of selfcorrection).

The development of a system requires that a complete array of

relevant analytical techniques be brought to bear, each contributing

to the outcome. The actions resulting from the products of these different analyses are harmonized to produce a coherent structure

possessing effectiveness. The sum total of the process described is

signified by the term Systems Analysis.

Technology-- In its earliest usage, technology signified

mechanical tools and implied machinery of various kinds. However,

it has come to signify tools and their development and use in the

broadest possible sense. It encompasses any systematic employment

by man of the cause-and-effect relationship or empirical methods to

achieve some desired purpose. The purpose of all technology can be

generalized as an attempt to modify in some intended and desired

way the relationship of man and his environment.

Accordingly, technology encompasses all basic and applied

research, all manufacture and use of products, all knowledge rationally applied to agriculture, biomedicine, applications of the

behavioral sciences, and any other rational human actions toward intended results.

Technology, High--A loosely defined and imprecise term that

appears to carry the implication that some kinds of technological innovation involve a higher content of scientific output than others.

While it is true that some technologies have been developed empirically, it should also be recognized that all technological innovations are amenable to improvement by the systematic application of

261
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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science. Perhaps the nearest approach to precision in defining high

technology would be" Hardware developments relying extensively or

chiefly on recent discoveries of the physical sciences for their operational principle. An equivalent term might be "technology intensive."

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262
2 !i_ _

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APPENDIX I!

Chronology of Federal Executive Branch

Science Organization, 1787-1976"

1787" Science in the Constitution. The only specific reference to

"science" in the Constitution is in Article I, Section 8" "The Congress

shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful

Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

July 16, 1798" Provision of medical care for merchant seamen by

the Federal Government was authorized by Congress. The first

marine hospital constructed with Federal funds was completed in

1800. The U.S. Public Health Service traces its beginning to these

hospitals.

February 10, 1807" Coast Survey established under administrative direction of the Secretary of the Treasury by act of Congress.

February 19, 1818" Surgeon General's Office and the Army

Medical Department established, with authority to prevent and treat

disease and to collect weather data for processing and analysis.

July 4, 1836" Permanent office of commissioner of patents

created.

August 31, 1842: By act of Congress a sum of $25 000 was

authorized for a building for the Navy Depot of Charts and Instruments, later the Naval Observatory.

• • _ i. _i._

*Sources: This chronology has been extracted from U.S. House of Representatives,

Committee on Science and Technology, A Proposed National Science Policy and

Organization Act of 1975. 94th Congress, 1st Session, 1975, pp. 33-55; and the

Astronautics and Aeronautics chronologies published by NASA for each year from

1961 through 1976.

263
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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August 10, 1846- The Smithsonian Institution was chartered by

Congress. Initial endowment came from gift of $500 000 from James

Smithson in 1829.

March 3, 1849- Department of the Interior established, taking

over the General Land Office from the Treasury Department, the Office of Indian Affairs from the War Department, and the Pension

Office and the Patent Office, which had been independent.

May 15, 1862- U.S. Department of Agriculture established.

Among its missions was the systematic application of scientific

methods to agriculture. The department was elevated to Cabinet

status in 1889.

July 2, 1862" Morrill Act or Land Grant College Act passed providing for establishment in each state of at least one college to provide instruction in agriculture and the mechanic arts. The

significance of the act was that it formally recognized the national

need for trained manpower in selected fields, and established

mechanisms for cooperative Federal and state government participation in financing academic activities related to science and research

interests.

March 3, 1863- National Academy of Sciences was established

by congressional charter.

June 20, 1878- Coast Survey redesignated Coast and Geodetic

Survey.

March 3, 1879: President Hayes signed bill creating U.S.

Geological Survey within Department of the Interior.

March 2, 1887- Hatch Act further encouraged scientific

agriculture by providing for agricultural experiment stations in the

land-grant colleges.

October 1, 1890" Weather Bureau established within the Department of Agriculture.

March 3, 1901- National Bureau of Standards established in

Department of the Treasury. The new bureau was given full powers

over custody, preparation, and testing of standards and responsibilities for "the solution of problems which arise in connection with

standards .... " In addition to service to Federal, state, and

264
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT ' LAB ORATORIES

municipal governments, the bureau was to provide for a fee standards for nongovernmental units or individuals. The legislation in-

_- ,

....._i _• dicated Congress's willingness to provide administrative means for

.. dealing with government science needs. On February 14, 1903, the

: _:,:_ : bureau became part of the new Department of Commerce and

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Labor.

March 6, 1902" Bureau of the Census was established, giving

permanence to an organization for the census in preference to the

previous temporary organizations set up every ten years and subsequently allowed to lapse.

April 28, 1904" An act to incorporate the Carnegie Institution of

Washington. The objects of the corporation "shall be to

encourage.., investigation, research, and discovery, and the application of knowledge to the improvement of mankind."

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August 14, 1912: Under an act, the name Public Health and

Marine Hospital Service was changed to Public Health Service. The

legislation also authorized the Public Health Service to conduct field

investigations and studies and, in particular, investigations of the

diseases of man and pollution of navigable streams. The significance

of this legislation was that by opening the whole field of public health

to research by the government, it was recognized as a legitimate area

of Federal activity.

March 4, 1913" Department of Commerce and Labor separated

by act of Congress, which created a new Department of Labor.

May 8, 1914" The Smith-Lever Act provided for cooperative

agricultural extension work between the agricultural colleges receiving benefits under the Morrill Act. By this act the Extension Service

of the Department of Agriculture was put on a separate and permanent basis.

March 3, 1915" The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was established by a rider to the Naval Appropriation Act

"... to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of

flight, with a view to their practical solution." The sum of $5 000 a

year was appropriated for five years. NACA was the first war

research agency of the World War I period.

1916" A National Research Council of the National Academy of

Sciences was established to permit a larger part of the scientific com265
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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munity to assist in research in connection with national preparedness.

Approval of the Council by a letter of July 25, 1916 from President

Woodrow Wilson to the President of the NAS was formalized by Executive Order 2859 of May 11, 1918.

October 1, 1917" Congress created the Aircraft Board to expand

and coordinate the industrial activities relating to aircraft and to

facilitate generally the development of air service.

June 10, 1921" Budget and Accounting Act, 1921. Established

the Bureau of the Budget, provided for the annual submission of a

consolidated Federal budget, and established a General Accounting

Office. Henceforth, all Federal agency fund requests including

research would have to receive central approval prior to transmission

to Congress.

1923" Naval Research Laboratory established. Its legislative

basis goes back to initial sums appropriated in 1916 for a laboratory

for the Naval Consulting Board.

April 13, 1926" An act amending the Morrill Act of 1862 provided for investment of proceeds of public land sales, the establishment

of a perpetual fund, and use of interest from the fund to be applied

toward endowment or maintenance of colleges specializing in

agriculture and mechanics, "without excluding other scientific and

classical studies."

May 20, 1926" Air Commerce Act, 1926. This was the first

Federal legislation regulating civil aeronautics. Gave the Department

of Commerce wide powers over aviation, including fostering of

research to improve air navigation.

March 10, 1928" Authorized $900 000 to complete transfer of

experimental and testing plant of Air Corps to a permanent site at

Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, and for construction of technical

buildings.

May 26, 1930" The Randsell Act reorganized, expanded, and

redesignated the Hygienic Laboratory as the National Institute of

Health.

July 31, 1933" Science Advisory Board under the National

Research Council was created by President ROosevelt by Executive

Order 6238. The Executive Order authorized the Board, acting

266
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT, LABORATORIES

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through the machinery and under the jurisdiction of the NAS-NRC,

"to appoint committees to deal with specific problems in the various

departments."

June 19, 1934- Communications Act of 1934. Created a Federal

Communications Commission to regulate interstate and foreign commerce communication by wire or radio.

January 22, 1935" Federal Aviation Commission, appointed by

the President as provided in the Air Mail Act of June 12, 1934, submitted its report. It recommended strengthening of commercial and

civil aviation, expansion of airport facilities, and expansion of experimental and development work in coordination with NACA.

June 29, 1935" Bankhead-Jones Act provided for the expansion

of scientific, technical, economic, and other research into the principles underlying basic problems in agriculture. By appropriating

funds for basic research, Congress recognized that its value may exceed that of research on specific problems. Department of

Agriculture implementation of the program authorized by this act led

to the establishment of regional laboratories located according to

problems of that area.

August 9, 1939" Congress authorized construction of second

NACA research station at Moffett Field, California, which became

the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory.

i.:

June 26, 1940" Congress authorized construction of the third

NACA laboratory near Cleveland, Ohio, which became Aircraft

Engine Research Laboratory. In 1948, it was named for George W.

Lewis, NACA Director of Aeronautical Research, 1924-1947.

June 28, 1941" Office of Scientific Research and Development

(OSRD) in the Office of Emergency Management was created by

President Roosevelt by Executive Order 8807.

July 5, 1945" Dr. Vannevar Bush, OSRD Director, submitted

report, Science the Endless Frontier to President Truman. This

report covered all aspects of the study of post-war science which

President Roosevelt had requested him to make in November 1944. A

principal recommendation of the report was for the establishment of

a National Research Foundation, responsible to the President and to

Congress "to develop and promote a national policy for scientific

research and scientific education."

267
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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August 1, 1946" Atomic Energy Act established the Atomic

Energy Commission to be the exclusive owner of all facilities for the

production of fissionable materials and of all fissionable material

produced. The Commission was made responsible for research and

production of atomic energy for military purposes. The act also

established the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, the only joint

congressional committee with substantive oversight powers.

August 1, 1946" An act to establish an Office of Naval Research

in the Department of the Navy; to plan, foster, and encourage scientific research in recognition of its paramount importance as related to

the maintenance of naval power and the preservation of national

security; and to provide within the Department of the Navy a single

office which, by contract and otherwise, should be able to coordinate

and make available to all activities of the Department of the Navy

worldwide scientific information and the necessary services for conducting specialized and imaginative research.

October 17, 1946" By Executive Order 9791 President Truman

estabished a Presidential Scientific Research Board under Dr. John

R. Steelman to investigate and report on the entire scientific program

of the Federal Government, with recommendations for improving

the efficiency of Federal research and development.

September-October 1947" The five-volume Steelman Report,

Science and Public Policy, was issued. The report recommended thal

the President designate a member of the White House staff for scientific liaison, that the Bureau of the Budget set up a unit for reviewing

Federal scientific research and development programs, and that an

Interdepartmental Committee for Scientific Research be created. Interdepartmental Committee established by executive order on

December 24.

December 31, 1947" OSRD was terminated and remaining personnel, records, and property were transferred to the National

Military Establishment. OSRD had served as a high-level coordinating body for scientific research and medical problems related to

national defense during World War II.

October 27, 1949" The Unitary Wind Tunnel Act authorized appropriations of $136 million for new NACA facilities and $1013

million for the establishment of the Air Force Arnold Engineering

Development Center at Tullahoma, Tennessee, in recognition of the

268
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT,LABORATORIES

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fact that industry could not subsidize expensive wind tunnels for

research in transonic and supersonic flight.

May 10, 1950" Act established a Federal agency, the National

Science Foundation, for the specific purpose of promoting the progress of science in the Nation. The Foundation was directed to carry

out its mission by developing a national policy for promoting basic

research and education in the sciences. The act was the culmination

of a five-year effort to assure that the United States would continue

to have a reservoir of research and trained manpower.

April 20, 1951" An eleven-member Science Advisory Committee

in the Office of Defense Mobilization, within the Executive Office,

was established by President Truman "to advise the President and

Mobilization Director... in matters relating to scientific research

and development for defense."

July 16, 1952: An act authorized the Secretaries of the three

military departments to establish advisory committees and appoint

part-time personnel necessary for research and development activities

and to make five-year contracts to carry out this program. The object

of this act was to facilitate the performance of research and development work in the armed forces.

March 17, 1954" President Eisenhower issued Executive Order

10521, which clarified Federal agencies' reponsibilities for research

and development and specified a broader role for the NSF than that

in its 1950 charter by providing that the Foundation "shall from time

to time recommend to the President policies for the Federal Government which will strengthen the national scientific effort and furnish

guidance toward defining the responsibilities of the Federal Government in the conduct and support of scientific research."

August 30, 1954: The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 amended the

Atomic Energy Act of 1946. It facilitated industrial uses of atomic

energy, authorized exchange of information with friendly governments, and encouraged formation of an international atomic pool

for peaceful purposes.

November 7, 1957" President Eisenhower announced creation of

the Office of Special Assistant to the President for Science and

Technology, and appointed James R. Killian, Jr. to be his first

science advisor.

269
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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November 27, 1957" Science Advisory Committee of Office of

Defense Mobilization was transferred to the Executive Office of the

President and, enlarged and reconstituted, was redesignated the

President's Science Advisory Committee. The action was taken to

provide a more direct relation between the Committee, the President,

and the Special Assistant for Science and Technology.

July 29, 1958" National Aeronautics and Space Act established

the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, with NACA as

its nucleus, and an advisory nine-member National Aeronautics and

Space Council.

August 23, 1958" Federal Aviation Agency created with passage

by Congress of Federal Aviation Act. FAA transferred to the Department of Transportation by act of October 15, 1966, which established the Department.

September 2, 1958" National Defense Act of 1958. This was the

first general Federal aid-to-education legislation since the Morrill Act

of 1862.

March 13, 1959" By Executive Order 10807 President

Eisenhower established the Federal Council for Science and

Technology, consisting of his Special Assistant for Science and

Technology and representatives of the major science-oriented agencies, to promote interagency cooperation in the management of

Federal scientific and technological programs. This executive order

also specified that the National Science Foundation policy advisory

role was to be limited to basic scientific research and education in

sciences, rather than scientific research in general. Finally, this executive order abolished the Interdepartmental Committee on Scientific Research and Development.

July 7, 1960" An act authorized the Secretary of the Interior to

establish an Office of Coal Research and contract for research to

develop better methods of mining, preparing, and utilizing coal.

June 8, 1962: In the absence of congressional disapproval,

Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1962, establishing the Office of Science

and Technology in the Executive Office of the President, became effective. The Plan transferred functions from the National Science

Foundation to OST, relating to the coordination of Federal policies

for the promotion of basic research and education in the sciences.

270
A LooK AT GOVERNMENT ,LABORATORIES

December 5, 1964: National Academy of Engineering of the

NAS-NRC was established, with the adoption by the Council of the

.... ..<....._ NAS of articles of organization making the new Academy a parallel

ii.i.:....ii organization.

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,<?_:_;::: October 15, 1966" Department of Transportation established by

__..:<_._:,_, ....._:;._._.- act of Congress. The Secretary of Transportation was authorized to

i_i_:;i<-, ._< undertake research and development in all modes of transportation.

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July 13, 1965" Environmental Science Services Administration

established, when Reorganization Plan No. 2-of 1965 became effective. Transferred to the new agency were the Weather Bureau and the

Coast and Geodetic Survey.

July 11, 1968" An act authorized the Secretary of Commerce to

arrange for the collection of standard reference data for the benefit

of scientists and the general public. This act is administered by the

National Bureau of Standards.

July 18, 1968" Amendments to the National Science Foundation

Act of 1950 constituted the first major amendment of the enabling

act. The act enabled NSF to support applied research relevant to its

mission and it emphasized the Foundation's responsibility to report

on the status of science in the Federal Government. The act also required NSF to obtain annual authorization for its funds, replacing

the continuing authorization contained in the organic legislation.

January 1, 1970" President Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. It established within the Executive

Office a three-member Council on Environmental Quality and required the President to submit environmental quality reports to Congress annually.

July 1, 1970" By Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1970 and Executive Order 11541, the Bureau of the Budget in the Executive Office of the President was redesignated as the Office of Management

and Budget.

July 9, 1970" President Nixon sent to Congress Reorganization

Plan No. 3 to establish Environmental Protection Agency and

Reorganization Plan No. 4 to establish National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) within Department of Commerce. NOAA would bring together functions of Environmental

271
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Science Services Administration and its major elements with various

oceanographic bureaus in several agencies. NOAA was to provide unified approach to problems of oceans and atmosphere and

better conservation of marine resources. Both plans took effect on

October 3.

October 26, 1970" Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970, approved this date, directed the first major congressional reorganization since 1946. Among the act's provisions were the assignment of

review and analytical responsibilities to the General Accounting Office and the redesignation of the Legislative Reference Service of the

Library of Congress as the Congressional Research Service.

January 26, 1973" Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1973 transmitted to Congress. The plan provided for abolishing or transferring

out of the Executive Office the Office of Science and Technology and

the National Aeronautics and Space Council. The pro forma resignations of the President's Science Advisory Committee preceding the

start of new presidential administration were accepted, and new

members were not appointed. Plan went into effect on July 1.

May 7, 1974" Act established Federal Energy Administration as

an independent executive agency, replacing the Federal Energy Office in the Executive Office of the President.

October 11, 1974" President Ford signed into law the Energy

Reorganization Act of 1974, abolishing the Atomic Energy Commission and establishing three new entities in its place" the Energy

Research and Development Administration, the Energy Resources

Council, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Energy

Research and Development Administration and the Nuclear

Regulatory Commission were activated on January 19, 1975.

December 31, 1974: President Ford signed into law the Federal

Nonnuclear Energy Research and Development Act of 1974, to

establish and conduct a national program of basic and applied

research and development, including but not limited to demonstrations of practical applications, of all potentially beneficial energy

sources and utilization technologies, within the Energy Research and

Development Administration.

May 11, 1976" The National Science and Technology Policy,

Organization, and Priorities Act reestablished the post of White

House science advisor, a job abolished by President Nixon in 1973.

272
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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The act also established four new executive-branch agencies" the Office of Science and Technology Policy, whose director would advise

the National Security Council upon request, but would mainly assist

the Office of Management and Budget in decisions on funding

Federally-supported research and development and would prepare an

_;_:_?, annual science and technology report for Congress; the President's

._, _.. Committee on Science and Technology, consisting of 8 to 14

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specialists in a wide range of fields who would study for two years

and report on the nation's science and technology policies, and disband after submitting the report unless the President chose to continue it; a Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering,

and Technology, chaired by the Science Advisor; and an Intergovernmental Science, Engineering, and Technology Panel chaired by the

Science Advisor to define civilian problems at state, regional, and

local levels which could be resolved by science, engineering, and

technology.

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Summaries of Federal Development

Laboratories

Department of Energy Multiprogram Laboratories*

Ames Laboratory, Ames, Iowa

The Ames Laboratory conducts basic research in materials and

chemical sciences relying upon existing capabilities for preparing high

purity metals, alloys, compounds, and single crystals, and conducts

materials related research and development in areas such as

nondestructive testing of materials. Smaller but unique and vigorous

capabilities are maintained in high energy physics, nuclear physics,

applied mathematics, coal preparation science, and solar technology.

The laboratory enjoys extensive cooperations with Iowa State

University through year-round faculty appointment, graduate student training, and facilities sharing programs. An effective summer

research participation program for undergraduate students and

faculty members (primarily from non-local institutions) is mainrained by the laboratory to the mutual benefits of it, the participants,

and their institutions. The Ames Laboratory actively disseminates

the results of its work throughout the scientific and technological

communities by the distribution of technical publications, the giving

of invited presentations on technologically important topics, the consulting activities of laboratory staff members, the conduct of

cooperative projects with industrial and other governmental concerns, and participation in the Federal Laboratory Consortium.

*Source: Energy Research Advisory Board, Multiprogram Laboratory Panel, The

Department of Energy Multiprogram Laboratories (Washington, DC" Department

of Energy, September 1982), pp. 37-48.

274
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

Statistics (FY 1982 Estimated)"

...... DOE Operating Budget Costs" $15 M

../,:-.. Staffing (Full-Time Equivalent)" 427_

:: Capital Investment (Plant and Equipment)" $31 M 2

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Number of Acres" 56

Operating Contractor" Iowa State University

Responsible Operations Office" Chicago Operations Office

Principal Program Activities (FY 1982 Estimated) "3

Materials Sciences (42°70)

Chemical Sciences (19°70)

Fossil Energy (11%)

Biological and Environmental Research (5%)

High Energy Physics (4°70)

Nuclear. Physics and ..Nuclear Sciences (2%)

Engineering, Mathematical, and Geosciences (2%)

University Research Support (2%)

Nuclear Energy (1%)

Miscellaneous DOE Programs (5%) 4

Work for Others (6%)

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (1%)

Department of Defense (3 %)

Others (2 °70)

Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois

The Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) provides advanced

nuclear technology research and developmental support to the

breeder reactor and other fission reactor programs, and maintains a

substantial, diversified capability in physical and biological sciences

in support of reactor efforts. Future efforts in the fossil area center

on advanced process development, the materials technology, and instrumentation and controls system engineering. In basic research, the

largest effort is in the area of general materials studies. High energy

physics and nuclear physics will continue to play a significant role.

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2Current book value.

3Percentages reflect direct staff (full-time equivalent).

4programs less than 1°7o are aggregated in this category.

275
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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The consequences of the utilization of particular energy technologies

are addressed through studies of health-related problems and the environment. The laboratory has a program to work closely with

university professors on sabbatical leaves and sponsors a variety of

programs providing opportunities for students through studentlaboratory staff interaction.

Argonne is engaging in a number of activities aimed at improving industrial interactions, including involvement in the joint

IRI/National Laboratory Task Force, as well as others.

Statistics (FY 1982 Estimated)"

DOE Operating Budget Costs" $210 M

Staffing (Full-Time Equivalent)" 4 538

Capital Investment (Plant and Equipment)" $545 M _

Number of Acres" 2 245

Operating Contractor" The University of Chicago in cooperation

with the Argonne Universities Association

Responsible Operations Office" Chicago Operations Office

Principal Program Activities"

Nuclear Energy (36%)

Basic Energy Sciences (17 %)

Conservation and Renewable Energy (9%)

Biology (7 %)

Fossil Energy (6%)

High Energy Physics (3%)

Nuclear Physics (3%)

Environmental Protection, Safety, and Emergency Preparedness

(2%)

Fusion (2%)

Defense Programs (1%)

Work for DOE (1%)

Miscellaneous DOE Programs (2%)

Work for Others (11%)

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (5%)

Department of Defense (1%)

Others (5%)

lIncludes Argonne National Laboratory West, Idaho.

276
A Look AT GOVERNMENT ,LABORATORIES

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Major Active Facilities"

Experimental Breeder Reactor II

Hot Fuels Examination Facilities

TREAT Reactor

Zero Power Reactors

Zero Power Plutonium Reactor

Major User Facilities"

Intense Pulsed Neutron Source I

Facility for High Resolution Atomic Spectroscopy

Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator

Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York

The Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) conceives,

develops, constructs, and operates complex large research facilities

which are used to study fundamental properties of matter and are

shared with university and industrial scientific communities (e.g., the

National Synchrotron Light Source and the Alternating Gradient

Synchrotron). The laboratory conducts basic and applied research in

technology base areas, in support of research facilities, and to

discover important new directions for research. Major disciplinary

strength is found in the areas of high energy, nuclear and solid state

physics, chemistry, and biology. Biological and medical programs include studies of the effects of radiation and of chemical substances

involved in the production and use of energy. Other research programs include meteorological dispersion, atmospheric chemistry,

pulmonary physiology, and inhalation toxicology. The National

Synchrotron Light Source gives the laboratory a unique position in

the breadth of sophisticated facilities available to all areas of the

physical and biological sciences. Over 1 000 faculty and 160 students

have guest appointments enabling them to carry out research at BNL

facilities. In addition, there are five different programs which provide 150 students with a variety of training opportunities. The National Synchrotron Light Source will greatly increase the number of

faculty and students carrying out research programs at the

laboratory. This facility will also be used extensively by industrial

scientists; presently, nine of the 29 initital beam lines at the facility

are partially or completely supported by the industrial community.

Statistics (FY 1982 Estimated)"

DOE Operating Budget Costs" $125 M

Staffing (Full-Time Equivalent)" 3 300

277
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Capital Investment (Plant and Equipment)- $496 M

Number of Acres" 5 265

Operating Contractor- Associated Universities, Inc.

Responsible Operations Office- Chicago Operations Office

Principal Program Activities (FY 1982 Estimated)-

High Energy Physics (39 %)

Basic Energy Sciences (19070)

Environmental Research and Development (6%)

Life Sciences Research and Nuclear Applications (5%)

Nuclear Physics (3070)

Miscellaneous DOE Programs (10%)

Work for Others (18%)

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (9%)

Others (9%)

Major Active FacilitiesNational Synchrotron Light Source

Alternating Gradient Synchrotron

High Flux Beam Reactor

Tandem van de Graaff

Major User Facilities-1

60" Cyclotron

Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope

Central Scientific Computing Facility

Research Hospital

Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, California

The Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL) conceives, develops,

constructs, and operates complex large research facilities which are

shared with university and industrial scientific communities (e.g.,

Bevalac and Super HILAC). The laboratory capitalizes on its colocation with the University of California to provide a broad range and

flexible pool of the scientific talent for research and advanced

development with major research programs in high energy physics,

1 In addition to those facilities listed under Major Active Facilities.

278
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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nuclear physics, basic energy sciences, conservation and solar energy,

coal research, inertial confinement fusion, geochemistry, computer

science, and mathematics. LBL has a role in the training of the next

generation of scientists and engineers for careers in advanced energy

research and technology. Over 500 resident graduate students conduct thesis research at the laboratory and many more use its facilities

or perform collaborative research. Participation in energy research

programs provides these students with skills in high demand by

energy industries. The flow of Ph.D.s to industry is one of many

forms of technology transfer that allows LBL to maintain close and

supportive relationships with industry.

Statistics (FY 1982 Estimated)-

DOE Operating Budget Costs: $84 M

Staffing (Full-Time Equivalent)- 2 524

Capital Investment (Plant and Equipment)" $195 M

Number of Acres" 70 _

Operating Contractor" The Regents of the University of California

Responsible Operations Office- San Francisco Operations Office

Principal Program Activities (FY 1982 Estimated)-

Energy Research (67%)

Conservation and Renewable Energy (8%)

Fossil Energy (2%)

Miscellaneous DOE Programs (4%)

Work for Others (19%)

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (4%)

Department of Defense (2%)

Others (13 %)

Major Active and User FacilitiesBevatron

Super HILAC

88" Cyclotron

High Speed Computers

_Leased to the Federal Government.

279
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California

The primary role of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

(LLNL) is the research, development, and test of nuclear weapons

designs. Expertise developed in this area is also supplied to related

areas of defense research such as inertial confinement fusion, nonnuclear ordnance, and particle-beam technology. LLNL also undertakes research and development technologies of national interest,

primarily in the field of energy, where the skill or facilities requirements are unique and synergistic to the on-going weapons effort. As a result the Laboratory has active on-going programs in

magnetic fusion energy, laser isotope separation, biomedical and environmental studies, in-situ coal gasification and oil shale retorting,

energy storage systems, transportation energy conservation, and

solar energy research and development. Within these programs,

LLNL interacts with both universities and private industry through

faculty/student training, consulting, and technology transfer activities.

Statistics (FY 1982 Estimated)-

DOE Operating Budget Costs" $450 M

Staffing (Full-Time Equivalent)- 7 200

Capital Investment (Plant and Equipment)- $445 M 1

]Number of Acres" 631

Operating Contractor- University of California

Responsible Operations Office: San Francisco Operations Office

Principal Program Activities (FY 1982 Estimated)-2

Defense Programs (51%)

Magnetic Fusion (10%)

Laser Fusion Energy (10%)

Isotope Separation (6%)

Energy Programs (3%)

Biomedical/Environmental (3 %)

Miscellaneous DOE Programs (3%)

Work for Others (14%) 3

Department of Defense (8 %)

_Current book value (including work in progress less accumulated depreciation).

2percentages reflect Direct Full-Time Equivalent program effort (excluding Construction/Equipment).

280
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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Nuclear Regulatory Commission (3%)

Other Federal Agencies (3 %)

Major Active Facilities-'

Argus Laser Facility

Shiva Laser Facility

Nova Laser Facility (in progress)

100 MeV Accelerator Facility

National Defense Support Livermore Computer Center

Gaseous and Metallurgical Facility (Plutonium and Tritium)

Magnetic Fusion Energy Facility (in progress)

14 MeV Rotating Target Neutron Source

Mirror Fusion Test Facility (MFTF-B) (in progress)

Tandem Mirror Experiment (TMX)

National Magnetic Fusion Energy Computation Center

Fusion Target Development Facility (in progress)

High Explosive Flash Radiograph Facility

Weapons Materials R&D Facility (in progress)

Management Support Center-- Core 1

High Explosive Application Facility (in progress)

Advanced Isotope Separation Facility (in progress)

Advanced Test Accelerator Facility (in progress)

Large Optics Diamond Turning Machine (in progress)

High Explosive Processing and Test Facility

Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico

The Los Alamos National Laboratory's (LANL) primary mission is the application of science and technology to problems of national security, that is, to the maintenance of a strong defense, the

fulfillment of arms control commitments, and the guarantee of a

secure energy supply for the future. In carrying out this mission, the

laboratory serves as a liasion between research in academia and industry and complements the activities of both. Major programs include developing nuclear warheads, designing and testing advanced

technology concepts, and maintaining an innovative weapons design

program. In nuclear fission, programs include separating isotopes of

uranium by laser induction, testing advanced reactor fuel elements,

modeling reactor accident results for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, evaluating biomedical consequences of nuclear energy pro155 million or more acquisition cost.

281
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

duction, and developing effective nuclear waste disposal methods. In

nuclear fusion, programs include magnetically confined plasma

devices (especially high-beta devices), laser-induced fusion, and safe

handling techniques for large quantities of tritium. Other programs

include nonnuclear energy, basic energy science, and technology

utilization.

Statistics (FY 1982 Estimated).

DOE Operating Budget Costs- $420 M

Staffing- 6 7701

Capital Investment (Plant and Equipment)- $322 M 2

Number of Acres- 27 500

Operating Contractor: University of California

Responsible Operations Office: Albuquerque Operations Office

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Principal Program ActivitiesWeapons (48 O7o)

Nuclear Physics (8 o70)

Magnetic Fusion (4070)

Advanced Isotope Separation Technology (4070)

Verification and Control (3070)

Breeder (3070)

Safeguards (2 O7o)

Nuclear Materials Production (2o70)

Miscellaneous DOE Programs (11 °70)

Other DOE (7°70)

Work for Others (8 °7o)

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (2O7o)

Department of Defense (3°70)

Other (3°70)

Major Active Facilities"

800 Milton Electron-Volt Linear Proton Accelerator (LAMPF)

Weapons Neutron Research Facility

Stable Isotopes Production Facility

20 Terrawatt CO2 Gas Laser Facility

8 Megawatt Nuclear Reactor

_Figures are based on full-time regular employees.

2Current book value (excludes construction work in progress).

282
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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Plutonium Research Facility

Plutonium Heat Sources Fuel Production Facility

National Security Resources and Studies Center

Major User FacilitiesClinton P. Anderson Meson Physics Facility (LAMPF)

Central Computing Facility

Hot Dry Rock Project (Fenton Hill)

Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) primarily supports the fission nuclear fuel cycle and magnetic fusion energy

development (advanced toroidal devices, such as Tokomak and Elmo

Bumpy Torus) through scientific research and technology; identifies

and solves generic research problems in energy technologies such as

materials, separation techniques, chemical processes, and biotechnology; and is the major national source of production of stable and

radioactive isotopes. Energy technology development at ORNL also

includes other important efforts in residential and commercial energy

conservation, renewable energy sources, and coal conversion and

utilization. ORNL expends special efforts to involve industry in its

programs and to encourage cooperative uses of facilities, both formally in users' groups and informally through professional contacts

and participation. Similarly, the Laboratory provides universities

with ready access to major research facilities, state-of-the-art

research capabilities, training facilities for faculty and students, and

an opportunity for collaborative research in areas where these

sources are not available to universities.

Statistics (FY 1982 Estimated)"

DOE Operating Budget Costs- $278 M _

Staffing (Full-Time Equivalent)- 4 950

Capital Investment (Plant and Equipment)- $250 M 2

Number of Acres" 10 270

Operating Contractor: Martin Marietta Corporation

Responsible Operations Office" Oak Ridge Operations Office

_Costs based on the FY-82 column of Oak Ridge Operations Office's FY-83 budget.

2Current book value of plant and equipment including construction work in progress as of

September 30, 1981.

283
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS,

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Principal Program Activities"

Fission Energy Development (24070)

Basic Physical Science (21 °70)

Biomedical and Environmental Sciences (12o7o)

Fusion Energy (9070)

Conservation and Renewable Energy (5°70)

Fossil Energy (4o7o)

Miscellaneous DOE Programs (6070)

Work for Others (19°7o)

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (8 °7o)

Department of Defense (1 o7o)

Other (1 0070)

Major Active Facilities"

Isotopes Separation Facility

High Flux Isotope Reactor

Electron Linear Accelerator

Transuranium Processing Plant

Oak Ridge Research Reactor

Oak Ridge Isosynchronous Cyclotron

High Level Radiochemical Laboratory

Materials Processing Laboratory

Thorium Uranium Fuel Recycle Facility

High Radiation Level Examination Laboratory

Environmental Sciences Laboratory

Major User Facilities"

Holified Heavy Ion Research Facility

EN-Tandem Accelerator

Oak Ridge Electron Linear Accelerator (ORELA)

Neutron Scattering Facility

National Center for Small-Angle Scattering Research

Ion-Solid Interactions Laboratory

Shared Research Equipment Program (SHARE)

Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Richland, Washington

The mission of the Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) is the

advancement and use of multi-energy scientific and engineering

1Percentages reflect direct staff full-time equivalents.

284
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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technology for nationalsecurity and the nation's energy needs. In accomplishing the mission, high priority is given to safe and reliable

nuclear energy, and to promising new -concepts and technologies for

operations at Hanford. Areas of disciplinary strengths and concentration include nuclear waste process development, nuclear fuel

development and evaluation, spent fuel storage reprocessing, inhalation toxicology, bioelectromagnetics, biology, ecology, atmospheric

sciences, corrosion chemistry, biomass research, nondestructive

testing and evaluation, materials characterization and research,

chemical engineering, health physics technology, and energy

economics and policy analyses. The laboratory provides a core

capability for effectively utilizing the strengths of the universities and

the private sector and has traditionally developed and maintained

strong ties with the academic community. That resource is utilized

through cooperative exploratory research efforts to accelerate application of new ideas, scientific research support to PNL efforts on

team assignments, and exchange of staff and student research. Industry and utilities participate with PNL staff in efforts to develop

advanced technology, to improve existing instruments or develop

new ones, and to investigate and demonstrate energy conservation

and conversion techniques.

Statistics (FY 1982 Estimated)"

DOE Operating Budget Costs" $98 M

Staffing (Full-Time Equivalent)" 1 975

Capital Investment (Plant and Equipment)" $65 M

Number of Acres" Not applicable _

Operating Contractor: Battelle Memorial Institute

Responsible Operations Office" Richland Operations Office

Principal Program Activities (FY 1982 Estimated)-

Fission (2507o)

Defense (17 07o)

Life Sciences (16 °7o)

Conservation (7 O7o)

Renewable (7O7o)

Basic Sciences (5°7o)

1pNL facilities are in an area shared with Hanford Engineering Development

Laboratory and UNC Nuclear Industries.

285
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Miscellaneous DOE Programs (3O/o)

Work for Others (20O/o)

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (15 %)

Department of Defense (3 %)

Others (2%)

Biomass Experimental Unit

Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory

National Environmental Research Park

Major Active FacilitiesTwo Life Science Laboratories

Marine Research Laboratory

Meteorological Center

Critical Mass Laboratory

Nuclear Waste Vitrification Laboratory

Materials Reliability Center

Steam Generator Examination Facility

Major User FacilitiesCritical Mass Laboratory

Sandia Laboratories: Albuquerque, New Mexico; Livermore,

California; Tonopah, Nevada

Sandia Laboratories' principal mission has been and remains

research, development, and engineering of nuclear weapon systems,

except for the nuclear explosive. The result of this effort is the existence of a national stockpile of nuclear weapons that are safe,

secure, reliable, under strict control, and operationally ready. Sandia

is also responsible for major energy programs in fossil, solar, fission,

and basic energy sciences. Its strength lies in its ability to conduct

large interdisciplinary engineering projects that are both technologically "risky" and sophisticated. Fundamental understanding and

technological development are melded to create an environment conducive to generating new products and processes that are unlikely to

be produced in either university or industrial laboratories. These new

technologies are transmitted to the private sector through journals,

workshops, and other information transfer mechanisms, and

significantly contribute to the nation's scientific and. economic prosperity.

Statistics (FY 1982 Estimated)"

286
A Look AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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DOE Operating Budget Costs" $610 M

Staffing (Full-Time Equivalent): 7 950

Capital Investment (Plant and Equipment)- 208 M 1

Number of Acres" 3 140 (Albuquerque), 185 (Livermore)

Operating Contractor: Western Electric Company

Responsible Operations Office" Albuquerque Operations Office

Principal Program Activities "2

Defense Programs (67 070)

Conservation and Renewable Energy (6°7o)

Nuclear Energy (5°7o)

Fossil Energy (307o)

Energy Research (3°70)

Environmental Protection, Safety, and Emergency Preparedness

(1%)

Work for Others (15 %)

Department of Defense (8°7o)

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (5°7o)

Others (2 O7o)

Major Active Facilities "3

Particle Beam Fusion Facility

Nuclear Safeguards and Security Facility

Combustion Research Facility

5 Megawatt Solar Central Power Test Facility

Center for Radiation-hardened Microelectronics

Tonopah Test Range

Radiation/Simulation Facilities

Major User Facilities"

Combustion Research Facility

Solar Central Power Test Facility

Tonopah Test Range

Radiation/Simulation Facilities

1Current book value (excludes construction work in progress).

2percentages reflect direct staff (full-time equivalent).

SMajor construction line items only.

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287
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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National Bureau of Standards: Gaithersburg, Maryland;

Boulder, Colorado

National Measurement Laboratory

The Laboratory provides the national system of physical and

chemical measurement, coordinating the system with measurement

systems of other nations and furnishing essential services leading to

accurate and uniform physical and chemical measurement

throughout the Nation's scientific community, industry, and commerce. It conducts materials research leading to improved methods

of measurement, standards and data on the properties of materials

needed by industry, commerce, education institutions, and government; provides advisory and research services to other government

agencies; and develops, produces, and distributes standard reference

materials.

National Engineering Laboratory

The Laboratory provides technical service to promote development and use of technology and to facilitate technological innovation

in industry and government; cooperates with public and private

org_.nizations in developing technological standards and test

methods; and provides technical advice and services to government

agencies upon request. It conducts research in support of the specific

objectives of these activities; monitors NBS engineering standards activities; and provides liaison between NBS and national and international engineering standards bodies.

'4' •

Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology

The Institute develops and recommends uniform Federal

automatic data processing standards; provides automatic data processing scientific and technological advisory services to Federal agencies; and undertakes necessary research in computer science and

technology.

Statistics (FY 1982 Estimated)'*

Staffing (Full-Time Equivalent)" 2 665 (2 280, Gaithersburg; 385,

Boulder)

*Sources: General Accounting Office, Information on Mission and Functions of the

National Bureau of Standards (CED-81-39, April 22, 1981), p. 61; and U.S. Department of Commerce, "National Bureau of Standards" (NBS Special Publication 643,

February 1983), p. 21.

288
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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Total NBS Operating Budget Costs (in millions of dollars)"

Measurement and Engineering Research and Standards" $157.1

Measurement research and standards

Engineering measurements and standards

Computer sciences and technology

Core measurement research for new technologies

Fire research

Competence and Central Technical Support:

Technical competence fund

Central technical support

Total NBS

77.3

45.2

13.2

14.0

7.4

15.8

7.4

8.4

172.9

NASA Centers (including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory)*

Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California

Established in 1940, Ames Research Center (ARC) operates in

two locations. The Ames North location is on 423.5 acres at the

southwest end of San Francisco Bay on land contiguous to the U.S.

Naval Air Station, Moffett Field. Also housed at this location is the

U.S. Army Research and Technology Laboratory. The Ames Dryden

Flight Research Facility is 102 air kilometers northeast of Los

Angeles. Dryden is located at the north end of Edwards Air Force

Base on 521 acres of land under a permit from the Air Force.

The programs at ARC involve research and development in the

fields of aeronautics, life sciences, space sciences and applications,

and space technology. Specifically, the center's major program

responsibilities are concentrated in" theoretical and experimental

fluid mechanics and aerodynamics, rotorcraft technology, highperformance aircraft technology, flight simulation, flight testing,

computational fluid dynamics, fluid and thermal physics, space

sciences, airborne sciences and applications, human factors, space

biology, and ground and flight projects in support of aeronautics and

space technology. In addition to these major program responsibilities, the center provides major support for military programs.

Statistics (1983 Actual)"

NASA Operating Budget Costs" $107 M

Staffing (Civil Service Workyears)" 2 141

Capital Investment (Plant and Equipment)" $797 M

*Source" National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Budget Estimates, Fiscal

Year 1985, Vol. III.

289
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland

The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), located 24 kilometers

northeast of Washington, DC, is situated on a 552-acre main site.

Three additional nearby plots of 554 acres comprise the remote site

area and contain the Goddard Antenna Test Range, the Goddard

Optical Facility, the Propulsion Research Facility, the Laser Facility,

the Magnetic Fields Component Test Facility, the Attitude Control

Test Facility, and the Network Training and Test Facility. The center

also utilizes an additional 6 165 acres at the Wallops facility located

on the Atlantic coast of Virginia's eastern shore. The Wallops facility

consists of 1 833 acres of the main base, 3 085 acres on Wallops

Island launching site, 107 acres on the mainland tracking site, and

1 140 acres of marshland.

The majority of GSFC's personnel are located at Greenbelt.

Other personnel are located at the Wallops facility, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, and tracking and communications network stations throughout the world.

GSFC, established in 1959 as the first major United States installation devoted to the investigation and exploration of space, conducts a wide-ranging program in space science and applications.

GSFC has many capabilities- the management of complex projects;

the development of wholly integrated spacecraft, ranging from

systems engineering to development, integration, and testing; the

development and operation of both the ground network of tracking

and data acquisition facilities and the Tracking and Data Relay

Satellite System; scientific research to include both theoretical studies

and the development of experiments flown on satellites; and the

operation of a research airport, located at Wallops, in support of

NASA's aeronautics research programs.

Statistics (1983 Actual)-

NASA Operating Budget Costs- $181 M

Staffing (Civil Service Workyears)- 3 709

Capital Investment (Plant and Equipment)- $881 M

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is located in Pasadena,

approximately 32 kilometers north of downtown Los Angeles, with

subsidiary facilities at Goldstone, California (tracking and data acquisition), Edwards Air Force Base, California (propellant formulation and testing), and Table Mountain, California (open-air testing

and astronomy). The main facility, at Pasadena, occupies 176 acres,

of which 156 acres are owned by NASA and 20 acres are leased.

290
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT ' LAB ORATORIES

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JPL is a government-owned installation that is staffed and

managed by the California Institute of Technology. Contract

NAS7-918 between NASA and Caltech governs research, development, and related activities at the Laboratory, with facilities being

provided under a separate contract.

JPL is primarily responsible for conducting NASA automated

missions concerned with deep space scientific exploration; tracking,

data acquisition, reduction, and analysis required by deep space

flight; and developing advanced spacecraft propulsion, guidance,

and control systems. The Laboratory is also responsible for selected

automated Earth-orbital projects. In carrying out its mission, JPL

operates the Deep Space Network, which provides tracking and data

acquisition services for all NASA projects involving missions beyond

near-Earth orbits.

Statistics (1983 Actual)"

JPL Operating Budget Costs" $208 M

Staffing (Permanent Workyears)" 3 426

Capital Investment (Plant and Equipment)" $486 M

Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas

The Johnson Space Center (JSC) is located approximately 32

kilometers southeast of downtown Houston, Texas. Total NASAowned land at the Houston site consists of 1 620 acres, with an additional 54 080 acres at the White Sands Test Facility, Las Cruces, New

Mexico.

JSC was established in 1961 to manage the design, development,

and manufacture of manned spacecraft; for selection and training of

astronaut crews; and for the conduct of manned spaceflight missions. JSC's principal and supporting roles include the development

of manned space vehicles and associated supporting technology;

responsibility for systems definition and engineering of the Space

Station; conducting medical research to solve space medicine problems; defining in-flight biomedical experiments; maintaining the

technical discipline base for lunar and planetary sciences, as well as

planetary materials handling techniques; and providing a discipline

base for resource observations applications, including airborne experiments and space-based flight sensors.

Statistics (1983 Actual)"

NASA Operating Budget Costs" $195 M

Staffing (Civil Service Workyears)" 3 411

Capital Investment (Plant and Equipment)" $982 M

291
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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John F. Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida

The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is located 80

kilometers east of Orlando, Florida. The total land and water area

occupied by KSC is 139 305 acres. NASA owns 82 943 of that total,

with the rest consisting of land occupied under various easements and

deeds of dedication.

Space Shuttle flights began at KSC in 1981 and will begin at

Vandenberg Air Force Base, California in 1985. Expendable launch

vehicle operations are conducted at both the Air Force's Eastern

Space and Missile Center, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station,

Florida, and the Western Space and Missile Center at Vandenberg

Air Force Base.

The principal roles of KSC are- (1) Space Transportation System

Ground operations--this includes Space Shuttle launch preparation,

launch, landing and refurbishment, Spacelab and Spacelab payloads

ground processing, cargo/experiment integration and processing, upper stages ground processing, and operation and maintenance of

ground support equipment; and (2) Expendable Launch Vehicle

operations--includes launch preparation, checkout and launch for

the current inventory of launch vehicles.

Statistics (1983 Actual)"

NASA Operating Budget Costs" $161 M

Staffing (Civil Service Workyears)" 2 190

Capital Investment (Plant and Equipment)" $2 563 M

i_. _ _ _

Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia

The Langley Research Center (LaRC) was established in 1917.

LaRC, which is situated in the Tidewater area of Hampton Roads,

utilizes 807 acres of government-owned land, divided into two areas

by the runway facilities of Langley Air Force Base. Runways, some

utilities, and certain other facilities are used jointly by NASA and the

Air Force.

LaRC's principal roles and missions include the following: (1)

developing a technology base for improving transport aircraft, as

well as general aviation and commuter aircraft; (2) advancing the

state of the art in fundamental aerodynamics; (3) conducting

research related to reducing aircraft noise; (4) developing a

technology base in aerospace vehicle structures and materials; (5)

developing a technology base for advanced vehicle transportation

systems, large space antennas, and space station systems; (6) developing space technology experiments in areas such as materials, strucf

292
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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tures, control, and dynamics of large space Structures and advanced

transportation systems; and (7) developing improved techniques for

atmospheric sensing.

Statistics (1983 Actual)"

NASA Operating Budget Costs" $133 M

Staffing (Civil Service Workyears)" 2 937

Capital Investment (Plant and Equipment)" $708 M

Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio

The Lewis Research Center (LeRC) occupies two sites in Ohio.

The original site, established in 1941, adjacent to the ClevelandHopkins International Airport, includes 366 acres. There are over

170 buildings and structures, including wind tunnels, test chambers,

laboratories, and other research facilities. The Plum Brook Station,

established in 1956, is located south of Sandusky, about 80

kilometers west of Cleveland. There are 8 005 acres owned by

NASA. During 1975, the principal facilities were placed on standby.

Since then a number of Federal, state, and local government agencies

have utilized office space and other facilities.

LeRC was established as an aircraft engine research laboratory

to develop superior aircraft propulsion systems. Since then, LeRC

has developed and constructed many unique facilities for testing fullscale aircraft engines and engine components, chemical rocket

engines, electric propulsion systems, space and terrestrial power

systems, and space communication systems. LeRC's principal roles

include" (1) Maintaining a national capability in fundamental

aeropropulsion disciplines (fluid dynamics, internal unsteady

aerodynamics, fluid mechanics, propulsion and power transfer

technologies, fuels and combustion chemistry, and kinetics); (2)

managing the Atlas and Centaur launch vehicle systems; (3) developing and managing the cryogenic upper stage of the Space Shuttle; (4)

developing the technology for advanced space propulsion systems;

and (5) developing the technology for space power and energy conversion systems.

Statistics (1983 Actual)"

NASA Operating Budget Costs" $119 M

Staffing (Civil Service Workyears)" 2 700

Capital Investment (Plant and Equipment)" $505 M

293
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama

Operations at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) are conducted at three locations.

The principal MSFC site is near Huntsville, on Army property at

the Redstone Arsenal. The center occupies 1 841 acres under a nonrevocable use permit from the Army. The Huntsville location is connected by deep-water access to its component Michoud Assembly

Facility via the Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers.

The Michoud Assembly Facility is located 24 kilometers east of

New Orleans, Louisiana, where the external tank for the Space Shuttle is being produced. The Michoud Facility occupies 832 acres and

provides 3 634 344 gross square feet of space, including the main

assembly plant. The Slidell Computer Complex, located at Slidell,

Louisiana, 32 kilometers northeast of the Michoud Assembly Facility, occupies 14 acres and provides centralized computer services for

MSFC, Michoud, other NASA centers, and associated contractors.

MSFC serves as one of NASA's primary centers for the design

and development of Space Transportation Systems, orbital systems,

scientific and applications payloads, and other systems for present

and future space exploration. MSFC has the principal role within

NASA for rocket propulsion systems. MSFC also has a principal role

for designing and developing manned vehicle systems; for Spacelab

mission management and payload definition; for designing and

developing specialized automated spacecraft; and managing space

processing activities. MSFC has a primary role for developing and

processing space and applications experiments. Additionally, MSFC

conducts a vigorous research and technology program and is involved in studying future programs in such areas as space propulsion

systems, materials engineering, materials processing in space, and

payload systems analysis and integration.

Statistics (1983 Actual)-

NASA Operating Budget Costs- $184 M

Staffing (Civil Service Workyears)- 3 451

Capital Investment (Plant and Equipment)- $808 M

294
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INDEX

Abelson, Phillip, 40

Academie de Lincei, 16

Academie des Sciences, 16

Advanced Orbiting Solar Observatory, 83

Advisory Committee on Uranium, 38, 40, 41

Aerobee, 127

Aeronautics and Space Technology, Office of (OAST), 106-107, 109, 187

Aerospace Corporation, 168n, 206

Agricultural Research Center, 29

Agriculture, U.S. Department of, 29

Air Force, U.S., 52-53, 65, 70, 71, 80, 100, 110, 117, 121, 122, 206, 225; Eastern

Test Range, 170; ICBM program, 52, 53; laboratories, 156n, 225; Office of

Scientific Research, 110; Strategic Weapons Evaluation Committee, 52; Western

Development Division, 52-53

Alamogordo, New Mexico, 42

Alexander the Great, 13

American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 25

American Brands, 230

American Express Company, 230

American National Standards Institute, 202, 210

American Philosophical Society, 25

American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), 8, 70n, 136, 137, 229

Ames Laboratory, 33

Ames Research Center, 6, 7, 11, 61n, 75, 77, 77, 79, 83, 88, 131, 152, 160, 161,

163-164, 172, 182, 190, 194, 232; Biosatellite group, 103; helicopter program,

79-82; Strategy and Tactics Committee, 81

ANSER, 225

Apollo, 60-64 passim, 69, 99, 103, 105, 106, 108, 109, 113, 114, 115, 118, 119, 121,

134, 152, 181, 198, 200, 201, 202, 224, 229, 231

Apollo 17, 107

Apollo Executives Group, 201

Apollo Telescope Mourn, 181

Argonne National Laboratory, 37, 42, 48, 219, 228

Aristotle, 13-14

Armed Services Procurement Act (1947), 47

Army, U.S., 46, 47, 65, 70, 80, 81, 82, 191, 193, 206n; Air Corps, 48; Ballistic

Missile Agency, 231; Corps of Engineers, 41, 194, 196; Huntsville Arsenal, 53;

laboratories, 53, 80, 164, 194; medical centers, 30n, 71; Redstone Arsenal, 54

Athens, Greece, 13

295
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Atomic Energy Acts 228; (1946), 48; (1954), 214-215, 216; (1972), 216, 218

Atlas-Agena, 129

Atlas ballistic missile, 92

Atlas-Centaur, 129

Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), 11, 48-50, 60, 62, 63, 72, 74, 75, 77, 111, 122,

128, 135, 136, 193, 196, 203-205, 213, 215-218 passim; Division of Reactor

Development and Technology, 204; Headquarters, 203, 204, 205; laboratories,

63, 74, 95, 203-205, 211, 213, 215, 223; Naval Reactors Program, 50; Navy

nuclear program, 51

Astin, Allen V., 203

Austin, Texas, 9

B-29 aircraft, 52

B-47 bomber, 92

B-52 bomber, 92

B-58 bomber, 53

B-70 aircraft, 99

Bacon, Sir Francis, 17

Batavia, Illinois, 102

Batzel, Roger, 73, 73

Bellcomm, 136

Bell Report, 148, 149n

Bell System, 137

Bell Telephone Laboratories (Bell Labs), 9, 31, 32, 70, 116, 117, 135-138, 143, 144

Beltsville, Maryland, 30

Berkeley, California, 40, 42, 49

Bethpage, New York, 128

Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory, 51, 213

Boeing Corporation, 122, 231

Bohr, Niels, 38

Bomarc missile, 53

Booz, Allen and Hamilton, 134

Bothe, Walter, 44

Boulder, Colorado, 194n, 212

Bradbury, Norris, 49

Brandywine Valley, Delaware, 31

Briggs, Lyman, 38

British Association, 22

Brookhaven National Laboratory, 85n, 101, 102, 214

Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, 28

Bureau of Economic Analysis, 210

Bureau of the Budget, 60, 110, 169

Bush, Vannevar, 35-36, 36, 41, 44, 46

California Institute of Technology, 54, 99,

California University of, 40, 49

Cambridge, Massachusetts, 71

Cape Canaveral, Florida, 70, 79n, 201

296
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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Cape of Good Hope, 21

Carderock, Maryland, 71

Carnegie Institution, 35

Census, U.S. Bureau of the, 82, 210

Centaur, 131, 181

Centers for Industrial Technology, 210

Chadwick, James, 37

Chicago, Illinois, 9

Chicago, University of, 42

China Lake, California, 71, 155

Christofilos, Nicholas, C., 101-102

Civil Service Commission, 60

Civil Service Reform Act (1978), 151, 154

Clinton (Tennessee) Engineering Works, 42, 44

Coast Survey, 30, 34

Colorado, University of, 194n, 212

Columbia University, 38, 40

Columbus, Christopher, 16

Commerce, U.S. Department of, 166, 193, 202-203, 210

Compton, Arthur Holly, 45

Compton, Karl, 35

Conant, James B., 35

Congress, 25, 29, 30, 46, 47, 48, 54, 60, i05, 134, 152, 154, 168n, 170, 179, 184,

187, 192, 196-198, 203, 209, 210, 211, 216, 219, 232n

Congressional Research Center, 183

Cook, James, 20, 21, 23

Coming Glass Company, 229

Cortright, Edgar, 190

Courant, Ernest, 101-102

Dahlgren, John, 27

David Taylor Model Basin, 71

DC-3, 84

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), 81, 206, 227

Defense Mobilization, Office of, 54

Defense Science Board, 74-75, 109, 148

Defense, U.S. Department of (DOD), 11, 46, 48, 54, 60, 62, 63, 65, 70, 74, 75, 77,

81, 109, 116, l17n, 118, 121, 123, 127, 132, 134, 135, 167, 168n, 169, 173, 203,

206, 207n, 213, 217, 234; Secretary, 48, 63; laboratories, 82, 109, 171, 179, 198,

200, 203, 205, 206, 207n

Doolittle, James H., 56

Douglas Aircraft Company, 48

Drake, Sir Francis, 16

Drucker, Peter, 229

Dryden, Hugh, 56

DuPont Corporation (E.I. DuPont de Nemours), 9, 31, 44, 67, 82, 191, 228

297
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS,

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Eads, James Buchanan, 28

Earth Resources Technological Satellite, 83

Eastern Test Range, 70, 170

Eastman, George, 230

Eastman Kodak Company, 230

Ecole Polytechnique, 28

Einstein, Albert, 38

Eisenhower, Dwight D., 46-47, 54

Electric Power Reseaarch Institute, 9

Electronics Research Center (ERC), 61, 71, 79, 150, 193

Emmett, John, 103

Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), 63, 75, 193, 216, 217,

219

Energy, U.S. Department of (DOE), 1, 63, 70, 72, 74, 75, 85n, 92, 140, 147, 170,

171n, 181, 193, 194, 202, 203, 205, 213, 216-219; Energy Research Advisory

Board, 218; laboratories, 74, 178, 179, 185n, 192, 195, 200, 203, 213-219, 223,

226, 228, 234; Office of Coal Research, 82

Explorer satellite, 127

Exxon Corporation, 92

,.,

F-102 aircraft, 100-101

F-104 aircraft, 98

F-106 aircraft, 100, 100

Faget, Max, 201

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), 81, 82

Federal Council for Science and Technology, 54

Federal Executive Institute, 146

Fermi, Enrico, 38, 39, 42, 43

Flamsteed, John, 18

Fleet Ballistic Missile, 132, 134, 206. See also Polaris

Ford Aerospace and Communications, 232n

Fort Detfick, 193

Foster, John, 102

Franklin, Benjamin, 25

Frisch, Otto, 37

Gaithersburg, Maryland, 194

Garbarini, Robert, 128, 129

Gas Research Institute, 9

General Accounting Office (GAO), 70, 156n, 171, 206n, 216, 218

General Electric Company (GE), 8, 9, 31, 44, 51, 52, 116, 172, 191, 230, 231; corporate laboratory, 8, 9, 31, 31, 223; Space Systems Division, 172

General Motors Corporation (GM), 9, 121, 122n

Geological Survey, 30

Gilruth, Robert, 121, 201

Glennan, T. Keith, 55, 57

Goddard, Robert, 64

Goddard Space Fright Center, 9, 54, 83, 128-129, 131, 172, 188

.r

298
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES

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Gould, Inc., 230

Greenbelt, Maryland, 54

Greenwich, England, 18, 21

Groves, Leslie R., 41, 44

Grumman Corporation, 122, 128

Hahn, Otto, 37

Halley, Edmund, 18

Hanford (Washington) Engineering Works, 42, 44, 48

Harris Corporation, 230

Harrison, John, 21

Harvard University, 35

Hassler, Ferdinand, 34

HatchAct (1887), 29; equal opportur, ity regulations, 155

Hayes, W., 99

Henry (prince of Portugal), 14, 15, 16

High Energy Astronomy Observatory, 181

Hiroshima, Japan, 42

Hooke, Robert, 18

Houbolt, John, 99

House Appropriations Committee, 198

House Science and Astronautics Committee, 197, 201

House Science and Technology Committee, 197

Houston, Texas, 151

Humphreys, Joshua, 25

Hunsaker, Jerome, 56

Huntsville, Alabama, 54

IBM Corporation, 82, 116, 117

ILLIAC IV, 81

Industrial Technology, Office of, 210

Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology, 208

Institute for Defense Analysis, 48

Institution of Prince Henry the Navigator, 11

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 9

Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), 52, 64, 113

Interior, U.S. Department of; Office of Saline Water, 63, 72, 228

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 11, 54, 62, 72, 77, 113-114, 149, 170, 171n, 179,

191, 205n, 226, 231

Jewett, Frank, 35

Johns Hopkins University, 30

Johnson, Clarence (Kelly), 98

Johnson Space Center, 61n, 90, 201

Joint Army Research Groups, 80

Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, 72, 204, 219

Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA), 194n, 212

299
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Jupiter missile, 53

Justice, U.S. Department of, 229

Kansas City, Missouri, 166

Kennedy, John F., 54

Kennedy Space Center (KSC), 79n, 170, 191, 200

Kidder, Ray, 102-103

Killian, James, 54

Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, 51, 213

Landsat, 172

Land Grant Act (1887), 28-29

Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, 33, 99-100

Langley Research Center, 61n, 69, 80, 81, 82, 83, 95, 99, 151, 152, 172, 188, 190,

201, 226, 232

Langmuir, Irving, 8, 33

Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, 42, 49, 101, 181

Lawrence, Ernest O., 40, 42, 43, 48, 49, 101, 181

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 11, 49, 50, 63, 70, 73, 75, 82, 95, 99,

102-103, 104, 140, 144, 145, 181, 185n, 194, 203, 214, 217-220 passim

Lewis Laboratory, 33

Lewis Research Center, 61n, 80, 81, 131, 181, 191

Lisbon, Portugal, 16

Lisbon, University of, 14

Livermore, California, 49

Livingston, Stanley, 101-102

Lockheed Corporation, 98

Los Alamos National Laboratory, 9, 37, 42, 48, 49, 70, 73, 103, 140, 203, 217, 219,

220

Low, George M., 59

Lunar Orbiter, 83

Maiman, Theodore, 102

Management and Budget, U.S. Office of (OMB), 7, 105, 150-151, 165, 167, 168,

169, 183, 187, 189, 195-196, 198, 202, 203, 209, 211; Circular A-76, 168-169,

170n, 171, 173; Office of Federal Procurement Policy, 173

Manhattan Project, 37, 41-42, 44, 47, 49, 52, 113, 134, 214

Manned Orbiting Laboratory, 99, 121

Manned Spacecraft Center, 121, 151, 200, 201

Manned Space Flight, Office of (OMSF), 121, 200-202

Mansfield Amendment, 63

Marine Engineering Laboratory, 71

Marshall Space Flight Center, 7, 54, 61, 98, .121, 181, 200, 201, 232

Martin Marietta Company, 231

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 28, 35, 54

McDonald's Corporation, 178

McDonnell-Douglas Corporation, 231

McMillan, Edwin, 40

300
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT, LABORATORIES

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Meitner, Lise, 37

Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation, 9

Mine Defense Laboratory, 71

Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (3M), 4n, 82, 178

Moffett Field, California, 79

Morrill Acts, 28-29

Morrill, Justin Smith, 28-29

Morris, Illinois, 137

Mueller, George, 121, 201

Murray Hill, New Jersey, 8, 31

Nagasaki, Japan, 42

National Academy of Engineering, 70

National Academy of Public Administration, 83, 153

National Academy of Sciences, 25, 30, 35, 41, 70, 127, 203

National Accelerator Laboratory, 101, 102, 198

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), 30, 32-33, 35, 54, 55, 79,

99, 100, 193, 201, 231

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 4, 6, 7, 11, 46, 54-55,

60-62, 63, 64, 69-75 passim, 77, 79n, 83, 88, 90, 93, 94, 95, 98, 99, 105, 106,

109, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118, 119, 121, 122, 123, 125, 134, 135, 136, 140, 142,

147, 149, 150, 159n, 161, 164, 169, 170, 171n, 172, 173, 179, 180, 181, 184,

188, 190, 191, 193, 194, 196, 197, 199, 20(0202, 203, 205, 211, 216, 226, 229,

231, 232, 234; Administrator, 4, 55, 60, 106, 121, 131, 201; Associate Administrator, 99, 106, 109; budget, 185-87, 200; centers, 7, 77, 80, 84, 95, 106,

108, 159, 164, 171, 172, 173, 178, 179, 187, 188, 200, 204, 205, 226, 232;

Comptroller, 187; Deputy Administrator, 190, 191, 201; Headquarters, 60, 77,

79, 81, 88, 105-109, 110, 114, 121, 128, 130, 131, 140, 153, 180, 181, 185, 187,

189, 191, 202, 216, 226; helicopter program, 77, 79-82; OAO program, 127-131;

personnel management, 150-154; research and technology program, 105-111;

Space Task Group, 151

National Bureau of Standards (NBS), 2n, 7, 9, 30, 83, 178, 183, 193, 194, 197, 199,

200, 202-203, 207-212, 213, 229, 234; Director, 2n, 203; Headquarters, 199;

laboratories, 192, 223, 226

National Cancer Institute, 193

National Defense Expediting Act (1940), 36

National Defense Research Committee, 36, 38

National Institutes of Health, 153, 234

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 166, 193, 202

National Research Council (NRC), 30, 35

National Science Foundation (NSF), 2, 6n, 46, 194n, 197, 206n, 210, 211, 233

National Weather Service, 166, 210

Nature, 22

Naval Appropriation Act (1915), 32

Naval Electronics Systems Engineering Center, 71

Naval Ocean Systems Center, 155

Naval Ordnance Laboratory, 71

Naval Ordnance Test Station, 71

301
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCHINSTITUTIONS

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Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, 68, 69, 70, 71

Naval Research Laboratory, 69, 205

Naval Research, Office of, 46, 205, 206, 227

Naval Ship Research and Development Center, 41

Naval Weapons Center, 71, 155

Navy, U.S., 25-27, 46, 50, 52, 53, 70, 71, 132, 134, 135, 206n, AEC nuclear program, 51; Bureau of Ordnance 27; Bureau of Ships, 50; Constructor, 25; contracts, 51; laboratories, 163, 164; Observatory, 30; shipyards, 25, 26, 27, 34, 68;

Special Projects Office (SPO), 52, 53, 132-135, 206

Newton, Isaac, 18

Newell, Homer E., 127, 128, 131

Nixon, Richard M., 61, 63, 105, 193

North American Aviation, 202

Northrop Corporation, 68

Nuclear Power Directorate, 134

Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 63

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), 42, 44, 48, 63, 72, 82, 204, 213, 215, 217,

228

Oberth, Hermann, 64

Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 42, 43, 49, 234

Orbiting Astronomical Observatories (OAO), 60, 83, 115, 125, 127-131, 129, 132,

135, 199

Pacific Northwest Laboratory, 217

Paine, Thomas O., 61

Palo Alto, California, 9

Pasadena, California, 205n

Perry, Matthew C., 27

Personnel Management, U.S. Office of, 90, 150, 152, 155

Philosophical Transactions, 18, 19

Pickering, William E., 59

Pioneer, 6, 80, 125, 197-98

Plato, 13

Polaris, 52, 53, 122, 132-135, 133. See also Fleet Ballistic Missile

President's Science Advisory Committee, 54

Price, Gwilym, 51

Princeton, University, 38

Public Health Service, 30, 63

Public Law 313, 48

Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation, 53. See also TRW, Inc.

RAND Corporation, 48, 52, 168n, 206, 225

Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute, 28

Rickover, Hyman G., 50-51, 51, 134, 204

Rochester, New York, 230

Roebling, John, 28

Rome, Italy, 16

302
A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT 'LABORATORIES

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Roosevelt, Franklin D., 35, 38

Rosenberg, Nathan, 1, 3

Royal Navy, 21, 26

Royal Observatory, 18, 20-21, 20

Royal Society of Great Britain, 11, 13, 17-18, 20-21, 24

Sagus, Portugal, 14, 16

Sakharov, Andrei, 234

Sandia National Laboratory, 70, 135, 170, 214, 218, 219, 228

San Diego, California, 155

San Francisco, California, 68, 164

Santa Fe, New Mexico, 42

Saturn rocket, 7, 54, 181

Schenectady, New York, 8, 31, 223

Schriever, Bernard, 52-53

Scientific Research and Development, Office of (OSRD), 36-37, 41, 44, 54

Scout, 79

Seaborg, Glenn, 40, 72

Seamans, Robert, 99

Sears, Roebuck and Company, 229, 230

Senior Executive Service, 151, 176

Shaw, Milton, 204

Singer Company, 82

Skylab, 63, 109, 181

Smithsonian Institution, 30

Snyder, Hartland, 101-102

Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI), 219

Soviet Academy of Science, 233, 234

Space Act (1958), 54

Space Flight, Office of, 106

Space Science and Applications, Office of (OSSA), 106, 187, 201

Space Science Board, 127

Space Shuttle, 61, 63-64, 64, 90, 93, 105, 106, 108, 118, 119, 121, 181, 185, 204,

224, 226, 230, 232

Space Telescope, 111, 181, 230

Sperry Corporation, 65

Spinoza, Baruch, 16

Sprat, Bishop, 18

Sputnik, 46, 54

SR-71, 98

SRI International, 225

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, 213

Steinmetz, Charles P., 8, 32

Stevenson-Wydler Act, 210, 216

Strassmann, Fritz, 37

Stratoscope I, 127

Szilard, Leo, 38

303
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Teller, Edward, 38, 45, 49, 181

Tennessee Eastman Company, 44, 230

Texas Instruments, 178

Thor missile, 53, 92

Transportation, U.S. Department of, 61, 71, 193

Trans World Airlines, 170

Treasury, U.S. Department of the, 193

Troy, New York, 28

TRW, Inc., 53, 125. See also Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation

Tsiolkovsky, Konstanin, 64

U-2 aircraft, 98

Union Carbide Corporation, 44

V-2 rocker, 125, 127

Vandenberg Air Force Base, 70

Vanguard satellite, 127

Viking, 95, 127, 198

Violet, Charles, 102

Von Braun, Wernher, 54, 58, 98-99, 121, 181

Von Neumann, John, 52

Voyager, 231

Wallops Island, Virginia, 79

War Powers Act (1941), 37

Washington, D.C., 7, 9, 25, 35, 71, 75, 77, 88, 106, 193, 205, 226, 231

Watson, E.M., 38

Webb, James E., 5, 55, 57, 201, 202, 231

Weinberg, Alvin, 72, 215

Western Electric Company, 9, 70, 136-138, 170

Western Test Range, 70

Westinghouse Corporation, 44, 51, 52

Wheeler, John, 38

Whitcomb, Richard, 99-100

Whitehead, Alfred North, 1, 2

White House Science Council, 148

White Sands Missile Range, 70

Wigner, Eugene, 38, 45

Wren, Christopher, 18

Wright, Orville, 55

Xerox Corporation, 67

XV-1 helicopter, 80

XV-3 airplane, 80

304
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

HANS M. MARK was born in Mannheim, Germany, June 17,

1929. He came to the United States in 1940, and became a U.S. citizen

in 1945. He received his bachelor's degree in physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1951 and his doctorate in physics from

the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1954. Following completion of his graduate studies, Dr. Mark remained at MIT as a research

associate and acting head of the Neutron Physics Group Laboratory

for Nuclear Science until 1955. He then returned to the University of

California at Berkeley where he served as a research physicist at the

University's Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in Livermore until 1958.

Subsequently, he served as an assistant professor of physics at

MIT before returning to Lawrence Radiation Laboratory's Experimental Physics Division from 1960 to 1964. He then became chairman

of the University's Department of Nuclear Engineering and administrator of the Berkeley Research Reactor.

He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in physics and

engineering at Boston University, MIT, and the University of California at the Berkeley and Davis campuses.

Dr. Mark has served as a consultant to government, industry,

and business, including the Institute for Defense Analyses and the

President's Advisory Group on Science and Technology.

He has authored many articles for professional and technical journals. He coauthored the books Experiments in Modern Physics and

Power and Security, and coedited The Properties of Matter Under

Unusual Conditions.

ARNOLD LEVINE is a writer and analyst specializing in the

analysis of government operations. Dr. Levine, who holds a doctorate

in history from the University of Wisconsin, has taught at the City

University of New York, served as senior associate in a major management services firm in Arlington, Virginia, and is currently a writer

based in Washington, DC. In addition to The Management of Research

Institution& Dr. Levine is the author of Managing NASA in the Apollo

Era (Washington, DC" NASA Scientific and Technical Information

305
THE MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

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Branch, 1982), many articles on data processing technologies in the

Federal Government, and papers delivered before the American Society

for Public Administration, the American Historical Association, and

the Sixth International Congress on Economic History. He is currently

investigating the role of selected technologies in influencing the conduct of U.S. foreign policy.

L

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306