President's Science Advisory Committee Research Articles

INTRODUCTIONIn early years of space exploration, Dwight D. Eisenhower's President's Science Advisory Committee (1958) referred to the compelling urge of man to explore and to discover, thrust of curiosity that leads men to try to go where no one has gone before. Interplanetary travel is a topic of interest both in scientific community as well as in science fiction literature. Evidence shows that throughout all of known history, humans have studied and interpreted sky and struggled to understand mysteries of cosmos (Fix, 2004). The stories and beliefs from early mythological and astrological ideas have evolved into serious scientific and technological fields. The remarkable level of precision and quality of today's instruments and data analysis is contributing to better insights into universe, and alteration or confirmation of theoretical foundations. Hence this paper is based on scientific and technological literature that represents these advances. At same time, science fiction has also been prospering side by side with this extraordinary new knowledge creation. In this paper, we are concerned with knowledge domains in interplanetary travel, on which a major part of science fiction literature is founded.This is not a critical analysis or a comprehensive review of subject. Rather, it is a descriptive exposition based on results obtained using Inspec database. Although limited in its scope, results show interesting information about components of interplanetary travel. In addition, similar works have been published with intent of presenting basic information about a scientific subject aimed at librarians, instructors, and students, such as works of Stankus (2014) on biofuels, Kulp (2014) on genomics, Jarrett (2014) on Ebola virus, Delwiche (2016) on Zika virus, and Tran (2016) on particle detectors. Furthermore, a substantial portion of science fiction is based on scientific knowledge; we are not comparing or analyzing real scientific knowledge with popular ideas. A better understanding of real knowledge can be of benefit to science fiction followers.A second motivation for selection of this topic is recent work done by researchers such as E. W. Davis (2006 and 2012) of Institute for Advanced Studies, Austin, TX; by J. C. Garcia-Escartin and P. Chamorro-Posada (2013) from Universidad de Valladolid, Departamento de Teoria de la Senal y Comunicaciones e Ingenieria Telematica; and work of P. Lubin (2016) of University of California, Santa Barbara, Experimental Cosmology Group. These recent contributions are important to this topic because authors using scientific formal communication (papers published in well-recognized proceedings and journals) present specific arguments that make extraordinary long-distance space travel a realistic event in future. There are many other scientists with remarkable theories about possibilities of exploring universe but not necessarily human or robots in spaceships. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope mission is an example of a project that has renewed interest in study of universe.In his first article, Davis (2008) explores faster-than-light (FTL) technological details, analyzes tentative solutions, and concludes that transversable wormholes are better suited for traveling in space since less negative energy is necessary as compared to warp drives. The need for developing a source of negative energy at large scale in space is presented, and concerns for controlling lab environment for negative energy experimentation is discussed. The second article by Davis (2012) presents technical problems to be resolved in order for FTL space warps to be possible, such as production of large-scale negative energy, creation of guidance, manipulation, and control principles, development of a program of space warps computer simulation, and a number of other fundamental theoretical issues. …

ESA's Sixth Decade (1966–1975)

<i>Notes on Contributors</i>

In 1957, elite panic following the launch of Russia's Sputnik changed the way scientists (especially physicists) operated politically. A cabinet-level presidential science adviser position was created. Assisting him was the President's Science Advisory Committee (psac). For the next sixteen years there existed a small panel with direct access to the president and broad advisory mandates. Presidents received relatively disinterested advice about weapons systems and space and arms races. In 1973, however, after the psac opposed an antiballistic missile (abm) program, it and the science adviser position were abolished by Richard M. Nixon. Only partly reconstituted since, science advisory agencies have been ad hoc and decentralized under the conservative presidents Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and—especially—George W. Bush. As one result, the nation has spent $150 billion in twenty-five years on missile defense systems still not successfully tested under realistic battlefield conditions. Presidents have also dithered about addressing global warming. Following earlier analysts including Bruce L. R. Smith and Gregg Herken, Zuoyue Wang surveys the psac to answer these questions: What shaped relationships between scientists and the state? And, what is the proper role of science in a democratic society? Eight case studies clarify these topics: the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; military missile development; the 1963 nuclear test ban; the Stanford linear accelerator; project Apollo; the psac's response to Rachel Carson's pioneering Silent Spring (1962); the Vietnam War; the abm program; and the supersonic transport aircraft. Wang sees opportunity (in Sputnik), agreement (regarding nuclear arms control), and liberal-to-moderate consensus (regarding containing Communism) as answers to his first question on the relationship between science and the state. Toward answering his second question, he argues that psac's key role was to advise what technology would not do. Such “scientific and technological dissent” is “vital” (p. 317). Otherwise, high technology enthusiasm and gadget worship will land the country in large, avoidable troubles.

today's world of rapid advancements in science and technology, we need to scrutinize more than ever the historical forces that shape our perceptions of what these new possibilities can and cannot do for social progress. In Sputnik's Shadow provides a lens to do just that, by tracing the rise and fall of the President's Science Advisory Committee from its ascendance under Eisenhower in the wake of the Soviet launching of Sputnik to its demise during the Nixon years. Members of this committee shared a strong sense of technological skepticism; they were just as inclined to advise the president about what technology couldn't do - for national security, space exploration, arms control, and environmental protection - as about what it could do.Zuoyue Wang examines key turning points during the twentieth century, including the beginning of the Cold War, the debates over nuclear weapons, the Sputnik crisis in 1957, the struggle over the Vietnam War, and the eventual end of the Cold War, showing how the involvement of scientists in executive policymaking evolved over time. Bringing new insights to the intellectual, social, and cultural histories of the era, this book not only depicts the drama of Cold War American science, it gives perspective to how we think about technological advancements today.

In Sputnik's Shadow . The President's Science Advisory Committee and Cold War America. By Zuoyue Wang . Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 2008. 477 pp. $49.95. ISBN 9780813543314. Through his examination of the functioning and effectiveness of the U.S. President's Science Advisory Committee, Wang explores the evolution of scientists' roles in executive policy-making during the 1950s and 1960s.

In 1957, science advisers were brought into the White House as the President's Science Advisory Committee. Its demise has deprived the US government of invaluable counsel. In the first of a new series of essays on government science advice, Richard Garwin, a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee in the Eisenhower administration, mourns its demise at the hands of President Nixon. Set up in 1957 in response to Soviet exploits in space, PSAC succeeded in bringing science advice into the White House in a way that Garwin feels structures since have failed to do.

Reviewed by: Eisenhower, Science Advice, and the Nuclear Test-Ban Debate, 1945–1963 Jacob Darwin Hamblin (bio) Eisenhower, Science Advice, and the Nuclear Test-Ban Debate, 1945–1963. By Benjamin P. Greene . Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2007. Pp. xiii+358. $65. Dwight Eisenhower never succeeded in negotiating a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing with the Soviet Union. Benjamin P. Greene offers an intriguing argument to explain why the president failed. His book is carefully crafted, it is methodologically sound, and it makes a genuine contribution to scholarship on the politics of science and technology in the cold war. Greene's conclusions, however, are bound to be controversial because of what they say not only about science advice but about Eisenhower's control over his own administration. Greene takes aim at scholars who doubt Eisenhower's sincerity in trying to achieve a comprehensive test ban. He judges that Eisenhower believed by 1954 that a test ban was the necessary and desirable first step in disarmament. But the president lacked the confidence to overrule his closest advisors, and his style of leadership—based on consensus— prevented him from pursuing his true aims. Eisenhower deceived and misled Americans and the world, claiming that tests were necessary while secretly wishing he could ban them. He wanted a test ban as much as his opponent in the 1956 election, Adlai Stevenson, but he felt unable to admit it publicly. Greene paints a portrait of a frustrated president trapped by his own leadership style, his mistrust of the Soviets, a lack of pressure from his allies and advisors, and most important of all his "understandable confusion with the complex technical issues" (p. 3). As improbable as the scenario sounds, Greene has done an admirable job of making the case. The villain of his story is Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chairman Lewis Strauss, with supporting roles played by politically conservative scientists Edward Teller and Willard Libby. These men monopolized scientific advice during the first five years of Eisenhower's presidency, and virtually all their advice emphasized the need for more testing. Only after the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik, and the subsequent creation of the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), did Eisenhower begin to receive a broader range of scientific advice. The PSAC's support for a test ban, the exit of Strauss from the AEC, and the willingness of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to support a test ban gave the president enough confidence to pursue the ban openly. Still, the objections of Strauss and Teller prevailed because of uncertainties about differentiating earthquakes from nuclear tests. Ultimately, the president ran out of time on the job. Some scholars may be uncomfortable about letting Eisenhower off the hook as a frustrated and befuddled victim of scientific manipulation. [End Page 892] Greene's conclusions may derive from his focus on the scientific controversy about detecting nuclear tests, rather than the controversy about nuclear fallout. These were two distinct issues, but they are intertwined here as the "test-ban debate." One was an obstacle on the path to disarmament. The other was a warning from biologists who feared cancer and predicted mutations in future generations. If Eisenhower sincerely wanted to work toward disarmament, then his frustration with scientists on the issue of test detection makes sense. But there is little evidence that he agonized behind the scenes and agreed with his opponents—during, say, the election of 1956—about the dangers from fallout. Eisenhower knew of geneticists' claims but played them down in order to continue testing. If he later was frustrated by the politicization of science, a cynic might conclude that he was simply hoist by his own petard. Greene's book, which is nearly identical to his 2004 Stanford University dissertation, is a provocative indictment of those who control scientific advice, but it is also a disturbing apologia for Dwight Eisenhower. The president appears as a moral man wishing to do the right thing, but with his hands tied by narrow-minded ideologues. Greene insists that Strauss misled the president and was the dominant influence on him until Eisenhower finally was freed by PSAC scientists. Was he really such a creature of Lewis...

Conversation with Joseph V. Brady

Health Services Research: An Evolving Definition of the Field

John Wilder Tukey, Donner Professor of Science Emeritus at Princeton University, was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, on June 16, 1915. After earning bachelor's and master's degrees in chemistry at Brown University in 1936 and 1937, respectively, he started his career at Princeton University with a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1939 followed by an immediate appointment as Henry B. Fine Instructor in Mathematics. A decade later, at age 35, he was advanced to a full professorship. He directed the Statistical Research Group at Princeton University from its founding in 1956; when the Department of Statistics was formed in 1965, he was named its first chairman and held that post until 1970. He was appointed to the Donner Chair in 1976 and remained at Princeton until reaching emeritus status in 1985. At the same time, he was a Member of Technical Staff at ATT Bell Laboratories since 1945, advancing to Assistant Director of Research, Communications Principles, in 1958 and, in 1961, to Associate Executive Director, Research Information Sciences, a position he held until retirement in 1985. Throughout World War II he participated in projects assigned to the Princeton Branch of the Frankford Arsenal Fire Control Design Division. This wartime service marked the beginning of his close and continuing association with governmental committees and agencies. Among other activities he was a member of the U.S. Delegation to the Conference on the Discontinuance of Nuclear Weapons Tests in Geneva in 1959, served on the President's Science Advisory Committee from 1960 to 1964 and was a member of President Johnson's Task Force on Environmental Pollution and President Nixon's Task Force on Air Pollution. The long list of awards and honors that Tukey has received includes the S. S. Wilks Medal from the American Statistical Association (ASA) (1965), the National Medal of Science (1973), the Medal of Honor from the IEEE (1982), the Deming Medal from the American Society of Quality Control (1983) and the Educational Testing Service Award (1990). He holds honorary degrees from Case Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago and Brown, Temple, Yale and Waterloo Universities; in June 1998, he was awarded an honorary degree from Princeton University. He has led the way to the fields of exploratory data analysis (EDA) and robust estimation. His contributions to the spectral analysis of time series and other aspects of digital signal processes have been widely used in engineering and science. His collaboration with a fellow mathematician resulted in the discovery of the fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm. Author of Exploratory Data Analysis and eight volumes of collected papers, he has contributed to a wide variety of areas and has coauthored several books. He has guided more than 50 graduate students to successful Ph.D.'s and inspired their careers. A detailed list of his students as well as a complete curriculum vitae can be found in The Practice of Data Analysis (1997), edited by D. Brillinger, L. Fernholz, and S. Morgenthaler, Princeton University Press. John W. Tukey married Elizabeth Louise Rapp in 1950. Before their marriage, she was Personnel Director of the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey.

There have been enough words written about global environmental change but they have not brought clarity to our public discourse. In fact, what was once a calm rivulet of slow-moving, somewhat cloistered study has become a turbid torrent, a frothing flood of claims and counterclaims, aired in the press and the halls of Congress, on which researchers tide as uptight as they are able, buffeted by waves and vortices and apprehensive that they may capsize at any moment. In what follows I'll examine how this dramatic transition has occurred and identify actions needed to make the ride downstream smoother and safer for the nation and the world generally. Upstream, in the smaller, calmer flow of 30 years ago, a notably clear and prescient study carried out by the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), and stimulated especially by Roger Revelle, summarized what was then known about increasing CO2 in the atmosphere, identified possible effects on global climate, and anticipated the development of numerical models capable of predicting climate change. 1 In that same year of 1965 the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA) was created, signalling recognition of the increased importance of broad environmental objectives as part of the federal agenda. This action was especially notable because it was carried out by federal administrators (Robert M. White and J. Herbert Hollomon) without Congressional prodding or recommendation by an external committee or commission. These events mark a time when governmental institutions were able to respond nimbly and promptly to new scientific insights and to emerging interests in environmental changes of global scale. Downstream, as flow of the river grew, turbulence increased. The Marine Resources and Engineering Development Act and the National Sea Grant Act were passed in 1966, and the Commission on Marine Science, Engineering and Resources (Stratton Commission) was appointed in 1967. These were responses to the interests of the marine resources community and of influential members of Congress in building a stronger federal capability for development of marine resources (oil, gas, minerals, energy, fish). In 1970 ESSA evolved into the new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), signalling an abrupt turn away from broad environmental science objectives toward resource development. True, creation of NOAA didn't result in much difference in what the components of the new agency actually did; in fact, that has been a continuing complaint of the marine resource community. But creation of NOAA and a heavy

Part I. Urgent Appeals, 1939-1952: The Advent of Nuclear Weapons: 1. A closely knit group of people: the decision to build the atomic bomb 2. No acceptable alternative: the decision to use the atomic bomb 3. Necessarily an evil thing: the debate over the H-bomb 4. A point of no return: the opportunity for a nuclear 'standstill' Part II. Fragile Hopes, 1953-1960: The Impetus Towards Arms Control: 5. Racing toward catastrophe: atoms for peace and war 6. An age of danger... from the Killian report to Sputnik 7. A vested interest in this field: the President's science advisory committee and the test ban Part III. Guarded Futures, 1961-1988: The Perils and Promises of New Technology: 8. 'Where a fresh start is badly needed: politics and science in the Kennedy administration 9. A nation cannot be built with gadgets: Johnson, Hornig, and the Vietnam war 10. No longer as adviser but as citizen: the crisis of science advising under Nixon and Ford 11. We want you to know of our judgment: science and conflict in the Carter administration 12. The president doesn't care about wavelengths: the Reagan revolution and the origins of SDI Conclusion: speaking the truth to power Appendixes notes Bibliography Index.

Every field needs a history to distinguish it from other areas of endeavor, and every field needs to recognize and formally acknowledge those individuals who have contributed significant ideas to the establishment of that field. It is important to understand how basic ideas shape what we do today and affect our thinking about the future. Much of what was embedded in the design of early systems is now accepted as a matter of practice or convenience. History can be of value if we view fundamental ideas in the context of new technological advances and use the best of those ideas to design new systems to take advantage of new opportunities. The Beginnings The first large-scale computers ever made were designed and built on the campuses of American universities. The first operational computer, MARK 1, was put into use at Harvard in 1944, and utilized electromechanical components to perform elementary arithmetic. Later, in 1946, the University of Pennsylvania developed the first electronic computer, ENIAC. So if we use ENIAC as the founding of the modern computer, as many do, computers are but 44 years old. Establishing the precise beginning of computers used for educational purposes is difficult since many early applications were merely demonstrations to show the potential for computers in education. In 1958 IBM demonstrated the teaching of binary arithmetic by computer. About this time, System Development Corp. developed a project called CLASS for computer-based teaching. And in 1959, the PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations) computer-assisted instruction project was begun at the University of Illinois. So, if we use PLATO as the start of computers used for instructional purposes, educational computing is but 31 years old. While some federal programs in the late 1950s and early 1960s supported projects on computers in education, most were directed toward the more general goals of scientific research. In order to assess the value of academic computing, several national commissions were established. In 1966, a panel chaired by J. Barkley Rosser prepared a National Academy of Sciences report, Digital Computer Needs in Universities and Colleges. It made a strong case for university access to computers for research, but said little about education. In 1967 a new committee was established, the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), to study computers in higher education. PSAC, chaired by John R. Pierce of Bell Laboratories, concluded that an undergraduate college education without adequate computing was as deficient as an undergraduate education would be without an adequate library. PSAC also acknowledged the value of computers for pre-college education. In response to these reports, President Lyndon Johnson directed the National Science Foundation (NSF) to work with the U.S. Office of Education to establish an experimental program for developing the potential of computers in education. In July 1967, as a result of this presidential directive, the National Science Foundation established the Office of Computing Activities to provide federal leadership in the use of computers for research and education. Later the directive was added as a statutory requirement to the NSF charter. So the federal role for computers in education began 23 years ago. Integrating Into Curriculum By 1950, there were only 12 computers in the United States. At that time, commercial investors were uninterested in computers; those who knew felt that the total market for such machines would not exceed a dozen. Selling the potential of computers to the financial and business communities was difficult, but persuading educators that computers had a role in the educational process was equally challenging. While computers were used sparingly in research and occasionally in the classroom, the idea that computing was a vital and necessary part of education was still a novel one. …

The article discusses the School of Physicsestablished by the late I I Rabi. Rabi was an unusuallyeffective physicist not only through his own work and thatof his students but also through his general wisdom andinfluence on others. Rabi's early life and education arebriefly described including his travels in Europe and hisearly work with Otto Stern at Hamburg. At ColumbiaUniversity Rabi established the molecular beam researchlaboratory where he invented the highly successfulmolecular beam magnetic resonance method, which heand his associates used to measure nuclear and magneticproperties of many molecules and nuclei, and where hetrained students who later became leaders in physics.During World War I1 Rabi was Deputy Director of theMIT Radiation Laboratory where many of the advancesin radar and microwave electronics were made as well asbeing a consultant to Robert Oppenheimer, the Directorat Los Alamos. Following the war Rabi played majorroles in establishing the Columbia physics departmentas a great research centre, in the efforts to provideinternational control of atomic energy, in the formation ofthe US President's Science Advisory Committee, in theInternational Conferences on the Peaceful Uses of AtomicEnergy, in the establishment of Brookhaven NationalLaboratory and of CERN and in the NATO ScienceCommittee.

Toxicological information series, I: Toxicological information

Toxicological Information. COSMIDES, G. J. (1990). Fundam. Appl. Toxicol. 14, 439–443. This paper presents a brief history of the evolution of toxicological information in the United States since 1966 when concern over the hazards of the ubiquitous chemicals in the environment was translated into recommendations for action by The Panel on the Handling of Toxicological Information of the President's Science Advisory Committee. It describes some of the data bases that were developed as a result of these recommendations and introduces a series of papers that discuss toxicology information resources, their content, and their accessibility. The series is a project of the Information Handling Committee of the Society of Toxicology. Papers II–V of this series will be published in subsequent issues of Fundamental and Applied Toxicology.

On 30 March 1984, Hofstra University sponsored a panel discussion on the Science Advisory Committee Revisited, during a university conference on the Eisenhower Presidency. Participants in the panel discussion were: Robert F. Bacher, Andrew J. Goodpaster, Emanuel R. Piore, Isidor I. Rabi, and William T. Golden, chairman. James R. Killian, Jr., and Hans A. Bethe were to have participated but were unable to do so at the last minute; both men have graciously written new commentaries especially for this issue. The messages contained in the following edited transcript are clear and timely. First, President Eisenhower recognized that he benefited greatly from the participation of his science adviser. Second, it was salutary that the Science Adviser to the President report directly to him, as did also a President's Science Advisory Committee of independent, non-political, patriotic scientists. Third, the positive aspects of these arrangements argue for the re-establishment of a similar advisory structure in the White House today.

I n the 1980s, youth unemployment and discontent with schooling persist as problems facing educators. Numerous programs and recommendations to create school-based, work-experience programs have attempted to address these problems. The report of the Panel on Youth of the President's Science Advisory Committee advocated a closer union of school and community by creating more opportunities for youth to participate in the life of the community. The report of the Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education cited a number of reform proposals calling for less schooling and more work experiences for youth. The Youth Employment Demonstration Projects Act of 1977 encouraged local education agencies to place school-age, low-income youth in jobs. These programs hoped to impact upon the future employability of youth, to make schooling more relevant and interesting to them, and thereby to ease the transition from school to work. While adult employment status is the decisive measurement of program success, such a long-term outcome is expensive to document and difficult to assess. Other indicators of program effectiveness are needed for immediate evaluations of current and proposed programs to provide federal, state, and local policy makers with guidelines for decision making. Analytic principles from the curriculum field can serve as one source for indicators of current program effectiveness. These principles of curricular form and content embody both empirical and theoretical knowledge of human learning. Although they have usually been applied to classroom instructional programs, they can provide criteria for evaluating the quality of work experience programs. In order to analyze such programs for policy purposes, one needs to assess the quality of the day-to-day activities that youth encounter, because it is the cumulative effect of these activities over time that offers hope of easing unemployment and reducing inequality. Program planners and proposal reviewers could make use of these principles to evaluate the probable effectiveness of programs in the planning stages. As programs are implemented, these principles can help local program personnel make further choices when faced with reality constraints. A work-experience curriculum is a set of learning activities centered around the work experience. Part of the task of this study is to generate activity categories that describe what youth do in the programs. This definition stresses that the activities should have some relationship to learning. In The Boundless Resource, W. Wirtz emphasized that the learning should have an application beyond particular job tasks, to life in general:

A number of respected social critics, including the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), have recommended the earlier integration of adolescents into the workplace. The PSAC Panel on Youth (1973) claims that work settings provide opportunities for developing and exercising personal responsibility, taking responsibility for the welfare of others, and establishing more extensive instrumental and social relations with nonfamilial adults. This study of "naturally occurring" employment among high school students examines these claims about the nature of the workplace. Drawing on interview, questionnaire, and observational data, we argue that the PSAC's expectations are somewhat optimistic. With respect to personal responsibility taking, although many adolescent workers have opportunities for self-management and report performing assigned tasks dependably, very few report going "beyond the call of duty." With respect to social responsibility, workers experience only modest levels of task interdependence and centrality to a team effort; yet substantial numbers of adolescent workers feel that their work serves a socially useful purpose. Finally, with respect to intergenerational contact, the workplace fails to induce meaningful interaction with adults. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that if the workplace is to become a truly vital context for adolescent socialization, it needs to be designed more deliberately with such aims in mind.