are placed on the Department of Defense and its space science program. I do not have a statement. I would be glad to answer any of the same kind of questions or any other you might wish to put. Senator JOHNSON. Senator Hickenlooper?

QUESTION OF SPECIFICITY OF LEGISLATION

Senator HICKENLOOPER. I would like to ask Dr. York if, in his opinion, we can write legislation at this time in detail as far as various phases of our problems are concerned that can be relied upon to guide us for several years, or should we attempt merely generalized legislation? Should we take a look-see and go on from there as

experience unfolds?

Dr. YORK. Sir, I am not a very good one to answer that question. I am not very familiar with the legal problems and other things of that sort.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. I do not think that is a legal problem.

Dr. YORK. However, I am sure that it is not possible for anybody to foresee all of the problems that are going to arise here. I do not know whether that means you should write generalized or specialized legislation, but I am sure in a few years the problem is going to look different from what it looks today.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. In other words, what I am trying to get at is this: We could write legislation today that would channel certain functions in certain lines; in some ways get them, for the time being, at least, frozen into that pattern. It might be very difficult in the future to change those patterns that we had written into law today.

Do you think that is an element we should be considering in this legislation?

Dr. YORK. I think you should bear in mind you may very well have to change the pattern in a few years; yes, sir.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. I realize that it is a big field and we do not know just what the future holds.

Dr. YORK. Yes; space is not a field; it is a place and until we get in there and have a look around, it is kind of hard to judge what we are going to find, what problems we will be faced with, and what is the right way to handle them.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. You have stated something that is in my mind about the necessity for not freezing or attempting to freeze the pattern of this legislation in too great detail at this time; and I hope that we can find an approach that will give us the framework within which to work and still have some room for modification for the future. I think that is all.

Senator JOHNSON. Mr. Anderson?

Senator ANDERSON. Dr. York, you know that I am very mad at you. I hated to see you leave Livermore Laboratory, more than anything in the world, because I regarded you as one of the very fine Government people and I think the contributions you made were wonderful, indeed.

Dr. YORK. I appreciate your anger.

Senator ANDERSON. I opposed the creation of Livermore originally and I was wrong because the results are very fine, indeed.

POSSIBLE TRANSFER OF NUCLEAR PROJECTS TO NEW AGENCY

Pluto, as a project, is very close to your heart. This legislation would permit it to be transferred to the new Space Agency and while you would treat it carefully and kindly, if you were over there, do you believe people who are working on Pluto would welcome that change or would they not be concerned?

Dr. YORK. Well, I should imagine that if the NACA or NASA were to become involved in the Pluto program-maybe I am expressing a wish rather than what I should be presuming, but I suppose it would go on in the way it is now, in the sense that the Atomic Energy Commission handles the nuclear problems; and, at the present time, the Department of Defense handles the nonnuclear problems.

I would suppose if NASA got into it, it would be handled in a similar way with NASA picking up only the nuclear components. Senator ANDERSON. Pluto's Livermore Laboratory is now under the University of California; is it not?

Dr. YORK. Yes.

Senator ANDERSON. It has no problem of pay scales such as they have in general Government employment, has it?

Dr. YORK. Well, it does not have the identical problem that the NACA has at present. On the other hand, it is not as free and easy as an industrial contractor, either.

Senator ANDERSON. Oh, I grant that. I know a number of peopleI do not want to get to your own personal situation-but I know a number of people who offered your opposite number, Dr. Bradbury, very substantial contracts to leave, and he left. So it is not just free and easy. Is there not some advantage in being associated with a great university, rather than being associated with a commercial enterprise, to many of these people?

Dr. YORK. In the minds of everyone there, that would be the case; yes, sir.

Senator ANDERSON. I think so, too. That has been the feeling I have had.

Now, if those are transferred to this Agency and it follows it is usual practice to farm out that research at once to Convair or North American or Aero Jet or somebody else

Dr. YORK. Well, I think that would be a great mistake but I have not myself heard in any of the discussions with NACA that they have any such thing in mind. I agree that would be a very bad thing. Senator ANDERSON. Well, does NACA contract very generally with universities on this type of development of aeronautical devices? Dr. YORK. At the present time, not very much, is my understanding; but part of the purpose of this bill is to enable them to do so. Senator ANDERSON. Don't you believe they will follow their old practices?

Dr. YORK. I think they are anxious to change their pattern in some of these ways. Furthermore, although I would go back to what I said in the first place, that I think a joint NASA-AEC program is the right way to do Pluto

Senator ANDERSON. Oh, so do I; but there is no provision in this bill for AEC to do anything and you know from reading the newspapers that I am not trying to help any individuals on top of the AEC Commission; I am only trying to say what I truly believe, that the work

has been inspiring both at Livermore, Los Alamos, and many other laboratories.

Dr. YORK. I think it would be a great shame to change the relationships between those laboratories and the AEC.

Senator ANDERSON. I do not want to involve you where you must not testify under Bureau of Budget instructions, but don't you believe it would be well to mention AEC in the bill?

Dr. YORK. Well, to the extent that I understand it is required to mention it in order to carry out something, I guess so. But you are really out of my department here. I would not know whether this bill prohibited AEC from carrying out Pluto and Rover or not. Senator ANDERSON. It does not prohibit it but says any time NACA wanted to take it away from them it could do so. Now, there would be quite a bit of trouble any time--the next time anybody connected with it came to the President for anything.

They would be just about compelled to go along and I do not want them to have to go along at all if they do not want to. I would like it written in the bill that even if they could take either Pluto or Rover or Snap away from AEC, with or without their consent, they couldn't move them. Now you are familiar enough with work at Los Alamos to know that the Rover project is making reasonably good headway. Dr. YORK. Yes, sir.

Senator ANDERSON. And it seems very promising?

Dr. YORK. Yes.

Senator ANDERSON. I have talked to Dr. Schreiber and they are enthusiastic and very dedicated and work all hours on it, and I would hate to see that disturbed.

Did your people at Livermore do anything like they did at Los Alamos, where after hours they sat around and tried to dream up new types of reactors?

Dr. YORK. Yes, sir.

Senator ANDERSON. They did not get paid for that, did they?

Dr. YORK. No overtime; no, sir.

Senator ANDERSON. Well, that is why I am attached to Livermore and Los Alamos, Dr. Yo.k. Will salary be a problem in the Space Agency, do you think?

Dr. YORK. I do not really know. It depends on what kind of latitude they are given.

SALARY SCALES IN THE NEW AGENCY

Senator ANDERSON. Well, I have been trying to get permission to pay a staff member of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy as much as he would have obtained had he remained in the Atomic Energy Commission, and I am unable to get that sort of approval through; and staff people in Government generally are a little bit jealous if one agency goes out of line. Can you imagine what would happen if the Space Agency asked for permission to pay a man $25,000?

Dr. YORK. I imagine there would be a lot of envy in other agencies. Senator ANDERSON. Yes, sir, and you recognize that the University of California can do that in its laboratories, do you not?

Dr. YORK. It can if it wishes to.

Senator ANDERSON. I do not want to get personal, but you know that it has?

Dr. YORK. Yes, sir, I do.

Senator ANDERSON. And it was cheap at that price, I might say. Well, that is mainly my concern-whether it is possible to take fine people and give them not an adequate reward but a better reward than if they had to go through classification systems. I do not blame Members of Congress, but somehow or other there gets to be a level beyond which salaries cannot rise and it is hard. It is a hard problem.

Mr. Chairman, I brought a man down to Washington to do a warehousing job for the Department of Agriculture when it had to try to take care of $1,400 million worth of commodities scattered all over the earth, after the Armed Forces got through with it.

a vice president of Marshall Field, now Governor of the State of North Carolina, Luther Hodges. He spent 6 months here and said, "I've got it all solved. Here are the qualifications of the men you want. You must pay them at least $50,000." I said, "You must be crazy." He said, "Well, Marshall Field pays its men $17,000 who look after $20 million. This man will look after 70 times as much. $50,000 would be a low salary."

You know that I would not be foolish enough to try to get as much as Marshall Field paid their men. I have been worried a lot about this salary question, if you get shifted to where these universities are not able to pay a reasonable sum for the amount of talent they need.

I do not want to ask you too many questions because I realize the difficulty of your situation, just having come from Livermore, but if there is any way that you can urge that AEC is allowed to go onto some of this nuclear propulsion work, I would be happy to have you do that. Dr. YORK. Well, I would, too. I will urge anywhere that I can that the relationship between Los Alamos, Livermore, and the Agency with regard to Rover and Pluto be left where it is, whatever may happen to the nonnuclear components of the project. I do not think that I am arguing with anybody when I say that.

Senator ANDERSON. I feel better already. I recognize you are supposed to stay within the recommendations that have been made.

NUCLEAR AND CHEMICAL PROPULSIONS

Do you think that adequate plans are being made for development of nuclear propulsion now?

Dr. YORK. Well, I think that it is somewhere near adequate. I do not really agree with the statement that you cannot put a man on the moon and get him back with chemical rockets. I think nuclear rockets are important because they can do it better and represent, so to speak, the road to the future. It is something that is coming and when it comes it will be a better way to do it; but I do not agree that you cannot do it with chemical rockets.

Senator ANDERSON. Well, I do not want to get into an argument. Dr. YORK. You see, I am enthusiastic about both chemical and nuclear rocks. I think they can each do it. Nuclear rockets will eventually be able to do it better, but it can be done with chemical rockets.

Senator ANDERSON. The problem of takeoff and landing-where we have no atmosphere-would certainly present a problem to chemical rockets, would it not?

Dr. YORK. It would present a problem to any rocket.

Senator ANDERSON. I have a feeling that a great many scientists have pretty strong convictions that nuclear propulsion will be necessary in the long run.

Dr. YORK. In the long run it will be a much superior method. It depends on what you mean by "necessary." I do not believe it is necessary in order to get men to the moon and back. It is more

difficult in the case of Mars, but I also believe you can get men out there and back with chemical fuels but it will be better and easier to do when nuclear energy is available for rockets, bigger payloads and so forth—more flexibility.

Senator ANDERSON. We had a discussion this morning about a space platform. Would you try to put up a space platform without specific impulse that comes from nuclear propulsion?

Dr. YORK. Yes, sir, I would.

Senator ANDERSON. You would? Well, you are an optimist.

Dr. YORK. I do not think I am being optimistic. I think I am just being enthusiastic.

Senator ANDERSON. I cannot draw the line between the two. I thank you for your testimony.

Senator JOHNSON. Senator Bricker?

POSSIBLE UNDUE RESTRICTIONS ON THE MILITARY

Senator BRICKER. Do you think that the terms of this bill are too restrictive on the military?

Dr. YORK. Well, again, as I said before, I am not an expert on how to read these bills and not an expert on how other people would read them. I am anxious, though, that whatever it says be said in such a way as not to limit the military to work on just well-defined military programs.

Senator BRICKER. If the terms of the bill would not necessarily restrict the military, could the operation of the new agency under this bill, do you think, unduly restrict military responsibilities?

Dr. YORK. I do not think they intend to and I do not know enough now to make legal interpretations of this bill, to be sure. I am anxious that it be written in such a way-that the experts write it in such a way-that it does not limit the military to working just on things that are for well-defined military departments.

Senator BRICKER. Do you think there ought to be an expression in the bill definitely giving military authority full responsibility in the field of defense?

Dr. YORK. If that is necessary in order to enable the Department of Defense to work unencumbered on what it regards as its problems, yes.

Senator BRICKER. Regardless of what the Director or Advisory Board might decide in the matter?

Dr. YORK. I think it is necessary for the Department of Defense to be able to go ahead with programs that it believes have a reasonable chance of fulfilling military ends; that it should be allowed to go ahead with these programs without having a civilian agency say yes or no. But I do not know what language it should be. I am only concerned that when it is all written and when it says what it is going to say