The Naval Research Advisory Committee (NRAC) is assembling panels of senior science and technology experts to carry out three top-level summer studies for the secretary of the Navy, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and the Chief of Naval Research.
NRAC, established by Congress in August 1946, the same year the Office of Naval Research was created, provides authoritative, independent assessments of critical issues facing the Navy and Marine Corps. This year, NRAC studies will explore the application of science and technology for sea basing; modular mission packages for sea frames such as the littoral combat ship, multimission maritime aircraft, and cruise-missile submarines; and naval warfare in the 2015-20 timeframe.
NRAC program director retired Navy Captain Dennis Ryan says the public law that authorized NRAC stipulated that one committee member must be from the medical field. Currently, that slot is filled by Dr. William A. Neal, a pediatric cardiologist at the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center of the University of West Virginia and a former flight surgeon who ejected from a Navy aircraft over the Gulf of Tonkin during the Vietnam War.
Last year, two NRAC panels produced ground-breaking, and frank, appraisals of the science and technology requirements for a Navy electromagnetic gun for future ships and for ForceNet, the concept for an information-management architecture the Navy hopes will support the three warfighting pillars of its "Sea Power 21" strategy. As with all NRAC efforts, the studies were based on extensive discussions with Navy acquisitions and requirements officials, fleet operators, and technologists. The ForceNet study expressed a number of reservations about the Navy's planning for the concept. A third NRAC panel looked at the impact of defense acquisition reform measures on science and technology development efforts.
In addition to the three summer studies, NRAC is organizing a panel to study the potential role of venture capital in supporting Navy science and technology. Captain Ryan says the panel will look at technologies in which the Navy might need to invest for Navy-unique missions because private industry investment will not be available; it also will look at areas where Navy funding probably will not be needed. In addition, the panel will examine future requirements, such as security for shipboard wireless networks, for which reliable technology is not available yet.
Captain Ryan says NRAC's mission is to "understand the problems of the Navy and Marine Corps in order to provide unbiased independent evaluations and studies." The committee's studies aim at identifying technology options to support future operational requirements and encourage affordable innovations in technology. He points out that while the Office of the Chief of Operations relies on input from the Naval Studies Board and support from the Chief of Naval Operations' Executive Panel, NRAC studies provide intellectual firepower on science and technology issues for the Secretary of the Navy-as well as for the Chief of Naval Operations, Commandant of the Marine Corps, and Chief of Naval Research.
Because NRAC's focus is on science and technology, it provides its assessments to the secretary of the Navy through Assistant secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition John J. Young Jr. The NRAC executive committee consists of Young, Chief of Naval Research Rear Admiral Jay Cohen (who acts as NRAC's executive director), Marine Corps Brigadier General William D. Catto, commander of the Marine Corps Systems Command, and NRAC chairman John M. Bachkosky, executive vice president for Defense Group, Inc.
In recent years, NRAC has explored the implications for science and technology for such complex areas as the fielding of an electric naval force, life-cycle technology insertion, optimal ship manning, unmanned vehicles for mine countermeasures, the vulnerability of global positioning navigation systems, ship-to-warfighter logistics, and the interoperability of Navy information technology.
Bachkosky points out that the NRAC studies seek a tight coupling among technology, acquisition practices, and operational doctrine. "It's critical that advocates for technology get the realworld 'buy-in' from operators," he says. He adds that NRAC also evaluates the timing of technology development efforts in terms of acquisition programs that can support them, such as evaluating current opportunities to field an electromagnetic gun, being pursued as the Navy develops the DD(X) land-attack destroyer, which will include an integrated electric-drive power system that could provide the power needed for such guns.