The U. S. Navy’s activities in science stem naturally from the fact that the Navy is a 3-dimensional service, operating not only on the sea, but in the depths below, the air above, and on the land bordering the sea. We are interested in virtually every scientific development and every environment, whether it be at the poles of the earth or in outer space. We are also vitally concerned with the health and alertness of the men who must operate the complex equipment of our modern Navy— more and more in new and unnatural surroundings.
The range of scientific interest of the Navy includes the upper atmosphere and space, supersonic flight, oceanography, radio astronomy, metallurgy, psychology, physiology, and all of the physical sciences. The Navy explores problems in the oldest and newest fields of science. Our research and development work paves the way for construction of the world’s largest machines (such as the 80,000- ton nuclear carrier Enterprise) and the smallest electronic devices. The objective of this program is to exploit science to provide the most effective national defense that this nation can afford. By stimulating scientific efforts, the Navy and the other military services can harvest the resulting new ideas and developments for use in our new weapons and equipments.
At the same time, this new knowledge has an impact on American life that goes far beyond military applications. Scientific discoveries that lead to new military weapons inevitably accelerate the nation’s peacetime progress. In fact, it would be almost impossible to sort the military from the civilian applications of many of the major scientific discoveries made through naval research.
A large segment of the Navy’s efforts in research and development is carried on in its in- house laboratories and facilities. This in-house complex has been gradually built up over the past 50 years and today represents a capability that is unique in this country, if not in the world. Along with these facilities, the Navy has also built up its scientific manpower resources to staff this laboratory system. Outstanding scientists and engineers are hard at work in these activities to provide the Navy with the most effective and advanced systems that can be produced.
The Navy’s complex of in-house laboratories and field activities is composed of 34 principal Navy-owned and operated activities and eight Navy-owned, contractor- operated, facilities. These activities employ almost 50,000 civilian and military personnel and spend over one-half billion dollars each year in performing their missions.
At times, the Navy in-house laboratory system has been criticized by various groups, both in industry and in government. Industry clamors that we are competing with commercial enterprise and that they can do the job performed by these laboratories and field activities. In other instances, Congress has complained that the size of our shore establishment is too large.
The special contribution of Navy laboratories and facilities is that they perform research and development work which is directed toward the solution of problems of interest to the Navy. The products and byproducts of these efforts eventually go to the American people. Navy scientists and engineers, and the naval officers working with them, are keenly aware of today’s technological “explosion” and are busy using this technology to develop weapons and components for the special needs of naval forces. These laboratories are equipped with a wide variety of facilities and equipment, most of which are unique, and not duplicated elsewhere in the nation.
Many of the Navy laboratories are geared to a special mission, or a series of related missions, such as the development of shipboard electronic devices, ship propulsion systems, limited war ordnance, ship-launched missile systems or advanced ship designs. One of the basic reasons for this specialization is that the Navy must take its vehicles, weapons systems and equipment to sea.
The engineers who develop a new type of missile or weapon system must also consider the ship or plane which carries and controls it, the integration of this system with other fleet weapons, the ability of shipboard personnel to operate and maintain it, the environment in which it will be used, and the warhead which will be used to make the kill.
Almost without exception the new weapons and equipment designed and developed by Navy laboratories are produced for fleet use by industry through the competitive bidding process. With this procedure, we are able to insure that weapons and equipment are designed carefully to the needs of the Navy and that the industrial might of the country is used in the production phase.
None of the Navy laboratories is an individual, isolated unit, but rather each is a part of the fabric of one vast research and development organization. All of the resources of this organization are freely available to the research scientist or engineer working at any one of the laboratories. The broad exchange of scientific information, data, methods, and results is routine and is encouraged to prevent duplication of effort.
Out of this environment flows a wealth of new ideas and applications that contribute strongly to peacetime progress and the welfare of the nation. At the thermionics laboratory of the Naval Engineering Experiment Station at Annapolis, for example, scientists are investigating the properties of semi-conductors for silent power generation and refrigeration. This effort will contribute to the development of new energy sources and methods of energy conversion, such as the use of nuclear-powered thermoelectric power units or the application of thermionics to shipboard food refrigeration, or air conditioning of Polaris submarines. The giant white box that now takes up valuable space in the kitchen may some day be replaced by small, efficient, silent, built-in units.
Another by-product of naval research will be slimmer, and more efficient, television sets using flat, transparent TV tubes developed to simplify the instrument panels of aircraft cockpits. It was the discovery at a naval research laboratory of transparent phosphors which made this development possible. The new picture tube is so flat and transparent that it can be used as part of an aircraft windshield.
American industry has been a major partner in the Navy’s research and development efforts by serving as a middleman between the Navy scientist and the final useful product. Industry must produce in quantity the new developments that spring from research. As research and development makes possible new weapons and products, new and flourishing industries have been brought into existence to produce these articles. Furthermore, industry is able to translate into civilian commodities military developments which have been tested and proven in military use. Whether it is a transistor radio or a thermoelectric refrigerator, a greaseless frying pan or a compact business computer, a polyethylene plastic bag or a high speed hydrofoil ship, the new products pouring into the mainstream of American life to give us more comfort and convenience are, in large part, the result of military, and in particular naval, research and development.
One of the significant features of Navy in- house laboratories is a recognition that a laboratory’s mission cannot be accomplished unless it can obtain and hold a civilian technical staff of the highest caliber. To achieve this end, a policy was promulgated as early as 1946 that spelled out the objective of providing a working environment, “comparable to that found in major academic and industrial research and development centers.” Civilian scientists are officially encouraged to engage in a certain amount of exploratory and foundational research—terms used to describe projects originated by the staff as a result of their own interest in investigating certain problems in contrast to projects or programs assigned to meet current operational needs. These laboratory-initiated projects can be in the area of either basic or applied research. A moderate percentage of the laboratory’s budget is allotted for this purpose.
Although much of the work in this category may have no apparent immediate application, it frequently turns out to be extremely useful at a later date. One of its main benefits is that it builds up an available store of ideas, knowledge, and techniques which can be readily applied to future problems and research tasks.
Another significant feature of Navy laboratories is that naval officers assigned to duty there are completely integrated with the permanent staff of civilian scientists. The top- ranking civilian post at all major Navy laboratories is the chief scientist, who may also be called the Technical Director or the Director of Research. He is directly responsible to the Commanding Officer, who is usually a captain, and is delegated control of research, development and testing activities, including the conduct of research.
Special administrative techniques have been developed to maintain a smooth military-civilian relationship. For example, at the Naval Ordnance Test Station, China Lake, California, which has been a proving ground for pioneering Navy laboratory policy and management practices, all administrative policy and procedures for the operation of the laboratory are devised by a group chaired by the Commanding Officer and including the Technical Director and Research Board as members. This latter group is made up largely of the civilian department heads of the research and development departments, but also includes military officers.
The role of military personnel assigned to the laboratory is to provide, “the necessary knowledge of operating conditions plus the administration required to make the laboratory a part of the Naval Establishment in the broadest sense.” In regard to the military role of contributing operating knowledge, the civilian scientists recognize that their work requires the collaborative help of operations experts and that these are almost entirely naval officers. Their primary job, performed in close collaboration with the civilian operations research group, is to develop operations sophistication in the technical staff to insure that the development of naval technology runs parallel with operational objectives.
A third major feature of Navy policy in operating in-house laboratories is, where possible, to gather all the elements of a scientific laboratory at one location. These would range from the fundamental scientist concerned with exploring new theories to the engineers and technicians who actually build and operate the complex hardware capable of testing new ideas and advanced concepts.
The close proximity and combination of such skills and talents in one place, together with the blending of civilian scientific research brains with military operations know-how, have proven their worth in emergency situations. As a result, following the outbreak of the Korean conflict, a series of advanced weapons was produced with remarkable speed.
In one case, faced with a request to produce a new antitank air-to-ground rocket on an emergency basis, the naval ordnance test station, China Lake designed and developed a rocket with a special shaped-charge head and a delay fuze and then completed pilot production of the first 200 rounds, all in a total of 29 days. Less than three months later, about 5,000 additional rounds, procured mainly from industrial sources, had been shipped, and a model suitable for mass production by industry had been developed.
In almost every case where a naval laboratory has developed a product to meet a unique Navy need, something new has eventually found its way to the public market place. The Navy has special requirements for lubricants which do not break down in the environmental extremes in which the fleet operates, ranging from the polar seas to the equator. In their broad research program, the Naval Research Laboratory investigated the fundamental principles affecting the movement of molecules in lubricants. Navy scientists learned that the answer was a dry-film lubricant.
It turned out that DuPont had developed a new polymer known as Teflon which could be used for this purpose. Laboratory research then showed how Teflon could be applied both as a protective coating and as a lubricant. With this one development, hundreds of fleet lubrication problems were solved and, in addition, the Navy is able to save many hundreds of pounds of weight in grease and fittings in our ships, submarines, and aircraft. Industry has taken over the production and marketing of dry lubricants. This is an interesting example of how the Navy’s special requirements coupled with our in-house research capabilities have resulted in the production and use of a new product by industry.
In the field of nuclear energy, the Navy has made major contributions in the development of this new source of power for both military and peaceful purposes. As the first Government agency to take an active interest in nuclear energy, the Naval Research Laboratory established a project in 1939 that led to an isotope separation process which produced some of the materials for the first atomic bombs. The Navy’s later efforts in the development of nuclear propulsion systems for ships and submarines have opened the way for many peaceful applications of controlled nuclear energy.
The special facilities available at the various Navy laboratories play an important role in the research and development programs of the Navy and provide equipment which non-Government Laboratories either cannot or do not find profitable to maintain.
For example, a major improvement in the performance of the nuclear submarine has been accomplished by one of the world’s unique laboratories, the David Taylor Model Basin, just outside of Washington. This is the principal government facility dedicated to research in naval architecture. The David Taylor Model Basin has the largest deepwater basin in the world where models weighing as much as five tons and measuring up to 32 feet can be tested under realistic conditions. This facility also has a high speed basin nearly 3,000 feet long where models can be towed at speeds up to 60 knots.
Using these unique facilities, the Navy has designed improved hydrodynamic shapes for our atomic submarines. The low drag profile of our most advanced nuclear submarines was developed at the David Taylor Model Basin. The conventionally-powered Albacore was the first successful development of this concept. With its reduced drag and improved maneuverability, this hull form has produced a significant increase in the maximum underwater speed of our modern submarines, giving us the fastest submarines in the world today.
The Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Lake, California, is probably most famous for the development of the Sidewinder air-to-air missile which has been proven in actual combat. This weapon has been so successful that it is not only used by the Navy and the Air Force but by NATO countries and others of our allies. The Naval Ordnance Test Station has also developed, and is developing, many other types of tactical weapons and ordnance for use in limited war situations. The success of these weapons has largely been due to the basic development philosophy used in their design—simplicity, reliability, and low cost. Industry produces these weapons to fill our inventories.
The unusual facilities available at the Naval Ordnance Test Station have contributed measurably to the success of its weapon developments. For example, the Naval Ordnance Test Station has a supersonic research track four miles long which is used for the captive-flight testing of missiles, rockets, or even full-scale airplanes at speeds as high as 3,500 feet per second. The value of this testing track is indicated by the fact that a few years ago British engineers brought a newly developed naval aircraft all the way to China Lake for final tests of its ejection seat equipment before operational use.
The Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory in San Francisco is another of the Navy’s special facilities. This is the only laboratory in the country solely concerned with the defense of men and material against radiation effects. The scientific staff includes many specialists from both the physical , and medical sciences, such' as chemists, physicists, biologists, engineers, medical doctors, physiologists, psychologists, mathematicians, and metallurgists. Here, the special equipment includes a 2,000,000-electron volt Van de Graff accelerator as a primary source of radiation for the experiments.
In connection with this type of work, a new Radiation Exposure Evaluation Laboratory has been established at the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Maryland. This is the first laboratory of its kind in the world and will be used to diagnose and treat people who have been or may have been exposed to radiation and will conduct research in this important field of medicine.
Oceanographic research is obviously of special interest to the Navy. We need a thorough and comprehensive knowledge of the oceans of the world, from the waves on the surface to the contour of the sea floor, to do an effective job in antisubmarine warfare.
Today, we face the possibility of attack by ballistic missiles fired at long range from unfriendly submarines. The solution to the problem of long range detection of submarines has become critical. In addition, as submarines operate at greater and greater depths, it has become important to submarine navigation to have a detailed knowledge of the ocean bottom, which is a vast, hidden subsurface continent.
An important part of the Navy’s efforts in oceanography is to provide the ships for this research. Three Navy ships have been converted for this purpose within the past two years. The Navy is now constructing the first research ship in this country specifically designed and built for oceanographic research.
As part of the Navy’s program in oceanography, the Navy Electronics Laboratory in San Diego has been operating the deep-diving bathyscaph Trieste. This research vehicle has enabled us to study the oceans and the structure of the ocean floor at great depths. On 23 January 1960, Lieutenant Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard piloted the bathyscaph to a depth of 35,800 feet at the bottom of the Challenger Deep. This dive marked the crossing of a new frontier in oceanographic research.
In the field of radio astronomy, the Navy was the first to initiate an extensive program for the construction and operation of large radio telescopes for this new form of scientific research. Radio astronomy has substantially increased our detailed knowledge of the universe. Radio telescopes can detect radio waves emitted by objects in space that may not be visible to our largest optical telescopes. Both navigation and communications are advanced by this research.
A 50-foot radio telescope operated by the Naval Research Laboratory in 1951 was the first to detect radio emissions from Venus, Jupiter, and Mars. The Navy is now constructing in West Virginia the largest steerable radio telescope in the world. Known as the Naval Radio Research Station, the entire facility will cost more than 100 million dollars when it is completed in 1964. It will have an antenna 600 feet in diameter, nearly two and one-half times the size of the Jodrell Bank radio telescope in England, presently the world’s largest. The entire assembly can be rotated 360 degrees on circular railroad tracks and the disk swung from horizontal to vertical.
With this instrument, Navy scientists will be able to expand the exploration of the universe to galaxies and radio sources billions of light years away. Some of the work will be basic research to add to our store of knowledge for the Navy of the future. Some of the work will involve advanced research in communications and navigation. As a bonus, the “big dish” can track deep space probes to much greater distances than is possible with present equipment.
The Navy has already reaped rewards for its early investment in radio astronomy research. In the past, surface navigation has mainly relied on the optical sextant which can be used only when celestial bodies are clearly visible. Radio sextants can be used to obtain a fix 24 hours a day in any type of weather.
Work in the field of radio astronomy has also led to the development of the Navy’s moon relay communications system. With this system, voice transmissions and teletype can be bounced off the moon and sent half way around the world. The moon relay is unaffected by magnetic storms or peculiar ionospheric conditions which may blank out other long range radio systems for several days at a time.
The Navy should be proud of the foresight shown by its leaders in the past who established the basis for a sound scientific program several generations ago. With the coming of World War I, the Navy was the first to recognize the need for a central research organization. In 1915, the Navy turned to Thomas A. Edison, appointing him Chairman of the Naval Consulting Board. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels told Edison that he wanted to set up a “Department of Invention and Development” which could evaluate ideas from both Service and civilian inventors.
Without waiting for congressional authority or appropriation, the Naval Consulting Board set to work to explore the entire range of scientific and technological problems of interest to the Navy. The list included chemistry, physics, aeronautics, internal combustion engines, electricity, weapons of all types, communications, ship construction, steam engineering, navigation, food, and sanitation. From that program developed one of the greatest sources of Navy strength and capability—the tremendous in-house complex of Navy laboratories.
This capability provides the new ideas, the new equipment and the new systems which enable the Navy and this country to maintain a lead in many important fields of technology. Without attempting to intrude into the domains of academic and industrial research, which have their own significant contributions, the in-house Navy laboratory system assures us that our Navy will always be an effective force employing the most modern and effective weapons, and capable of any action which our nation may require. At the same time, the research and development efforts of the Navy laboratories benefit and promote the national welfare, and lay the building blocks for future peacetime progress.