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 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 Biosatellite 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. 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 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 |