Dr. REICHELDERFER. We are aware of this. Mr. THOMAS. You are going to beat Dr. Webb down and make him get the prices right to you? Dr. REICHELDERFER. We have a pretty good reputation for being tough traders on things of this kind, Mr. Chairman. Mr. THOMAS. Gentlemen, do you have any questions? ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL REQUESTED Mr. ROONEY. How many additional employees are involved in this? I note that at one point you say 29 and then at another, 200. Dr. REICHELDERFER. The amount is $292,000 and may I ask for some help on this? Mr. GLEITER. It is 50 positions, Mr. Rooney, and the amount is $292,000 for salaries. Mr. ROONEY. Then you have 29 at page WB-1. I suppose that means the average number although the number involved in this estimate is 29? Mr. GLEITER. Yes, sir. That is the average employment or manyears for those 50 people working, and that would be 29 man-years. Mr. ROONEY. That is all. Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Boland? Mr. BOLAND. You are going to spend an average of $60 million for the next 5 years, including this supplemental, under this plan for an operational system? Dr. REICHELDERFER. That is correct. NASA FACILITIES AT FAIRBANKS Mr. BOLAND. Has NASA already started construction of facilities at Fairbanks? Dr. REICHELDERFER. Yes. Mr. BOLAND. When do you anticipate this will be ready? Mr. JOHNSON. We anticipate about a year from now. Mr. BOLAND. When this is completed, it will be somewhat the same type of facility you will have in your command and data acquisition facility? Dr. REICHELDERFER. We have threshed this out pretty carefully. This does represent a large increase but NASA assures us that the volume of material that will be coming in from satellites from their own research and development satellites will completely flood their facilities and if we want continuous read-out, as we need, we will have to provide it under this plan. Mr. BOLAND. NASA will be getting information from different types of satellites? Dr. REICHELDERFER. Communication satellites and other satellites. TIROS IN ORBIT Mr. JENSEN. How many TIROS are in orbit now? Dr. REICHELDERFER. All three are up there. We are getting good returns only from TIROS III, but up until a short time ago they could interpret from TIROS II. They discontinued it because they were getting better results from TIROS III. Mr. JENSEN. TIROS III is an improvement over TIROS I and TIROS II? Dr. REICHELDERFER. Basically, it is the same. There have been some improvements and the TIROS III has two wide-angle lenses and no narrow-angle lens. Mr. JENSEN. Are they all the same size? Dr. REICHELDERFER. The spacecraft are all essentially the same size, but there is a littler heavier weight on TIROS III. Mr. JENSEN. They cost a pretty penny, even though they are small. I remember we had one here in the committee room and I saw them and I was quite surprised to see how small they were. It is a great instrument and there is no question about that. Are you making improvements? Dr. REICHELDERFER. Constantly, yes. Of course, the TIROS itself will not be modified much more because the planning is to go to NIMBUS and then to the AEROS type and they will be advanced. They will be more sophisticated and have better equipment. Mr. JENSEN. What will be the life of those improved satellites? Dr. REICHELDERFER. Approximately 6 months. We have had a windfall on meteorological satellites. They have all lasted much longer than they were designed to last. We have hopes, and good reason for these hopes, that it will not be long before they will last a year and perhaps longer. Mr. JENSEN. The reason I asked those questions is because you expect them to last a year and yet you will ask each session of Congress to appropriate additional funds for the TIROS satellite; is that right? Can we expect that? Dr. REICHELDERFER. We will go to NIMBUS satellites in 1963. Mr. JENSEN. What will the NIMBUS do? How long will that last? Dr. REICHELDERFER. The same as TIROS or perhaps better. Mr. JENSEN. This is sort of an everlasting program that will be with us from now on, I presume, and we can expect to be confronted with these large appropriation requests for time immemorial. CONSIDERATION GIVEN TO REDUCTION OF COSTS Doctor, what consideration have you given to trying to hold down the cost of your Administration? If you were to sit on this side of the table, as we 50 members of the Appropriations Committee do, and were constantly barraged by requests to spend these billions upon billions of dollars, you would possibly be more concerned than you are about the fiscal condition of this great land of ours. Now you come here with this good program and there is no question about it, and there is no doubt you are going to get most of the money you want because it has a bearing on our security and national defense. We do not do too much trimming on that phase of the program, but here you come now and ask for 50 new people. This is already costing the taxpayers of America something like $14 billion just to be governed from Washington, D.C., and that ain't hay. Where is it all going to end? How are the taxpayers of America going to shoulder this burden without rank inflation and possibly bankruptcy and everything else that every nation in the world has come to that went the full road of a spending spree, which we have been traveling at breakneck speed for about three decades now? We are not much smarter than the rest of these nations that went to the bottom and that is where we are going to land, just as sure as we are sitting here, God forbid, but you gentlemen spending this money are just going to have to try to save a thousand dollars here, a thousand dollars there, and a million or even 10 million there. You are public servants, just like we are. We are all in the same boat and in any economic storm we will go down together or we will survive, one of the two. How can this Committee on Appropriations consisting of 50 members continue to spend the taxpayers' money at the rate we have been spending it and still be justified in doing it? On our shoulders rest the future of this Nation and you are part of it. Can you not go through your budget request items and tell us, off the record if you want to, where we can save a thousand dollars or a million dollars, or 10 cents? Could you not do that before we mark up this bill? Surely you could find someplace where you could save a little? Do you have any answer to that? Dr. REICHELDERFER. We will be very glad to reexamine it and while I certainly can see nothing that will in any sense ease the problem that rests on the shoulders of Congress and Americans in general, I think that, if I may say so, you might be surprised, Mr. Congressman, how often I talk to our staff in much the same words you used. I am sure that what we have heard from you sounds rather familiar to them. I have no answer to your question but we will certainly reexamine, and I think the figures we have given you are conservative. We have tried to make them so. We were reviewed by various Departments, but it is always possible to take another look. Mr. JENSEN. Let me say in closing that this is one of the things that we, as laymen, hesitate to decrease a budget request for. If we make a cut in this request, we will do so in the dark, so to speak, by just saying we cannot spend this much money; "We will cut you $10 million and let you get along as best you can." This is not good business and that is not a good way to legislate, but there are times we have to do that. My request to you is to see if you cannot come up with a figure that is less than the money you are asking for now. I am quite sure that if you do not, this committee is going to take a figure right out of the blue sky and say that you will have to get along with that. We cannot afford the full amount under present fiscal circumstances. Dr. REICHELDERFER. In our discussions of this with NASA and with the Department of Defense, they have been inclined to feel, their representatives, that our estimates are too conservative. Mr. JENSEN. Yes, we hear that. That is the old story and every Department says it has cut to the bone and cannot cut any more. They say if we cut it any more, why the Nation will fall and we will have all of the misery and strife you could imagine in this country of ours. I am not going to listen much to that any more. Dr. REICHELDERFER. This does have a very strong international implication as the President said when he transmitted this information. The United States is ahead in satellites in meteorology and this is quite important. We have a chance to keep the lead. Mr. JENSEN. I do not question that at all. I know it is important. COUNTRIES TO WHICH INFORMATION IS PROVIDED Dr. REICHELDERFER. And provide information for peaceful use for all countries. It does have tremendous practical application. Mr. JENSEN. You say all countries? You are not giving this to the Iron Curtain countries? Are they getting this as time goes on? Dr. REICHELDERFER. It would be rather difficult to give it to the countries we want to aid and still keep it from some other countries, but I can assure you we do not lose sight of the fact we need to look out for ourselves with respect to national security. Mr. Bow. Would you yield to me? Mr. JENSEN. I am through. Mr. Bow. I was a little concerned about this icepack you were talking about a while ago when you said submarines working in the ice pack could be identified. Would this information go out to other countries, other than our own? Dr. REICHELDERFER. The information as it is given now, that is, the photographs of storms at sea Mr. Bow. I am talking about the icepack in the polar region. Dr. REICHELDERFER. We have control of the readout and that can be kept for our own use. TIROS cannot "see" ships and other objects of that size but it can photograph clear areas in the arctic ice which can facilitate ship and submarine navigation. Mr. Bow. Would it be kept for our own use? Dr. REICHELDERFER. Certainly, if it is Mr. Bow. That is a pretty strategic area you got into there? Dr. REICHELDERFER. If it has strategic value, certainly. Mr. Bow. Who is going to make that determination? Dr. REICHELDERFER. We are in effect the agent of the Department of Defense in meteorological satellites and anything they say that is necessary for national security, certainly we are part of the team. SUPERGRADES Mr. Bow. How many supergrades do you have in the program now? Dr. REICHELDERFER. Seven in the estimates. I should add, however, that while provision is made for funding of seven scientific and professional positions under Public Law 313, we do lack, at the present time, basic legislation authorizing these additional jobs and unless proposed legislation is enacted, the Bureau will have to obtain the |