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3 CHAPTER 1 Science Policy Defined What Drives U.S. Science Policy? On October 4, 1957, the Soviet launch of Sputnik I sent shock waves around the world—shock waves felt most strongly in the United States, where the news of the launch of the world’s first artificial satellite indicated that the country’s Cold War rival had beaten the United States into space. The result was widespread panic among the American people, a fear that the nation had lost its scientific and technological superiority. At the time of Sputnik, the struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union was more than a chess game, an ideological struggle with science and technology as surrogates for the issues involved. At stake for the United States was a potential nuclear attack and takeover by a Communist nation. Coming on the heels of the McCarthy era, Sputnik produced a climate of near-hysteria, fueled by a sense that there was now an eye in the sky capable of looking down on the United States at will. Perhaps bombs could eventually be released from outer space—weapons against which the country had neither the scientific nor the technological ability to defend itself. More than any other event in U.S. history, the Sputnik crisis focused the attention of the American people and policymakers on the importance of creating government policies in support of science and of education, with the aim of maintaining U.S. scientific, technological, and military superiority over the rest of the world. The year 1958 was a milestone in the history of science policy, as the United States undertook a series of major actions that cemented the foundation for more than half a century of national science policy. A little over a month after the launch, President Eisenhower appointed James R. Killian, president of MIT, to be the first special assistant to the president for science and technology. Killian’s appointment was a sign of the ascension of science to a new position of importance: as his memoir notes, “Only when Jefferson was his own science advisor and Vannevar Bush was advising Franklin Roosevelt during World War II was science so influential in top government councils.”1 Sputnik also led to passage of the Space Act of 1958, which created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA was charged with carrying out the space program and developing long-term aerospace research for civilian and military purposes. That same year, Congress also enacted the National Defense Education Act, which was designed to encourage a new generation of students to pursue degrees in science and engineering. Finally, 1958 saw Eisenhower’s creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)—now known to many as “DARPA”—within the Department of Defense (DOD). ARPA was charged with preventing technological surprises like Sputnik and with developing innovative , high-risk research ideas that held the potential for significant technological payoffs.2 Funding for existing science agencies also increased dramatically during the years immediately following Sputnik. In 1959, Congress increased funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF) to $134 million, from a figure of just $34 million the year before. This explosive growth was characteristic of the entire post-Sputnik era. The NSF’s budget grew from just $3.5 million in its first full year (FY1952) to total funding of $500 million by 1968.3 At the same time, further activities and policies sparked the development of a new university and national labora- 4 | BEYOND SPUTNIK tory system, which would eventually nurture unparalleled scientific growth. Perhaps the first major building block in this structure was a report delivered a dozen years before the Sputnik crisis: Science—the Endless Frontier, prepared by Vannevar Bush. It was requested by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and submitted to President Harry Truman in July 1945.4 This document was the foundation for modern American science policy, and provided the impetus for Truman’s signature on the legislation that created the National Science Foundation. Other major research agencies had been emerging from the late 1940s onward. The Office of Naval Research and the Atomic Energy Commission—the precursor of today’s Department of Energy—were both created in 1946 to channel government sponsorship of major research. The army and the air force created their own research offices in 1951 and 1952, respectively. New health institutes had been created in the late 1940s, including the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Heart Institute, and the National Dental Institute; in 1948...

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