Word: berkner
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Ballet in Orbit. Another scientific faction, typified by Lloyd Berkner, former chairman of the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences, deplores the race-with-Russia aspect of the space program but yearns for the moon just the same. "Human society," says Berkner, "rises out of its lethargy to new levels of productivity only under the stimulus of deeply inspiring and commonly appreciated goals. In the conquest of space, men, ideas and materials are pushed beyond previous limits and capabilities. The seemingly impossible is brought within the range of daily employment...
...distance at which graphic differences become apparent, Leet feels, has been overlooked by scientists who are engaged in detection research for the U.S. government. Because these scientists, who worked on the Berkner Panel and the Air Force's Project Vela Uniform, reasoned that moving their stations closer to the suspicious seismic events would enhance chances of detection, Leet feels "they have missed the forest for the trees...
...crux of Leet's complaint is that the Berkner panel, formed to study the problems of test detection, excluded professional seismologists. They only members of the panel who had any seismological experience were what Leet calls, not derisively but not respectfully, "doodlebuggers,." This is a popular term for seismic prospect seismologists, electronic engineers who use a fraction of the know-how of earthquake seismology. Leet himself is an earthquake station seismologist. His application to work for AFTAC, a unit that presently constitutes the Air Force Vela Uniform test detection project, was turned down on the grounds that Harvard...
...using earthquake station seismologists on a project like this," he explains, "is like revising our measurement system without consulting the Bureau of Standards." Others on the committee included representatives of instrument companies, and one man who, according to Leet, "never took the equivalent of Nat. Sci. 10." Berkner himself is a fairly well-known scientific administrator; he and nuclear physicist Hans Bethe were the only members of the panel not associated with those who were awarded grants by the panel itself (for "further research...
...received something of a political education recently. "The forces that I now realize are operating here are financially powerful. $24,000,000 worth of contracts were awarded to seismology in one year; but not to seismologists...I think I know who is responsible for the composition of the Berkner panel. I know the background and the corporate entanglements. But my personal certainty isn't proof. I'm still digging...