President's page: Basic research—Another Appalachia

The average layman cannnot help but be impressed by the number and completeness of the reports prepared under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences dealing with recommended research programs in space exploration, meteorology, oceanography, solid Earth geophysics, hydrology, etc. Although he may never have seen one of these reports, his attention is drawn to them by newspaper stories, press releases, TV coverage of congressional hearings on science, and figures released by the Bureau of the Budget showing the amount of money that is going into research and development in the various departments of the government. This average citizen, who is also a taxpayer, may feel some twinge of economic concern about what he considers rather handsome support for science. However, he rationalizes that such expenditures are necessary if the United States is to keep ahead of the Russians, or because he feels the United States must retain its world leadership in science as well as in number of telephones and flush toilets. He fails to realize, however, that very little of the national, budget is actually given to the support of basic research and that most of the money labeled ‘R” and ‘D” in the national budget is for applied, mission-oriented research and is handled for the most part as ‘in-house” programs of government laboratories either with their own staff or on a contract basis with industry.