September 26, 1960
Memo to File

Discussion over luncheon on Stanford Space Program with Dry Seifert.

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Seifert has taken over from Mike Villard as chairman of the dormant
coordinating committee on Space Research and is interested in views on the
direction we might go. Even before | could put the point, he had raised the
query about teaching in astronomy; | don't think he had had in mind as ambitious
a departmental program as I did as his focus is almost entirely in engineering
training. | did try to stress the kinds of points that Kuiper has been making
and it appears that he would be a worthwhile target for some education on the
relative significance of ground based research. 1! will have written to Derbyshire
and to Kuiper to try to get some propaganda to him.

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The other point | tried to press for was that the central activity in space
science should be the engineering facility while the actual scientific activities
should continue to be part of the customary University structure. I'm not sure
he altogether agrees with this since he has some inclination towards a more
tangible empire. He invited my joining the committee to help work out some of
these views.

| would be interested in exploring the possibility of having Kuiper himself

come here to set up his planetary observatory in this area. Perhaps in some
collaboration with Lick.