oO STANFORD UNIVERSITY °
Pp Medical Center P
Y Palo Alto, California Y
Department of Genetics November 4, 1960

School of Medicine

Dr. Homer Newell

Chairman, Planetary and

Interplanetary Science Committee
Headquarters, National Aeronautics and
Space Administration

1520 H Street Northwest

Washington 25, D. Cc.

Dear Homer: ¥-]o

The accompanying remarks ,have been contrived with the
great help of a session of the Space Science Board Exobiology
Committee on October 29th and I am submitting them now as
partial response to your request for comment on the Short
Range Program. It should be read as a postscript to the item
marked 8-8 which Dr. Young should be delivering to you.

At the last session of the Committee, you stressed the
importance of the lead times necessary to accomodate scienti-
fic experiments on the appropriate space craft and you par-
ticularly indicated that these times would become longer the
more capable and the more complex the vehicle. In these
circumstances, it seems to me an urgent necessity to proceed
as rapidly as possible with the development of the scientific
hardware, and especially the simpler biological experiments
that have not yet been checked out in space craft environments.
At the present time, it may be possible to meet current schedules
with carefully thought out and well tried designs but it is
obvious that we have no comfortable leeway in time and the
advantage we now have may be dissipated if we are not able to
move promptly on the actual instrumentation. Please let me
know the most effective channels to which these remarks, as
coming from a University scientist outside the administration,
may be directed. I need hardly point out that the Space
Science Board has repeatedly urged the same views. The two
basic exobiology instruments that are ready for implementation
at the present time are (1) a culture device (the "multivator")
which is essentially a test tube rack in which various nutrient

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Dr. Newell -~2-<

media can be accomodated and changes noted. The same basic
device would also be apropos for simple chemical reactions,
and (2) a microscope which can be considered as one of the
lens options available to any photographic system. The basic
ideas behind these instruments are extremely simple and one
foresees little difficulty in their implementation. However,
until they are constructed so as to suit space craft require-
ments, we cannot be sure that considerable development work
may be necessary to prepare any bugs that may develop. Mean-
while, in laboratories like my own, further work can be done
with an aim to improving the sophistication of these instru-
ments and making them more incisive for specific experimental
goals. For example, we hope to investigate the potential use
of microscopic spectrophotometry for the characterization of
individual particles. If these efforts show the feasibility
of such an instrument, it can be built on to the basic micro-
scope just described. However, it would be rather risky to
stake the early success of a program in exobiological explora-
tion on the outcome of these trials and the basic microscope
alone can be expected to furnish a substantial yield of
useful data.

It should be obvious that in the course of time, our
plans are bound to shift. Some programs will slip and the
schedules have to be set back; on the other hand, we may
suddenly observe unexpected opportunities. Again, in order
to cope with the eventualities in a reasonable and effective
way, it is absolutely essential that we have ready a reper-
toire of basic experimental devices for use in biological
as well as in physical observation.

Looking forward to seeing you at the meeting on
November 15,

Yours sincerely,

/s/
Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics