2101 CONSTITUTION AVENUE CABLE ADDRESS: NARECO
WASHINGTON 25, D. Cc. WASHINGTON, D. C.

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

SPACE SCIENCE BOARD

June 2, 1961

Dr. Joshua Lederberg
Department of Genetics
School of Medicine
Stanford University
Palo Alto, California

Dear Josh:

I have a copy of your 2 May 1961 letter to the Vice President.
Quite independent of this, recently I had a discussion with Lloyd Berkner
in Dallas on a number of topics relating to the Board, Among these,
Berkner raised, as a major area for a fresh look, particularly in the
light of the President's policy position on the objectives of our space
program, the topics of exobiology and contamination (to and fro).

You may perhaps say that you and your committee have already pro-
vided satisfactory recommendations to the government on the above topics.
To this I would respond as follows:

First, a good deal of time has passed; we have a new administration,
and the director of NASA is looking pointedly and specifically to the Board
for help; and even if it turned out that your recommendations would be a
reiteration of what you have said, this would be most important,

Second, in view of the new and heavy commitments made by the President
in the space area, it seems to me that it would be worthwhile to reconsider
the problems before your committee, also following up specifically on the
two policy papers that came out of the last Board meeting ("Man's Role in
the National Space Program" and "Support of Basic Research for Space Science’)
from your point of view. The listing of experiments and their ordering
would be particularly helpful to NASA. In the course of this study you
could get into the Mars question, and you could also get into the problem of
research support (see the last paragraph of your letter to Vice President
Johnson).

May I have your views on the above comments ~- and please call me
collect if a conversation would be helpful.
With kind regards,

Sincerely /yours

J i /
lle ‘phtonbe

Executive Director
cc: Dr. Berkner
Mr. Derbyshire