(Sent to all members of Panel No. 2) on Extra Terrestrial Life
Dc. Matthew Messelson
tr. Malcolm D. Ross
Dr. Cat} Sagan
r. Wolf Visnniac
Or Harold F. Weaver August 12, 1960
Prof. Richard E. Lord
Prof. Henry Linscnitz

Mr. Ke w. Davies

Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, California

Dear Mr. Davies:

Thies is to inform you that at a meeting in Washington on August 10
and August 11, the Executive Councll of the Joint Armed Forces-NRC
Committee on Bio-Astronautics took an action for formalizing what
had, in fact, veen accomplished by an order of President D. W. Bronk
of the National Academy of Sciences some months earlier, following

a meeting in Arcadia, California, on June 24 and June 25 of this year.
That action was the dissolution of Panel 2 of this Bio-Astronautics
Committee.

The reason for this is that by order of President Bronk, the National
Academy of Sciences shall have one single representation at all of the
government agencies in the area called bio-astronautics and that this
shall be the Space Science Board. In the Space Science Board a new
committee has been created (Committee 14) entitled Exobiology under
the Chairmanship of Professor Joshua Lederberg of Stanford University,
which will undertake to pursue the same objectives, or very nearly the
same objectives, as those which we in Panel 2 had pursued. I think
you will recognize the wisdom of this action, and will join with me

in supporting the Committee 14 of the Space Science Board in any way
they may see fit to call on us.

In the meantime, let me express the feeling of the Executive Council,
as it made itself apparent at the meeting, that the services of Panel
2 in producing both its Woods Hole report and its various individual
actions since then have been a major factor in the development of both
scientific and public interest in the use of the new vehicles for the
exploration of space. The status cf the exploration of space for pre-
bictic and strange biotic forms as a prime motive in the development of
vehicles and devices has now reached a high level, and we can look for-
ward to such explorations with a real hope that they will provide new
insights both into terrestrial biology and its place in the universe.

My personal thanks to you all, and
Very truly youre,

Chai cms Pas 2

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