Singing the Blues at J.P.L

As planetary exploration fades, an Air Force officer takes over

Located in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains outside Los Angeles, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (2,700 scientists and engineers) is famed throughout the world and perhaps beyond. Since the 1958 launch of Explorer I, the first U.S. satellite, it has sent some 40 spacecraft soaring into the cosmos. The J.P.L.'s sophisticated machines, operating on complex instructions stored in silicon brains, have explored every member of the sun's family of planets, from inner-most Mercury to the remote giant Saturn. Even now a J.P.L. robot is speeding toward Uranus, 1.7 billion miles away, for a 1986 photographic reconnaissance.

In spite of its leadership in the exploration of the solar system, however, J.P.L.'s future has seemed cloudy lately. Almost immediately after the Reagan Administration took office, it canceled a joint effort with the Europeans to survey the sun's unexplored polar regions. The U.S. also dropped out of the race to intercept Halley's comet, slated to return in early 1986, leaving direct examination of this primordial chunk of matter to the Soviets, Europeans and Japanese. It placed on hold a plan to put a remote radar-mapping satellite in orbit around Venus, and has delayed until at least 1986 a complex scheme to station a permanent unmanned weather observatory high above the brightly colored clouds of Jupiter. The only mission on J.P.L.'s immediate horizon is an astronomical satellite. To be launched this December, it will look for, among other things, stars in the process of birth.

To carry it through the lean years, J.P.L. has been looking for new ways to employ its engineering talents, including development of fuel-efficient vehicles, solar power and improved biomedical instrumentation. But the most dramatic change has been J.P.L.'s increasing militarization. Much of the work involves secret research for the Air Force on new gadgetry like satellites that can operate without direct guidance from the ground, an enormous asset in possible space wars, when instant responses may mean life or death for a piece of orbiting hardware.

Many civilian scientists find the trend disturbing. Says one: "Some of my colleagues are absolutely paranoid about the Pentagon." These concerns increased last April when J.P.L.'s esteemed civilian director, Geologist Bruce Murray, 50, announced he was stepping down after six years to return to teaching, writing and research. Said he: "I believe in a personal and an institutional renewal."

Last week Caltech, J.P.L.'s parent institution, which operates under contract with NASA, announced Murray's successor: former Air Force Chief of Staff General Lew Allen Jr., 56. The appointment continues a trend to garb the U.S. space program in Air Force blue. Earlier this year Air Force Major General James Abrahamson was put in charge of the shuttle. Former Air Force Secretary Hans Mark is NASA'S deputy administrator, the agency's No. 2 job. And the shuttle wears symbolic wings; through fiscal 1985, a fourth of its missions will be for the Air Force.

While the Reagan Administration is obviously staking a claim to the new military "high ground" of space, so are the Soviets. Three years ago they successfully tested the first "killer satellite," a formidable new bit of weaponry that knocks out other satellites. The U.S. is still trying to catch up with a comparable antisatellite of its own.

Allen, who earned a Ph.D. in nuclear physics from the University of Illinois, has a Pentagon reputation as a talented manager and a shrewd student of advanced weaponry, including nuclear-tipped missiles. But he pledges that he will try to ensure J.P.L.'s leadership in the peaceful study of the universe. Says he: "J.P.L. has done magnificent things in planetary exploration. I intend to seek the support of space scientists and do the best I can to continue that record of achievement." When he takes over from Murray on Oct. 1, J.P.L. space scientists will watch the physicist-general's opening moves as eagerly as they usually eye the heavens.

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