Ramsey and Higgins to Help Plan Future Space Projects for NASA

Two Harvard professors will help decide how to run America's giant space projects of the 1970's and 80's.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has named, Nerman F. Ramsey, professor of Physics and Lee Goldberg '84, Higgins Professor of Astronomy to a 13-man committee of noted scientists from eight universities.

The committee, which Ramsey will chair, will help NASA devise procedures to coordinate the activities of scientists who will work on future space programs.

The increased scope of these future programs will make it possible for a large number of scientists from many countries to participate, and the committee will seek ways to ensure that all the scientists will be able to use new facilities, including orbiting labe and observatories, without interfering with each other's work. Such formal coordination has not been necessary in the past because of the limited size of the space programs.

The idea for Ramsey's committee grew out of the recommendation of a group of scientists who met at NASA's request last summer to discuss the problems involved in long-range space projects.

During World War II Ramsey helped in the development of radar and worked on the atomic project at Los Alamos. He was appointed as NATO's first scientific advisor in 1958. Goldberg is on the staff of the Smithsonian observatory and is scientific advisor to the Defense Dept.