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In T R o d u c T Io n : Th e so u R c e s o f we a p o n s In n o v a T Io n 9
facilities, working in collaboration with industrial contractors, played major roles
in the development of nuclear-powered propulsion systems for submarines and
surface ships, the Sidewinder air-to-air missile, and Polaris, the first submarinelaunched
nuclear missile.
In 1923, the Navy established the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington,
D.C., to pursue a broader and more diversified R&D program independent of
the immediate technical support functions handled by the bureaus. This type of
institution was unique to the Navy; its equivalent did not exist in the Army and
the Air Force. The Navy did, however, establish a contracting unit—the Office
of Naval Research (ONR)—in 1946 to fund academic and industrial research
unrelated to specific weapons requirements. Moreover, ONR served as the
model for the Army and the Air Force, both of which set up similar contracting
organizations—the Army Research Office and the Office of Air Research—to
support long-term research in private-sector institutions. The founding of ONR
(and its counterparts in the Army and the Air Force) also signaled the beginning
of a larger shift of Defense Department resources for R&D from the in-house
service laboratories to outside contractors.
Chapter 4 examines the growth and diversification of the Air Force’s inhouse
R&D facilities after World War II. Because its primary technology
of choice—the airplane—is a more recent innovation, the Air Force has a
history of research and development that lacks the long, deep institutional
legacies found in the Army and the Navy. Originally an organizational
element of the Army, the Air Force did not achieve status as an independent
service until 1947. Prior to separation, research and development had been
dispersed among a diverse group of public and private-sector institutions:
the domestic aircraft manufacturers, the National Advisory Committee
for Aeronautics, the National Bureau of Standards, and the air arm’s own
in-house R&D facilities. Major internal R&D operations were located at
Wright Field in Ohio. After the war, however, the scale of Air Force R&D
grew rapidly to include new electronics and communications programs
at Rome Air Development Center near Syracuse, New York, and the
Cambridge Research Laboratories outside Boston. The Arnold Engineering
Development Center in Tennessee handled testing and development of all
types of aircraft engines and rocket motors, while the evaluation centers at
Edwards (California), Kirtland (New Mexico), Holloman (New Mexico), and
Patrick (Florida) Air Force bases supported similar functions on complete
aircraft and ballistic missile delivery systems. In addition to supporting these
ongoing technical activities, the Air Force laboratories also diversified—both
internally and through external contracts—into more speculative fields of
science and technology, such as artificial intelligence and laser and particlebeam
weapons.
Finally, it is necessary to include a brief note on the source materials and the
research methodology used to produce this monograph. There is no synthetic
history of research and development in the Department of Defense or in the
individual military services during the Cold War. The published secondary
literature, most of which is cited in the chapters that follow, focuses on specific