Caltech-JPL Collaboration

Caltech-JPL Collaboration Ever since it was launched by GALCIT's experiments with rocketry in the late 1930s, the Jer Propulsion Laboratory has been clostly tied to (altech. Offcially managed by Caltech-hirst for the Army, and since 1959 for NASA-JPL is the only one of NASA's nine centers to be operated by a university. Both in the titties and again in the eighties, the Lab's relarionship to defense has nade some Caltech faculty nervous. and questions abour the common ground between the two institutions have occasionally surtaced on both sides. But the connection has endured and, especially of late, prospered Separated by only a few miles of frecway. the popularions share a significant amount of over-lap. JPL has always recruited intensively from its neighbor and employs the largest number of Cal-rech alumni of any company or university. Several JPL staffers hold joint appointments on campus: grad students are increasingly discovering research opportunities "up the hill; and SURF (Summer Undergraduare Research Fellou-ship) students are pursuing more and more projects there. One )Pl staff member. who is also a visiting associate at Caltech (and whose husband works at JPL), notes that the Calrech-JPL connection is also cemented in what is probably an unusually large number of marriages. The incompatibilities that do arise berween the two institutions are more of a "cultural" nature. Caltech is a private educational und rescarch instirution. and JPL is an enginetting organization funded by the government: Carver Mead once callec it the big gray machine that builds things." Building things that scientists need is what PL does well. and most offen chose are big things that demand more organization and more layers of management than Cal-rech scientists art used ro. Bur when interests converge. the different strengths of the two insti-rutions are complementary. It is not surprising that when matching the interests of JPL and campus, here's not a complete masch." says Lew Allen. JPl's director since 1982, who will retire in December. "There tre areas where the interests overlap and areas where they do not." But he believes that the former are much more numerous and intensive than they have been in the past. Allen points to the increased emphasis at JPL on particular areas of basic technology that have relevance to the Lab's primary mission of space exploration, bur are also complementary o basic research in science. Laboratory and a number of very productive interactions with campus research." Some of seed money from the JPL director's discretionary fund. are described in the articles in this issue of EGS