By Geoff Fein
The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is trying to balance a vast number of science and technology efforts from looking at problems that need an immediate solution, to trying to determine what the future holds for the Navy, all while determining how best to invest its scare funds, according to a Navy official.
But ONR has been very fortunate, Walter Jones, executive director, told Defense Daily in a recent interview.
“We have pretty stable science and technology (S&T) budgets. The good news for us and the Navy…is that the S&T investment had stayed pretty darn constant. That’s because we have very visionary Navy leadership right now, particularly CNO Adm. [Gary] Roughead,” Jones noted.
“He is looking to us to really to figure out what we need to be investing in for 10, 15, 20 years down the road. It’s thanks to his support that the S&T budget is constant,” Jones added.
ONR’s budget isn’t doubling, he pointed out. “You read that this budget is going to double or that budget is going to double…we are not going to double.”
What ONR does have though is consistency, Jones said. “We are very fortunate to have that in Naval S&T investing.”
ONR has begun an effort to compress that time it takes to get an innovative idea to the point where Jones can even begin talking with a program manager.
“Some things turn over faster than others. Ship systems, a new material for a ship…it takes years of testing and development to get it ready to go,” Jones said. “For information systems, we don’t have that luxury because [technology] is turning so quickly. Fortunately S&T can turn quickly as well and a lot less money can develop some new software for an information gizmo than it takes to buy a big system for a ship.”
Forty percent of ONR’s funding goes toward discovery and invention…basic research, Jones added.
“Early and applied research…that’s still where there is no unique military application in sight. It’s good fundamental investment in materials and propulsion, oceanography, all the different fields that you’d expect us to invest in,” he said. “That’s a lot of our budget in programs for which there’s not obvious unique application, but a lot of potential application that’s not tied directly to any one system. Other parts of our budget are more closely tied to systems…that’s the improved corrosion materials for ships, or improved ISR systems, things that have a military customer that’s obvious.”
Another 30 percent of ONR’s budget goes toward efforts that might take three to five years to develop, at which point it will be ready to go, Jones said.
“For those programs, we work very closely with those program managers doing those systems because if we are going to develop this for another three to five years…will [they] plan for it and be ready to insert it into [their] program at that time,” he said.
ONR also works very closely with deployed sailors and Marines, often times to find a solution to an existing problem, for example Jones pointed to improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
“We have a Master Chief Petty Officer that manages a program called tech solutions. It’s a fairly small part of our budget, about 10 percent,” he said. “If a sailor or Marine sees a problem they call us. We’ll talk to them to see if we can sort out what the real issues are, and then try to get something out there very quickly…six to nine months typically.”
Jones points out this is not long-term research.
“This is the advantage of having a building full of smart people investing in a broad range of S&T all the time, because they see that problem come in and they say, ‘wow I looked at a technology three weeks ago that if I put it together with this technology we could make headway in that problem,'” he said. “You don’t have time to do a long-term research program, but you do have time if you’ve got some smart people you can put on it to put together few technologies that already exist and get them out there very quickly and help guys solve a problem.”
Jones acknowledged that ONR can’t do many of these efforts because of the limited budgets, but for sailors and Marines in the field, anything that can be done to help solve a problem is a godsend. “We really value that.”
“Again it’s about 10 percent of our budget for those kind of problems, but it says to the warfighter, S&T can help with your problem as well as worrying about the next big thing coming down the road,” Jones added. “Our challenge is to balance the program among those really short- term needs…to problems that are 20 to 30 years down the road that we don’t even know about yet.