Research Required to Support Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Monitoring (1997)

On September 2, 1959, the Department of Defense (DoD) initiated a research program to improve national capabilities to detect, identify, and determine characteristics of foreign nuclear explosions in response to the 1959 Berkner panel report, with funding made available to the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). A few weeks later ARPA order Number 102 was signed, funding the U.S. Air Force for research in nuclear test monitoring technologies. This initiated the VELA program, which had the goals of lowering the detection threshold, developing effective identification criteria, and developing On-Site Inspection techniques with the associated goal of improving the seismic location accuracy (Romney, 1985). Efforts to achieve those goals, driven to ever more demanding levels by ensuing nuclear testing treaties, have continued to the present, although the formal involvement of ARPA in the research effort terminated with a DoD restructuring in 1996.

There were substantial research and development programs in multiple disciplines from 1959 on, including deployment of VELA satellites and research on On-Site Inspection, tunneling technology, and other areas. In recent years, CTBT-related budgets have primarily supported seismic and satellite monitoring. Since satellite monitoring is outside the scope of the panel's report, this appendix will focus on the support for seismic monitoring. Prior to 1970 there were large expenses involved in the deployment and operation of seismic arrays (e.g., the Large Aperture Seismic Array (LASA), VELA arrays, NORSAR, WWSSN), and the cumulative spending on seismology during this period was $202 million (not corrected for inflation). For ensuing years, the ARPA seismological fundamental research and seismic array development budgets (apart from operations at AFTAC) are given in Table B.1

Up until 1983, ARPA-funded portions of the budgets that went to universities were at levels of around $6 million per year. The Air Force provided AFOSR with about $0.5 million per year of additional funds. From 1983 on 1990, ARPA funding for fundamental research was administered by the predecessor to the Air Force Phillips Laboratory (AFPL), with an increasing percentage of the ARPA budget being used to develop regional arrays and establish computer facilities at the Center for Seismic Studies (CSS). Ultimately, the CSS evolved into the prototype-IDC.

The distribution of funding among basic, applied, and systems development activities has varied during the past few years. In 1990, Congress withdrew funds from ARPA in order to

establish the Air Force 6.1 program administered by AFOSR for ''a university based research program." This program provided funding for university seismological research from 1991 to 1996. During this period the majority of the remaining ARPA budget was focused on development of the prototype IDC, including computer and communications systems development, software automation, and operational software development.

The AFOSR program used a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) procedure for soliciting proposals on a range of seismological research problems. From 1993 to 1996 $3.3 million per year of grants or contracts were issued by the 6.1 program with $0.5 to 0.9 million per year provided to the AFPL to partially support an internal research effort in seismology. The AFOSR program used proposal peer review and relevance reviews by AFTAC and ARPA, with funding decisions based on a combination of value and relevance. Funding for this program was unstable, with annual budget difficulties, and many leading seismologists chose not to participate; however, 57 grants or contracts were issued. This program bolstered university involvement in CTBT-relevant research, which had diminished significantly as ARPA focused effort on systems development. Research activities conducted by universities under the AFOSR program included research on regional distance seismograms; elastic and anelastic structure in Eurasia, Africa, the Middle East, and South America; characteristics of Lg propagation; basic wave propagation theory for calculation of regional high-frequency phases; source radiation effects in anisotropic media; three-component waveform analysis; and numerous other topics relevant to CTBT research. High priority was given to discrimination and location research, moderate priority to magnitude estimation, and relatively low priority to detection and regionalization efforts.

The function of transitioning research developments from the basic (6.1) research program to the operational regime was tasked to the 6.2 program at AFPL. By FY 1996 the AFPL program involved eight civil servants and seven on-site contractors performing directed research efforts. The AFPL budget, mainly for external contracting, was provided by AFOSR, AFPL, AFTAC, ARPA, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), the State Department, and the Department of Energy (DOE). The FY 1995 budget for AFPL was $11.3 million ($0.72 million, AFOSR; $1.05 million, AFPL; $2.74 million, AFTAC; $2.37 million, ARPA; $0.6 million State Department.; $3.67 million, DOE; $0.15 million, ACDA), and the FY 1996 budget was $9.74 million ($0.9 million, AFOSR; $0.75 million, AFPL; $1.74 million, AFTAC; $1.81 million, ARPA; $4.40 million, DOE; $0.15 million, ACDA). The AFTAC, ARPA, and DOE support administered by AFPL and complemented by grants from the AFOSR 6.1 program constituted the main research funding support base for universities and some contractors for basic and applied research in CTBT monitoring. The associated total levels were about $12 million per year for FY 1995 and FY 1996. Additional support for systems development and advanced developmental research were provided directly by ARPA, AFTAC, and DOE. These funds primarily supported private companies.

The DOE external research program, initiated in 1995 with internal funding, provided the FY

1995 and FY 1996 DOE funds administered by AFPL. DOE provided $3.665 million in FY 1995 and $4.395 million in FY 1996 for this program. (This external support has almost been eliminated in the DOE FY 1996 budget.) The two-year research program supported by DOE and other AFPL sources was broader in scope than the AFOSR 6.1 program and included research on seismic, hydroacoustic, infrasonic, and radionuclide monitoring technologies. (A description of the full scope of DOE's internal and external program during this period is given in DOE, 1994.) The AFPL program spanned a range of basic and applied research efforts and had a BAA solicitation along with peer review of the proposals.

The DOE CTBT research program has a FY 1997 budget of $69.6 million. This budget involves $45.1 million for satellite systems development, $11.6 million for research on seismic methods, $1.2 million for research on hydroacoustic methods, $1.1 million for infrasonic methods, $3.4 million for radionuclide systems, $6.5 million for automatic data processing development, $0.6 million for statistics, and $0.2 million for On-Site Inspection development, distributed across four National Laboratories.

Beginning with FY 1997, the entire AFOSR, AFPL, and ARPA budgets for CTBT monitoring were consolidated under the newly created Nuclear Treaty Program Office (NTPO) with a FY 1997 budget of $29.1 million, with $8.8 million intended for a peer-reviewed external CTBT monitoring research program ($7.1 million specifically for research in seismology and $1.7 million for research in other disciplines such as hydroacoustics, infrasonics, and radionuclides). The $20.3 million balance was for sustained systems development for the IDC. The NTPO has indicated that the external research program will be administered by the Defense Special Weapons Agency (DSWA). Given the reduction of DOE external funding for CTBT research occurring in the FY 1997 budget, the $8.8 million support level represents a major decrease of the overall funding support for basic and fundamental research for the expanded set of CTBT monitoring disciplines. The President's FY 1998 budget includes a continuation of DSWA-sponsored research at the $8.8 million level. DOE commitments to the external CTBT research program continue to decrease.