Science and National Defense: 50 Years Since Sputnik Plus One

“If I want a graduate student who can do math,” I heard a distinguished scientist remark a few weeks ago, “I’ll go to Germany.”

The beginning of October marked the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, and as we leave that milestone behind, what would President Eisenhower’s science advisers have thought about such a statement? They might well have slapped their foreheads, wondering whether their pioneering National Defense Education Act and its remarkable contributions to our economy, our military preparedness, and our educational system have been forgotten.

There would be reasons for their chagrin. Although the quality of science and engineering education in the United States might still be superior to those of our competitors, the raw numbers are alarming. By 2000 Chinese engineering graduates had increased 161 percent while ours had declined by 20 percent. Fewer than 6 percent of high school seniors taking the SATs in 2002 planned to study engineering, down by a third from the previous decade. In the next few years more than half of the Sputnik generation of trained scientists and engineers will retire. Yet as measured by gross domestic product, federal investment in the physical sciences is half of what it was in 1970.

Twenty-first century America needs to prepare for the century of science and engineering. One pathway is adoption of a new National Defense Education Act. A bill for a 21st-century NDEA was introduced in congress in February 2006 but never became law. A landmark report from the National Academies published earlier this year delivered a chilling conclusion:

Although many people assume that the United States will always be a world leader in science and technology, this may not continue to be the case inasmuch as great minds and ideas exist throughout the world. We fear the abruptness with which a lead in science and technology can be lost—and the difficulty of recovering a lead once lost, if indeed it can be regained at all.

Another bill, the America COMPETES Act, includes provisions for math-science education grants programs for schools that serve low-income students and for expanded advance placement programs. House and Senate staffers are now discussing funding levels for these very modest efforts. Even if they are funded, they are at best a tepid response to a deep and ongoing national problem.

Before Sputnik America’s leaders were sure that the Soviet Union, which could barely produce enough food for its people, could never overtake us in a technological race. Today the warning signs are clear. Will it require another national trauma for our current leadership to respond?

Tags: funding, scientific literacy

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