The General's Laboratory

When Lieut. General Elwood Ricardo Quesada retired from the Air Force in 1951, he had behind him 25 years of service and the experience of commanding the AEC's first thermonuclear tests at Eniwetok (TIME, April 2, 1951). Last week "Pete" Quesada, now 50 and a Lockheed Aircraft Corp. vice president, got a chance to put both his military and scientific knowledge to good use. In Burbank, Calif., Lockheed announced that it was spending $10 million to set up a new scientific laboratory for advanced research by its missiles division. As the lab's boss, Airman Quesada will run it more like a university than a hardheaded business.

Lockheed's big project will be dedicated to what Quesada calls "the delivery problem." Says he: "Today we can build a thermonuclear weapon with as much yield as we want. The problem is how to get the damn thing there." To find the answer. Quesada will tap 200 of the country's top scientists, give them absolutely free reign to wander through the problem at an 80-acre laboratory in Van Nuys, have them delve into theoretical electronics and upper-air travel. He will pay high salaries, encourage them to soak up academic atmosphere by letting them teach part-time at three nearby universities: CalTech. U.C.L.A. and U.S.C. For the final payoff, a corps of 1,000 engineers will be called in to translate the theory into practical missiles systems, e.g., long-range rockets with infallible electronic brains to guide them to targets thousands of miles away.

For three months Quesada has been busy recruiting, already has a cadre of 15 crackerjack scientists, headed by Dr. Ernst H. Krause, 41, former associate director of research for nucleonics at Washington's Naval Research Laboratory. Laboratory construction will start early this fall. Eventually, Quesada hopes to make back 80% of the $10 million total cost to Lockheed, but he will never try to make his new laboratory show a profit. Says Quesada: "Scientists function best when they know that they can work without dictation and develop theories irrespective of military contracts. We hope that through our ability to be original we will then be able to translate a military requirement into a military weapon."

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