DYNAMIC SCIENCE CORPORATION

a Subsidiary of Marshall Industries MG 1445 Huntington Drive, South Pasadena, California, telephone : Murray 2-3581

May 3, 1961

Professor Joshua Lederberg
Department of Genetics

Stanford University Medical Center
Palo Alto, California

Dear Professor Lederberg:

Because the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Hughes
Aircraft Company have been assigned specific responsibilities
for designing, constructing, and launching a lunar vehicle
called Surveyor, Dynamic Science Corporation has proposed
to JPL and to Hughes, programs of study and work to
provide the requisite assurance that these vehicles are
sterile when they arrive on the moon. Our proposals have
been favorably received by both JPL and Hughes.

Prominent among consultants on sterilization on
Which JPL and N.A.S.A. rely are Dr. C. R. Phillips and
I suspect also the Space Science Board of the United States
National Academy of Sciences. At this time conversations
with these consultants by Dynamic Science Corporation are
not appropriate. We understand that JPL has asked NASA
to "set the standards of the space vehicle sterilization
program" and that these standards have not yet been
finally established. Certain portions of the set of
standards have been sufficiently well established, however,
to allow JPL to proceed with development and verification
of specific techniques. It is in the development and
verification of techniques that Dynamic Science Corporation
can be of considerable service to both Hughes and JPL.
Both Hughes and Dynamic Science Corporation will look to
JPL for final decisions on the standards of the program.

We at Dynamic Science Corporation followed with
interest the thoughts which you have published during
the past several years. We have found them to be
particularly well developed. Because the ultimate
objective in sterilizing lunar vehicles is to facilitate
the measurements which you and other biologists may wish
Page 2 of 2
Professor Joshua Lederberg
May 3, 1961

to make, it seems to us appropriate that we attempt to
understand as best we can the specifics of the problems
which concern you and other biologists. In this way we
hope to be of greater usefulness to JPL, NASA, Hughes,
and the community of biological scholars.

On Monday, May 8 I shall be in Berkeley at Cutter
Laboratories during the afternoon and at Los Altos during
the early evening. Should you feel that it might be
useful for us to spend half an hour to an hour discussing
this subject on Tuesday, morning please leave information
about a suitable time and place with your secretary.

I plan to call your office Monday morning.

Very truly yours,
John B. Opfell, Ph.D.
Senior Engineer

Dynamic Science Corporation

JBO: sg