Building the Future: A Cold War R&D quest

[mouli]

Building the Future
​

You have had a good war. A war that was fought on the home front with degrees rather than with guns, a war of laboratories and theories and bureaucracy that's given you a reputation in the government and contacts in the capital. Rather than the great global war that the soldiers went through, yours was a local one. One that centered around the national arms design boards, the vast steel tumors of the state's mobilization, the complex machinery of this new, technical form of war.

In Britain where the white cliffs of Dover are scarred from bombardment and the towns are slowly seeing their young men come home, there is no appetite for another arms race. In France, with great gouges torn in its soul from the Occupation and the horrors that came with it, there is no money or inclination for arms buildups. In the United States under the stars and stripes, the boys have come home and the war has just ended. There is no room for talk about another war and more weapons of death and murder. In the Soviet Union, last of the great powers in this year of 1945, there are too many dead and too many wounded in body and soul for war to be lightly contemplated.

Nobody wants a war. But sometimes, war seems far too much like it wants them. Everyone else has arms, after all. Everyone else is building reactors and other such dangerous high technology.
If everyone else is doing it, why not your nation? And if everyone else in your nation is clamoring for it, why not take the lead?

From that came the idea of a national design bureau, one of many laboratories that would spearhead this sort of complex work for cheap. The work of building the nation's future, on the back of the new technologies whose potential had been unlocked by the war. Electronics. Nuclear science. Rocketry. Computers, what feeble ones the nation could afford at least.
All that and more. The future beckons, as long as you do it on the cheap. And as long as the results can be made to look good enough to justify your funding.

Your name?
[]Write in

You are a:
[]Man
[]Woman
[]Very sane scientist

Pick your nation:
[]Soviet Union: The Union is heavily damaged by the war and therefore not in any position to splurge on bleeding edge technology. Your task would be to outcompete the other national labs on the core fields of nuclear science and rocketry, dealing in specific components if need be. You might focus on reactor core designs, or missile telemetry or other similar specialist fields. But you will have to succeed, for the resources are scarce.

[]The United States: The U.S. is a place that has money and the will to spend it. That means more competition and a lack of direct government contracts as in the USSR – you will instead be working with private corporations to commercialize what IP you have and as contracted researchers. A failure can be made up for since projects and funding are plentiful, but you will have to deal with bleeding edge science and the personalities that come with it.

You will begin in the 1950s. This is semi-realistic. I and @Blackstar are PhD students in related fields and aim to make it so. While defense industrial politics are hard to simulate, we will try. Updates are pegged at once a week. We aim to make this focus on nuclear science, rocketry to a degree, electronics and sensors, and computing.
I have been very burned out due to work related issues lately, and this is an attempt to use @Blackstar and her expertise as a crutch while writing to sort of spin back up.

 

[mouli]

Bricks and Mortar, Connections and Friends

Spoiler: Winning Vote

[X] David Weiss
[X] Man
[X] The United States: The U.S. is a place that has money and the will to spend it. That means more competition and a lack of direct government contracts as in the USSR – you will instead be working with private corporations to commercialize what IP you have and as contracted researchers. A failure can be made up for since projects and funding are plentiful, but you will have to deal with bleeding edge science and the personalities that come with it

July, 1952
Washington D.C.

Washington DC is hot and muggy in summer, and you can already feel the slight prickling of sweat under your suit-jacket as the Capitol Building looms at the end of the National Mall. Throngs of tourists and visitors to the nation's capital are seen from afar, your eyes picking out everyone from sober-suited Senators to gawking tourists from the Pacific Coast. You're not bound for the Mall or for Congress, though. Your steps trace out a well-traveled path past the federal offices that Roosevelt built, to the Department of Defense where the scientist that you're to meet awaits.

You're guided past the guarded doors to a dingy office in what used to be the War Department before the new Pentagon took on that role. There's a great flat polished wooden desk here, the elegant office furniture jarringly out of place in the office. Behind the desk is the government's 'consultant', the one that you've been pitching the idea to for weeks.
Another national laboratory system, another little fiefdom where you can do work of significance on the government's dime.

"Something to drink, David?" The old man's jowly face smiles up at you as you take a seat, hat hung on the hooks behind the door as you close it. "I've only got water and brandy, but that's good enough for now."

"Budget cuts, then?" You take a moment to settle into your chair, the office seeming small with the expanse of furniture and filing cabinets clustering around the walls like great gray steel limpets. The scientist across from you laughs nervously, waving a hand as if to dismiss such plebian concerns.

He ducks his head a little before speaking, the lightbulb above in the windowless office shining off thickly gelled hair. "Nothing as yet, David. Nothing yet. But you know how things are. New administration, new priorities. They already want to shift more money to Korea and cut back on any and all of my department's work."

"I wasn't aware you ran a department."

"Funny man," he says with a sardonic smile, "You know what I'm talking about, and so do those timid farts at the Atomic Energy Commission." He suddenly pulls a drawer open in a great rattling of disorganized contents, fat finger fumbling for a cigarette case and a lighter. A questioning look in your direction gets a shake of the head – you'd prefer he didn't smoke – and he shrugs. "Fair enough, if you don't want one more for me." A light flares and smoke curls lazily up to the roof before the man speaks again, bright eyes pinning you to your chair. "We're not here to talk about my business or my work with Ulam, David. We're here about your little proposal and the response to it."

You don't say anything about the cigarette, shifting a little in your chair before answering. He's always been a bit of a bastard. Smart, driven, brilliant even. With all the casual disregard of that breed. "The response from you or the response from Dr. Bush?"

"Vannevar Bush is too occupied with his precious science foundation to be bothered with the small details. He took one look at your little idea and called it a decent one, but a limited one." Ash is gently tapped out into a cigarette case – made from a shell's base, by the look of it – and the sonorous voice of a professor trained for the university's halls drones on. "No, the one that you're going to be dealing with is me."

"And your response?"

"Positive." He smiles briefly at you, brief amusement at having dragged that much reaction out of you here in the dingy office where he's been put by the War Department. "I've already floated it. There's a decent group at Berkeley. Good engineers in California. I've been meaning to set up a retirement plan that side of the continent."

The old man's faint Hungarian accent flavors his words with a mocking edge. Or that could just be the scientist famous for his abrasive nature shining through. You swallow for a moment as the smoke trails to the ceiling vents, choosing your words carefully. "One group won't change that much. One more lab is not the solution. You want to remake what we had back in the war? You're not getting that. You're not getting the talent, the money or the secrecy."

"I know that, David. What's your point?"

"You want to do the research on the cheap, you want to have your defense sector fief, you want to avoid the Presidency shutting down everything you have a hand in." Your bluntness gets a sharp look, the old man glaring at you from across his desk. "What I'm saying is give me a lab. I have the plans, you know as well as I do that Bush was onside as long as it didn't touch his precious Science Foundation funding stream, and we have enough connections."

He snorts, dismissive. The old scientist's manner is that of an examiner testing a student, a doctoral board advising on a thesis. "What makes you so sure that you're the one to lead it? I can ask any of the other big names?"

"Who?" You raise an eyebrow skeptically, "I have the industry connections even if I wasn't in your little show at Los Alamos. Who else can you call? Oppenheimer, the pacifist? Einstein, who doesn't want to build death? Goddard, who wants to play with his rockets?"

There's a dull thud as the older scientist suddenly slams a hand on the table, ashing out his cigarette with far more force than necessary. The other members of the Los Alamos fraternity have always been a sore spot with him. "Mm. Maybe. All the same. Your request has been provisionally approved by order of the Department of Defense. And by me." The stare that he gives you across the table is crystal clear. No more fencing. You owe him.
You nod.

He continues after that, "You have just two questions to answer, and then we're moving ahead with things. You'd better get results, David." From across the table, Edward Teller's quiet threat just gets a single nod. You'd expected this much.

What will be your agency?
[]A New One: Edward Teller has backed you up on this as long as you deliver, and you'd prefer not to be beholden to the old men of the universities as you set up the new model military-research-industrial complex. That means leveraging what connections you have in industry and turning out product rapidly to make a name for yourself, but at the same time means that you have more freedom in choosing what to work with. Of course, this will be a finger in the eye for the competition, some of whom hoped to recruit you.
-[]Write in Name: QM Veto applies to insane choices or excessively meme choices

Spoiler: Pros and cons

Competition: You're the newcomer on the block and with fewer significant connections than most. That means you have more trouble selling your stuff to the military and to the corporations that fund this sort of speculative work, and you have more trouble finding good researchers to act as department heads. Because of the competition poaching your talent and your lack of contacts taking its toll, things will be harder.

Independence: You will have more freedom to tailor your work to the contacts that you made in industry back in wartime and also to tailor work to what you like. That means a willingness to do more to succeed, because at this point you'll like your work. Less stress gained from working long hours, choose more industry connections in the next update. A small lab like yours will be able to specialize in what you prefer. More granularity and customization of designs.

The Old Man's Eye: Teller seems amused when you tell him your plans, and there's an impish gleam in his eye when he hands you his card. Contact me later he says, and you're pretty sure that means you have at least one friend on Capitol Hill.

[]Lincoln Labs: MIT has come in late to the game but with a vengeance, blowing a lot of endowment money and talent on setting up a laboratory. Given that the Institute is a place with friends in high places, you're not going to be heading Lincoln Labs, but the Defense Research Section is a place to start from at least.

Spoiler: Pros and Cons

Labor Pool: There's a near-endless pool of cheap labor here, from the graduate students that come to MIT. That makes recruitment easier at the cost of having to deal with the occasional graduate student screwing the pooch now and then. Explosively.

Foundational Work: You will not be delivering manufacturing templates and designs ready for mass production, what you will do is more foundational work that will be piggybacked on by others. That means turnkey research or fundamental R&D with smaller teams on a smaller scale. Which is brutal, especially on the stress side of things. More stress gain, more foundational research work, less manufacturing or design-for-manufacturability work.

Friends in High Places: There are plenty of alums on Capitol Hill or who have contacts on Capitol Hill, and those friends can make sure that you get what you need. A few times, at least. You don't need to make it perfect here, just good enough. That also means more civilian focused work can be done despite the name of your department – you just need to sell it as defense related enough.

[]Livermore Labs: Teller's retirement project with Livermore, run by one of old Livermore's grad students and home to the premier nuclear research establishment in the United States. You again will not be the head of the lab due to the sheer scale of the enterprise, but you can head up what Director York is calling the Applied Reactor Systems group. That is code for 'reactor safety and everything else that isn't the Bomb'.

Spoiler: Pros and cons

Restricted Areas: The lab has a tight focus and a defined funding stream, and you'll be locked into a more restricted path of research and development here. That means no angling for work that you like, you'll take what you get and deal with it while the glamorous work of the Bomb is done elsewhere.

Teller's Eye: This is Teller's retirement project. That means if he brings you on board, you don't screw up and make him look bad. That means you will be bound to get him results.

Livermore: The lab has the finest scientists and the best funding stream in the nation, backed by the Atomic Energy Commission as it is. That means that you're not going to be worrying about recruitment and money all that much. As long as you deliver what you're given, in some form or another.

[]The Joint Venture: Honeywell and Westinghouse have come to an interesting agreement after some prodding from Teller. With significant looks cast in the direction of IBM and the Atomic Energy Commission's proposal for nationalized reactor design, Teller and you have managed to get them to pool resources for an R&D consortium focused on nuclear science and electronics. And Honeywell being Honeywell, aerospace to some degree.

Spoiler: PRos and cons

Private Sector Labs: You will not worry about selling your product, you have two defined customers who will take what you can give in the areas that they want you to work. That means working in a very broad but strictly defined area to produce usable IP, and faster than the competition can. Talent is on-call, funding is contingent on success, and you'll need good luck. Projects are limited in scope and area to some degree, less issues in selling your IP due to defined customers already. Honeywell and Westinghouse have right of first refusal on all side projects.

Consortium Building: Teller has already mentioned talking to other organizations to build a private equivalent to Vannevar Bush's NSF. It'll never be of the same scale and of the same significance, but you can surely pitch this to other companies once you get to a significant size. And that means you can grow.

 

[mouli]

Corporate Relations​

Teller grins at you with a tinge of sardonic amusement, "Two questions to answer, and the first one is what you're going to call it." He tosses folder on the desk in your direction, stiff brown covering marked with the seal of the Department of Defense and the signatures of the high and mighty. Inside of it there are corporate emblems brightly colored and proud, as if to remind you of who will really run the establishment.

You still can't help but smile a little. "It worked, then."

"It did." Teller's hands fumble for another cigarette, lighting it with practiced efficiency before he speaks again. "The Honeywell boys want in on the whole computing angle. They were talking about a partnership with Raytheon before I talked them out of it, and the Westinghouse angle was even easier."

"I know," you say, leafing through the contract and seeing that most of the wording that you'd suggested when pitching the idea of a research consortium is intact. "Westinghouse wants that reactor money. They're banking on nuclear being the future, cheap power for the masses and overcharging the government for it. One mention of the AEC and their plans to nationalize that made Westinghouse fall in line."

Teller rasps out a laugh, remembering those meetings with Westinghouse execs in their shiny black suits with clipboards and compulsive note-taking as if to record every word. "Mm. Still, that means that Honeywell and Westinghouse are calling the shots initially. They have right of first refusal on all IP and you can't sell exclusive licenses. You're stuck, David. Back in the industrial wasteland where you came from." Rich words coming from the scientist sitting in the Old War Department with filing cabinets and office furniture suited for someplace better, you think, but one look at Teller's lined face and baggy eyes makes you keep that thought to yourself. Whatever the project he's working on with Ulam, it better be good. The government won't let him back in the halls of power otherwise.

"It paid me well enough." You shrug as if unconcerned, already having thought through a backup plan. The old bastard in front of you isn't the only one that knows how to play the bureaucracy, even if he is better at it. "I can always negotiate with others and get the consortium expanded. I have enough support on the governing board to do that."

"As long as I back you." Teller is on the governing board, the great ungainly old Hungarian scientist as your main backstop, and you're damn sure that he won't stop reminding you of that. "I back you up and that means whichever pencil pusher the government sends will back you up. That means you outvote the Honeywell and Westinghouse chairs."

"And add another one." The subtext is of course that you won't need him as much at that point, but all that you get from that is a smile of yellowing teeth, amusement from someone who's negotiated Washington and come out with most of his soul.

Teller waves a hand dismissively, cigarette smoke trailing it and drifting up to the vents in the ceiling past the harshly glowing bulbs and institutional beige walls. "That's as may be, and you'd better get used to learning to talk nicely. I can't carry the can for you here, David."

"I drew up those plans and did almost all the talking." You're almost tempted to call him Ed just to see how Professor Edward Teller reacts. Self preservation makes you hold your tongue. "I can hold my own. And anyways, you want to see what we do with reactors as much as you want to work at Livermore. Privatization is how making something commonplace works, here in America."

"So you say." His accent thickens a little as he says that, say coming out in a way that reminds you of Bela Lugosi and Dracula. "But we're talking in circles. First things first. What d'you want to call it?"

Pick a name: Make it as shady-defense-thinktank as you can:
[]United Technologies
[]Science Applications International
[]Liberty Research Institute
[]Write In

Teller nods at your answer, impatient to move on to the next question. It comes as expected, words tumbling out of the old scientist's lips as he switches to a topic closer to his heart than what you'll call your agency. "What are you aiming to focus on? Your initial business will be with Honeywell and Westinghouse, but that leaves a bit of room. They want reactors and computing, but that still leaves you with a few more areas to hire on in. Not as if you'll have just them as clients forever."

"Yep," you say, aware that the sort of formality that Teller is more used to makes the Americanism more galling. "If I stay beholden to just them then we're sunk. We diversify, yes, but that means using me and maybe a few subordinates to do the initial proposals. The staffing can concentrate on the corporate priorities. Makes them feel loved."

"Is this why we buy gifts for anniversaries, I wonder." The jibe glances off you as Teller scribbles something on a piece of paper before tucking it away and turning back to you, "So what's it to be, David? I can give you a hand in justifying things as long as you tell me what you're aiming to work on."

Pick two of the below bonus specializations. This will be your PC's areas of expertise:
[]Automatic Control: This is something used for aircraft autopilots, missile guidance, ships and virtually any other machinery. It is, however, very theoretical. You're not going to be doing much manufacturing and testing with a mathematical controls background, so that makes the ironmongery side of things harder. Well….missile guidance is lucrative anyhow, you guess.

[]Radar: More precisely worded as electromagnetics and applied EM theory, you've worked with the electronics giants that made American radar systems and are in a position to improve on what they did. There's always money in radar…

[]Electronics: You've worked in the hardware side of computing as well as the logic design bits for computing circuitry. That means you can mess about with new devices and stay abreast of what happens to be the fastest growing field in America.

AN: Last char creation update. After this, Turn 1 and hiring your two department heads.

 

[mouli]

Turn 1: Projects​

Washington D.C.
1952

The radio's singing a sappy old war movie song, the cafeteria is full of drab green, and the general in front of you occasionally murmurs the lyrics before he catches himself and glares at you as if to dare you to say anything. You're here on behalf of what Teller in a fit of hubris and amusement has dubbed Aperture Science, more as a salesman than anything else. Which is why you're across from the bulldog of a man whose uniform name-patch reads LeMay, the same person who runs most of the acquisition budget in the Pentagon as of now.

"Food isn't great." Your comment gets a snort, the Air Force man seeming to ask what you were expecting. Fair point. The mashed potatoes are soggy, the bread is burned, but the coffee's decent. It wakes you up. One sip, a twist of the lips when the bitterness hits you, and you're firing on more than all cylinders again. "So, General, why call me here to the Pentagon for an early lunch? Can't be for the pleasure of my company."

LeMay twitches at your comment and glares at you again, the radio informing the two of you – and the rest of the hundred-odd officers in the mess – that you're all going to meet again someday. The general is a jowly bruiser, probably spending most of the time locked into a glare or a frown or something like it. He seems the sort. "Weiss. I didn't ask you here for the pleasure of your company, if I wanted pleasure in company I'd find a broad. What I want from you are designs. Autopilots and nav systems, radar, whatever you can get me."

"The regular contractors not cutting it for you?"

"Raytheon is busy." He grimaces as if chewing on something that tastes worse than military-issue food before continuing, "Lockheed and the rest of them have enough teething issues with the new jets. We've got most of the electronics boys committed to the northern radar line – the one to make sure Uncle Joe doesn't decide to carbonize us."

You nod, perfectly aware that the Soviets are behind on nukes and that SAC has spend more money than both other branches combined on a radar warning system in the far Arctic that's more for paranoia right now than anything else. There's money at stake here, after all. "So you want me to work on new radar designs? Ruggedization for the warning lines up north?"

"Ruggedized sets for the rotations up in Nunavut, yeah." LeMay's hands twitch to his cigar case, pause as if debating whether to smoke, and then he pulls one out and lights it up anyways. He doesn't ask about it and doesn't bother with offering you one, and you're not sure if that's because he knows you don't like them or because he doesn't like you. "You have a good record, Weiss, and Teller vouches for you. That makes you decent in my book, and we don't have a surplus of radar or electronics experts. We'll need every one we've got."

"Fair. Fair." You swirl around the dregs of the army coffee, wondering whether the caffeine will be worth braving whatever the cookery sergeants put into the bottom of the cup before deciding against drinking what remains. "So I get funding for a radar project. Sure. But it isn't just radar, and you know that as well as I do. What else is on your mind, general?"

LeMay smiles, thin lips curling upwards in a vicious grin that oddly suits his bulldog face. "The Navy's busy scrambling for funding and I want to cut them off at the knees. You know as well as I do what we can do with rockets to a ship, and I want a decent guidance radar for a rocket. You didn't hear this from me, understand?"

"So I'll get the money for this from who, then?"

"ARPA." LeMay waves a hand dismissively, "Let Bush's brainchild do something useful for once, it's done nothing we can't do as a service yet. Better yet, we make the Navy's research teams at NavWeaps look like idiots."

"I don't think I like the sound of that." You tap one finger on the coffee cup and look up at the cafeteria clock. You're ten minutes overdue on another meeting. "I don't think I want to piss off the Navy, General. With all due respect, I'm not a big fish here and I don't want to get crushed. I highly doubt my corporate sponsors will be wanting to get crushed either."

"Think about it, Weiss." The general smiles, cold-eyed and every inch the Air Force bomber baron who all but burned down Tokyo. "Think about it and let me know."

---

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1952

Westinghouse's offices are a tall, red-brick building that soars above the smoky atmosphere of Pittsburgh on a working day. A cabby drops you off in front of it, the secretary in the lobby flags you on inside and before you know it you're in front of the head of Westinghouse's nuclear sales division. He's short, energetic and has too damn much enthusiasm for things this early on a Monday, but he's the financer here. So when you're asked to sit down and take a cup of coffee, you do just that and wait for the man behind the big polished desk to say what he wants to say.

"Pleased to see you here, Dr. Weiss. We've had some ideas about setting up an electronics facility – the Cathode Ray Facility we've been running for the government is slated for expansion this year in fact. Anyways, back on topic." The head of sales is like a runaway locomotive, fast and unstoppable and moving erratically, "Back on topic. We have some ideas for what you can do for us, and what we're willing to fund."

"Dr. Teller told me that we were looking at reactor designs." You fold you hands on the table and set the cup on a coaster that says WG&E, the sales chief watching you from behind thin-rimmed glasses with impatience, "I have enough contacts to put together a decent team for reactor design and for work on nuclear facilities, but most of my work has been on electronics. I've already signed on with Honeywell for some of that."

Meaning that your attention is going to be elsewhere. You get a quick, sharp nod, a sheaf of paper slid across the table to you as the man in front of you informs you what it is. "Reactor designs are a broad field, Doctor, and we're intending to target the civilian market. Safe, reliable, cheap electricity. A sales pitch that writes itself, I might say."

The locations are certainly not places that speak of confidence in safety, you note wryly. Most of them are rural and isolated, most of them intending to be fed construction supplies by railroad. "This won't be cheap, first off. The technology is brand new, sir. You're not getting things easily, the AEC has most of the experts and we're making do with whoever the AEC left behind."

"The AEC can be hired on for consulting on reactor design, Doctor." He pushes his glasses up, light flashing off the lenses, "We have enough weight for that sort of decision."

You sigh, avoid pointing out that it makes your position less secure – you're not an idiot – and accept that you're the cheap alternative to the AEC. "Fair enough. So you want me to do reactor design, Honeywell wants computing and the armed forces have their own contracts."
The sales head smiles cheerily at you, "That's when you know you've made it, Doctor. You have too much business and not enough time. Good day."

You can recognize a dismissal that blunt, and leave with a folder of reactor specifications in your briefcase. Unlike some of the physicists at Los Alamos, you carefully do not leave this one on the train while heading home.

Pick two of the below 'hardware' projects to focus on as a corporate unit: One has been locked in:
[X]Reactor Design: From Westinghouse with a distinct lack of care for quality and more attention on safety, cheapness and the fact that you have a reputation for delivering rapidly. You'll have to balance the metrics of safety, cost and power output for this one, and the Westinghouse boys want a standardized design that can be used across the continental US. This is a Westinghouse project and required.

[][Air Force] Missile Guidance: You've worked somewhat with proximity fuzing and the like, and the Air Force wants to use that for building a basic guidance system for a missile. Enough that the aircraft can either mark a bearing and a target for the missile, or that the missile can coast above obstacles for a specified time to target. This is complex but lucrative, and the Air Force has the cash for it – but it'll anger the Navy to no end.

[][Air Force] Northern Radar: This is a cheap, unglamorous and often overlooked area of work – ruggedization. With the giant project of stringing a radar warning system across the northern US and the Arctic underway, the Air Force wants its radar systems to be built to take a beating in those climates while being used by draftees. That's not easy but also necessary – and your new hires will have to deal with it.

[][Westinghouse] The J40: The Westinghouse man left you a card for the head of the turbine division, and the turbine chief wants you to use your networks to put together a team for handling the teething issues in the Navy's new J40 turbine. Before the company has to leave the engine business entirely, that is. This won't be easy at all – aero engines are not your forte – but if you pull it off that leaves Westinghouse considerably in your debt.

Your personal attention is locked on:
[X]Honeywell's New Goals: Honeywell wants to set up a research center for large-scale computing, competing with IBM. The intent was for a partnership with Raytheon, but Teller and you managed to sell them on going solo with just a consultant team – now you have to deliver for them. You'll have to put together computing circuitry using the latest in analog systems, or you'll have to tap a buddy in Bell Labs and see if Honeywell wants a partnership after all… Pick one:

-[]Bell Labs: They've done the most work on the new transistor technology, and there are rumors in Germany that it can be used for radio circuits. Why not poke them and check if you can license it – or better yet if you can borrow a man or two? This is harder.

-[]Go Solo: You have a decent grasp on analog computing and you can work with vacuum tube switches to get a mainframe together. You can tap some people you know from the wartime groups for backup. See what you can do.

The above determines your hiring options for (a) Head of nuclear research, (b) Head of electronics/RF, (c) Head of Computing.