On Nov. 17, 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote a letter to to Vannevar Bush, head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (ORSD), asking how to further scientific research post-World War II. The letter set forth questions that anticipated the vision for what would become the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Roosevelt asked for Bush’s recommendations on how to publicly share ORSD’s discoveries, made under a blanket of secrecy, and how to build an effective program for “discovering and developing scientific talent in American youth.” Bush’s report “Science–the Endless Frontier,” delivered six months later, was a smash hit among the scientific community, and paved the way for the creation of NSF.

“Science offers a largely unexplored hinterland for the pioneer who has the tools for his task. The rewards of such exploration both for the Nation and the individual are great. Scientific progress is one essential key to our security as a nation, to our better health, to more jobs, to a higher standard of living, and to our cultural progress.”