The National Science Foundation was established in 1950 as an independent agency, but within the executive branch of government.[514] Functions of this Foundation include promotion of basic research and education in the sciences, initiation and support of basic scientific research, initiation and support at the request of the Secretary of Defense of specific scientific research activities in connection with matters relating to the national defense, evaluation of scientific research programs undertaken by agencies of the federal government, and correlation of the Foundation’s work with that of private and public research groups or individuals.[515] The functions enumerated do not exhaust the total of those assigned to the above mentioned agency. In 1952 Congress authorized construction of aeronautical research facilities by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. These facilities were to be used for the effective prosecution of aeronautical research. The Committee could expand certain of its experimental facilities especially since one of the purposes of the Act was to promote the national defense.[516] A similar kind of statute enacted in 1953 created an Advisory Committee on Weather Control. The function of this Committee was to make a complete study and evaluation of public and private experiments in weather control for the purpose of determining the extent to which the United States should experiment with, or engage in, or regulate activities designed to control weather conditions.[517] It was to correlate and evaluate the information derived from experimental activity and to cooperate with the several States in encouraging the intelligent experimentation and the beneficial development of weather modification and control. In carrying out these objectives, the Committee was also required to keep a “weather eye” on seeing to it that harmful and indiscriminate techniques for weather control were not fostered.[518] GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATIONS, INVENTORIES, AUDITS Statutory provisions in this category are classifiable as follows: investigations, inventories, audits, etc., (a) incidental to program development or enforcement; (b) precedent to the establishment of policy in certain fields; (c) designed to aid specified agency clientele (private groups); (d) accusatory in nature; (e) military intelligence.