Meanwhile : The 'Six Million Dollar Man'

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Meanwhile : The 'Six Million Dollar Man'

Published: 29 Jan. 2026, 00:05

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Moon Hong-kyu

The author is a principal researcher at the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute.

“Steve Austin, former astronaut. A man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was before.” After a catastrophic test flight accident, Steve Austin loses his left eye, right arm and both legs. Engineers give him a zoom lens eye, legs that can run at 60 miles an hour and a right arm stronger than a bulldozer. Thus is born “The Six Million Dollar Man” (1973).

Lee Majors and Elizabeth Ashley star in the TV program “The Six Million Dollar Man” (1973). [ABC TELEVISION/WIKIPEDIA]

This science fiction series, broadcast in Korea for two years beginning in 1976 on Tongyang Broadcasting Company, or TBC, one of Korea’s leading private television networks in the 1970s, set children’s hearts racing. News reports occasionally followed of youngsters injured after jumping off walls while mimicking the hero. I was one of them. In the show, Austin’s superior, Director Oscar Goldman, serves as a command figure who shuttles between the White House and Congress to secure operational approval and funding.

Indulging that memory and turning to the United States research and development system, the image comes into sharp focus. When federal agencies submit budget proposals, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Office of Management and Budget reconcile them according to policy priorities and guidance before sending them to the U.S. Congress. Decades of accumulated experience come to bear as Ph.D.-level program examiners, with careers spanning agencies, ministries and fields, review proposals across institutional boundaries. The future landscape embedded in such research and development (R&D) strategies is bound to be precise.

Someone like me would never personally visit budget authorities. Yet I recently heard a sobering story. In the past, a single junior official on a roughly one-year rotation reportedly shouldered the practical task of coordinating budgets for 51 government-funded research institutes across the sciences and humanities. It makes one wonder whether this could really happen in a country that competes for first place in R&D investment as a share of GDP. Of course, that official relied on collective intelligence and expert judgment.

The era of bulldozer-style, superhuman devotion is supposedly behind us. Still, on the ground, people are worn down by regulation and frequent evaluations. Strategies may change, but the underlying philosophy must stand firm. There is a need to rebuild outdated systems and overhaul the operating framework. It may be time to return to first principles and reconsider the command tower.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.