Although important nuclear physics work was to go on in laboratories such as ours had become - and we had to cut down to a lower energy group - it was not fundamentally opening up new insights on the structure of matter. That required you to be in a higher league.

This institution was not well equipped for nuclear physics research and so Carver utilised the proximity of the Weapons Research Establishment and entered the field of atmospheric physics. In 1970 Professor Carver was elected to the chair of the UN Scientific and Technical Sub-Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and he held this position for the next 26 years. In 1978 he returned to the ANU as director of the Research School of Physical Sciences a position he held until 1992.