[Rhodes22-list] Politics and Science

[Ronald Lipton]

2008 was supposed to be a good year for science in the US.  A study
by the National Academies had made a strong argument that basic
research is vital to the economic health of the US.  That resulted in a
bipartisan agreement to increase funding for the physical sciences.
Budgets were increased for the NSF and DOE Office of Science in
the appropriations bills passed by the House and Senate.  Last summer
these bills were vetoed by the president as "budget busters".  The 
government
operated on a continuing resolution until the end of last year when
the Omnibus bill was passed.

This bill reduced overall funding for Science by $1 billion below the
level agreed last summer.  The cuts in Particle Physics and at
Fermilab, where I work were particularly devastating.  All funding
for a new experiment to measure the properties of neutrinos was
cut.  R&D funds for the next generation particle accelerator, the ILC,
which was intended to regain leadership in the field in the next decade 
from
a new machine in Europe scheduled to start up next year, were cut to 1/4
the level expected.  Since the budget was passed 1/4 of the way through
the year all of this money has been already been spent.

As a result all work on the projects which would have been the future of 
the
field in the US have to stop.  At Fermilab 170 people were working on
these projects and will be reassigned and 200 layoffs are planned.  At
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center 125 people will be laid off.  The 
Fermilab
budget was $52M below the budget initially passed by Congress. Those of
us who survive will be asked to take 2-3 days/month of unpaid furlough.

The cuts were a result of a last minute flurry of adjustments to bring the
budget below the limit set by President Bush for veto.  Fermilab was
hit particularly hard because Dennis Hastert, former speaker of the house,
had resigned a month earlier and none of the Illinois delegation was
watching the store.  The cuts were not the result of any plan as far as
I can tell, just a random cut in the final weekend of preparation of the
Omnibus bill. US commitment to ITER, a demonstration fusion reactor
to be built in France was also cut to zero in spite of international 
funding
agreements that took decades to negotiate. 

This is the sort of thing that can't easily be recovered from.  The 
accelerator
group at Stanford, the best in the world, will be fragmented.  People 
will be
laid off and leave the field.  Bright students will go elsewhere.  The 
international
community will get yet more evidence that the US is not a reliable partner.

I had been working on detectors for the ILC.  We had a program
that led the field in the development of advanced silicon detectors and
electronics. Because we do R&D much of our work with US companies funds
beyond state-of-the art work too risky for immediate commercial 
applications but which
lay the technical base for the future.  We we strongly involved in 3D 
electronics,
where ~10 micron thick layers of circuit are stacked vertially, 
increasing the
density of electronics without decreasing the transistor size.
We may be able to continue, but certainly at
a reduced level. Our group of IC design engineers, one of the best such 
groups
in the world, will likely fragment, and much of the R&D will be delayed or
narrowed.

This was not due to on party or another, but our government has become 
increasingly
dysfunctional.   As by far the richest country in the world we could 
afford to be inefficient,
but we have real challenges now.  Killing the future of a field of 
science that, aside
from enormous scientific and intellectual contributions, has generated 
technologies such
as medical imaging, fast electronic logic, practical superconducting 
magnets for MRI,
and the world wide web protocols, essentially by accident, is one 
example of that
dysfunction that hits close to (my) home.



Ron