Friday,
23 February 2001
1. TIME WARP.
A western governor comes to town vowing to cut
taxes, pump up defense, slash basic research and build a missile
defense system. That was Ronald Reagan's agenda twenty years
ago, and it appears to be George W's today. Agency heads are
still haggling with OMB, but here's the latest word on science
budgets: DOE down 5%, NASA science down 5%, DOD 6.1-6.3 flat, ATP
eliminated and NIST core programs flat. The big physical science
winner would be NSF, up all of 0-1%. A lone exception, NIH would
rise 15%. WN readers take note: "balanced portfolio" is no
longer in the White House lexicon. To save money, one policy
maker has suggested closing the NIST Boulder lab and moving the
staff to Gaithersburg. WN is taking bets on how many would move.
2. COLD FUSION? SUPREME COURT GIVES IT THE COLD SHOULDER.
Last
fall, the US Patent Office denied a "cold-fusion" patent to
Mitchell Swartz, on the grounds that it lacked "operability"
(WN 10 Nov 00).
Despite testimony by cold-fusion gurus, a federal
appeals court upheld the Commissioner of Patents, ruling that the
patent failed to convince sensible people that the idea could
work. Undeterred, Swartz appealed to the US Supreme Court. The
highest court in the land is unlikely to review the case, which
has the effect of upholding the appeal court ruling. After twelve
years, cold fusion still has trouble being taken seriously.
3. SPACE: NEAR LANDS, MIR HANGS OUT AND DESTINY GETS A WINDOW.
OK, so there's not a lot of science here, but if you're a space
junkie, you should know that the robotic Near Earth Asteroid
Rendevous probe amazed even its handlers by soft landing on
asteroid Eros. Nobody had even thought to equip NEAR with feet.
Meanwhile, the ISS Destiny Lab has been fitted with a 20-inch
picture window. Such things are no doubt important in efforts to
attract more dot.com millionaire tourists
(WN 9 Feb 01).
Meanwhile, MIR refuses to go gently. MIR was expected to hard
land in late February, but because solar activity is unusually
low, the final plunge is now expected about March 10. Efforts to
save the rickety spacecraft, however, have never ceased, and on
Wednesday, the Duma voted 298-3-1 to urge President Putin to save
MIR. This was strictly for public consumption. The Duma action
provided no funds to keep the venerable spacecraft alive.
4. ARMS RACE 2001: THE REACTION TO BUSH'S MISSILE-DEFENSE PLANS.
Russia seeks to exploit Western skepticism of the US anti-
missile plan by offering to develop an alternative mobile missile
defense for Europe. It could be quickly relocated to respond to
changing threats from rogue states. This addresses the very
concern that the U.S. has raised. Meanwhile, one of those rogue
states, North Korea, is vowing to return to long-range missile
testing, which was suspended at the request of the U.S. North
Korea says the US did not kept its promise to help with nuclear
power plants.
|
