WHAT'S NEW, Friday, 10 February 1989 Washington, DC
1.
THE BUSH BUDGET BOOSTS SCIENCE RESEARCH AND EDUCATION.
There
was good news in the budget the President presented to Congress
last night. The healthy increases for research, including a 14%
increase for NSF and $250M for the SSC, were all retained from
the Reagan budget (WN 13 Jan 89) as
part of a competitiveness
initiative. There is an increased emphasis on math and science
education, including a scholarship program that would allow every
member of the House and Senate to name one National Science
Scholar. Bush proposed making the R&D tax credit permanent, and,
if all that were not enough, Vice President Quayle was named to
head a Task Force on Competitiveness. Our cup runneth over.
2
. ELEVATION OF THE SCIENCE ADVISOR TO ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT
for Science and Technology, with a status equal to the National
Security Advisor, is called for in a written supplement to Bush's
speech. The Assistant to the President for S&T will report
directly to the President and will be a member of the Economic
Policy Council. The supplement also repeats the Bush campaign
promise to name a Council of Science and Technology Advisors
(WN 11 Nov 88) and requests
a 28% increase in funding for OSTP.
3. A NATIONAL COMMISSION ON SUPERCONDUCTIVITY
was called for in
the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988. Its purpose
is to consider policy issues regarding high-Tc superconductor
R&D. The Commission's report to the President and Congress is
due on 23 Feb 89, but President Reagan did not finish naming the
commission until 18 Jan 89--two days before he left office. No
meetings have even been scheduled. Several of the "Wise Men"
(WN 6 Jan 89) are
on the 21-member Commission. At the end of a year,
the Commission self-destructs, after which its duties will be
assumed by the National Critical Materials Council, whose Chair,
and only member, is conservative economist Thomas G. Moore.
4. LEGISLATION TO BAN NUCLEAR POWER IN EARTH ORBIT
was introduced
yesterday by Rep. George Brown (D-CA). The bill calls on the
President to urge the Soviet Union to join in a moratorium on
nuclear powered satellites. The Soviet Union is the only nation
presently using nuclear power in earth orbit, but in 1983 the US
began developing the SP-100, a 100 kWe reactor, in support of
SDI. It is uranium nitride fueled, liquid-lithium cooled, and
uses thermoelectric energy conversion--and it is much larger than
the reactor used in Soviet RORSAT radar satellites. Deployment
of a space-based strategic defense now seems highly unlikely, but
a new report from the National Research Council argues that the
SP-100 reactor is applicable to other civil and military uses and
recommends that development be continued (WN 20 Jan 89). Last
year, however, an internal review of the SP-100 program, which
has just been leaked, was highly critical. The review board,
headed by Glenn Cunningham of JPL, concludes that "the program
has extremely high risk," and "will not achieve its objectives."
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