Friday, 30 March 1990 Washington, DC
1. THE SUPERCONDUCTING SUPER COLLIDER AUTHORIZATION ACT OF 1990
passed the House Science, Space and Technology Committee on
Wednesday after a contentious 4-hour debate. Although the bill
fully authorizes the project, it requires the magnet technology
to be successfully demonstrated before the final 80% of the funds
are released and puts a $5B cap on the Federal share. The use of
the word "cap" should not be taken too literally; it just means
DOE will have to go back to Congress the next time the price goes
up. The cap assumes $1B will come from Texas and the rest from
other foreign sources. But lest the foreign influence get out of
hand, the bill limits foreign contributions to 33% of the total
cost (fat chance). Even that was too much for Rep. Traficant
(D-OH), who was pushing for a "made in America" amendment. There
was the usual concern that foreign competitors will benefit from
SSC technology, but Rep. Ritter (R-PA) commented that the SSC is
not an R&D project, "It's more like Field of Dreams," a reference
to the film fantasy. Elsewhere, Secretary Watkins, who is seeking
someone to manage the SSC at the DOE end, complained that a half
dozen candidates turned down the job because of low Federal pay.
2. ET TU BRUTUS? OTHER UTAH SCIENTISTS DETECTED NO FUSION ACTIVITY
in Pons' cells over a five-week period following his initial press
conference. The celebration in Salt Lake City this week of one
year of cold fusion was dampened when a new report by other Utah
scientists came out in Nature. They had been allowed to monitor
Pons' own cells. No fusion emissions were detected. But Pons
complains that the cells they studied weren't quite up to par
during that period. The cells did work for a few hours, he said,
during which time the computer operating the detectors was off,
but stopped when the computer came back on. Darn! Missed it again!
3. A RIFT HAS DEVELOPED BETWEEN THE ASTRONAUTS AND NASA
over the
issue of excessive "extra vehicular activity" (EVA), according to
Senator Gore (D-TN). In a hearing on Wednesday, Gore said that
"space station Freedom is in jeopardy." The project will require
redesign following a study panel estimate that astronauts would
need to spend 2,200 hours in space suits annually just to perform
maintenance (WN 23 Mar 90).
A NASA administrator said the numbers
were preliminary and implied they would come down as the input was
refined; one of the astronauts who conducted the study said the
numbers could go either way. The cost will go only one way.
4. IT'S TIME FOR A FUNDAMENTAL REFORM OF U.S. EXPORT CONTROLS.
The Export Administration Act is up for reauthorization. Almost
everyone agrees that the current export regulations are harmful to
American business. Designed to retard high tech development in
the Soviet Bloc, they make less sense with the bloc crumbling. The
controls apply to scientific communication as well as strategic
goods and led to frequent disputes between the government and
scientific societies during the Carter and Reagan administrations.
|
