National Lab Briefs

Fusion Controversy To Get Review Dissident physicist R Leonardo Mascheroni, who made headlines last year when he attacked the fusion research program at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, may finally get the technical review, he has demanded. The National Academy of Sciences has agreed to conduct a study for the Department of Energy on inertial confinement fusion programs, with a report due by September 1990. NAS officials say that the as-yet-unnamed panel will likely ask Mascheroni, who has remained unemployed since Los Alamos fired him in 1987, to present his view that the lab’s fusion program is based on lasers that are nearly 10 times too weak. Mascheroni believes that lasers generating at least 100 megajoules of power are necessary to drive a sustained fusion reaction, and he claims that he was dismissed by Los Alamos for objecting to a decision to focus exclusively on the smaller lasers. His case is being reviewed by the University of California, which manages the DOE-supported lab. In the meantime, Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the House committee that oversees DOE programs, is conducting an independent investigation of the Mascheroni affair. Lederman Blocked Again On Upgrade Fermilab’s hopes of winning government funds for a major upgrade of its facilities have been dashed again by the influential advisory committee (see The Scientist, February 6, 1989, page 3) charged with recommending high-energy physics priorities for the next decade. The panel’s report, submitted to the Department of Energy in mid-February, agrees with Fermilab that a powerful new $250 million particle injector there would be scientifically worthwhile. But in light of other priorities, the report concludes, it is “not appropriate at this time.” Although this is the second time since November that the DOE group has specifically downplayed funding further scientific improvements to Fermilab, Fermilab director Leon Lederman remains optimistic.”l don’t think they really meant” to reject the proposed upgrade, he insists. Instead, he believes the panel responded to DOE pressure to back the controversial $6-billion superconducting supercollider, awarded in November to Texas. Meanwhile, Fermilab officials are finding it difficult to attract outside scientists to replace those leaving to help design and manage the SSC project. All the replacements so far have been existing staff members. Among those moving up are Gerald Dugan, who will replace Helen Edwards as head of the accelerator division, and Richard Lundy, who was named acting administration director after the departure of Bruce Chrisman. NIST High-Tc Program Goes Up In Flames A December fire at the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Boulder, Cob., lab is expected to have a significant impact on the institute’s superconductivity program. The fire, thought to be due to an electrical short induced by caustic chemicals used in a ventilation hood, caused an estimated $3.5 million in damages to the lab’s main “clean room.” Repairs could take as long as six months, postponing a half-dozen research projects on experimental superconducting devices. The institute, like all government agencies, carries no insurance, arid the cost of rebuilding the clean room, says lab director Robert Kemper, “will kill the program if [funding] doesn’t come from a higher source.” His lab receives half of the institute’s overall $4.8 million budget for superconductivity research. Unfortunately, the NIST budget itself is far from robust. Last fall legislators earmarked $15 million from its current budget of $159 million for specific research projects, leaving the newly named agency with less money than it had received last year to carry out its expanded mission of spurring U.S. technological progress.

National Lab Briefs

The Scientist Staff

Fusion Controversy To Get Review

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