Notebook

Loose Lips Sink Budgets, Says Massey Out Of The Ashes Of The Space Station No Silly Questions, Please Too Much Of A Good Thing With Congress once again poised to cut out start-up funds for the proposed $211 million Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), NSF Director Walter Massey is blaming scientists for helping to wield the knife. In March, astrophysicist Tony Tyson of AT&T Bell Labs told the House science committee that LIGO won't be sensitive enough to measure the gravity waves that it is looking for, and that the money would be better spent on small-science projects. And last month the authorization panel voted to remove the $23 million requested for the LIGO project from NSF's 1992 budget. "Please go back and tell your colleagues that this type of behavior is not helpful," Massey said, fuming, at last month's meeting of the National Science Board. "And if they [critics] think that the money will be coming back to themselves, they are sadly mistaken." A subcommittee staffer says that Tyson's testimony was "one of several factors" prompting the action by the panel, which sets limits on spending but does not actually appropriate funds. One of the bodies that does control NSF's purse strings--the House appropriations subcommittee on HUD, VA, and independent agencies--looked favorably last month on NSF's budget request for 1992. The panel voted $2.72 billion, the full 17.5 percent increase sought by the administration. Within that figure are some winners and losers, of course. Education is up $45 million more than the already healthy $68 million increase requested, to a total of $435 million, while the $50 million that Bush proposed for an academic instrumentation program is eliminated. The panel also added $20 million for an academic facilities program dropped in the president's budget, and cut $12 million from NSF's requested $122 million for salaries and administrative expenses. The money bill is expected to be voted on this month by the full House, and then moved to the Senate. But its fate hinges on whether Congress accepts the panel's gutting of the space station Freedom, a $2 billion decision that freed up money for NSF and the other agencies within the panel's jurisdiction. According to an alternative budget worked up by subcommittee chairman Rep. Bob Traxler (D-Mich.), full funding for the space station would require making big cuts in science programs, including $250 million from NSF's budget, $87 million from EPA, and nearly $300 million from NASA. Critics of the Superconducting Supercollider (SSC) in Congress held a hearing last month to grill Energy Department and lab officials on the estimated cost of the $8.2 billion project, the obstacles that exist, and the likelihood of foreign contributions. Although few expect the views of Rep. Howard Wolpe (D-Mich.), chairman of the science oversight subcommittee that convened the hearing, and ranking minority member Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) to carry the day, SSC supporters don't want to make too many enemies. That's why Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) stepped in after the head of the SSC's magnet program, Thomas Bush, became a bit testy when Boehlert asked about his contingency plans if the 10,000 superconducting magnets failed to perform properly. "When things fall apart," Bush snapped, "you try to get everything back on track. That's the only answer I have to a silly question like that." "Congressmen don't ask silly questions, Mr. Bush," Barton interjected. "I apologize, sir," Bush replied. A report by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, entitled "Maximizing Human Potential," describes federal efforts to comply with the congressionally proclaimed "Decade of the Brain." But some NIH officials, while welcoming the heightened scientific interest in the subject, point out that there may be a downside to all the human potential that is trying to unlock the brain's secrets. At a briefing last month for the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, Roger Porter, deputy director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and chairman of the committee that wrote the report, noted that the Society for Neuroscience alone signed up 3,000 new members last year. But he added, "Frankly, [this growth] is posing a problem for us. They're all 29 years old, and they all want to be department chairpersons."

Notebook

The Scientist Staff

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