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Å®ÉúСÊÓƵs in the US hoped for a peace dividend as the cold war thawed.
Instead, next year’s budget for research and development delivers war booty
from the Middle East.

Å®ÉúСÊÓƵs of almost every stripe will profit from President Bush’s
budget plans for 1992, delivered this week. But the war in the Gulf has
ensured that military research will continue to receive the biggest share.
Other disciplines with bright futures include advanced computing, biotechnology,
particle physics and human genetics. The budget statement also promises
to educate Americans about science and mathematics.

‘This is a good budget,’ said the President’s science adviser, D Allan
Bromley, as he listed increases for everything from schoolbooks to missiles.
‘It’s a very happy day at the National Science Foundation,’ echoed Frederick
Bernthal, acting director of the NSF, the largest source of money for basic
science. The NSF’s budget would increase by 17.5 per cent, to $2.7 billion,
a sum which includes new funds for education and equipment at universities.

The government’s budget for 1992, which begins 1 October, is $1.4 trillion.
Of that, $75.6 billion is allocated to R&D, an increase of 13 per cent,
or about 8 per cent after inflation. Funding for all basic or ‘pure’ research
will rise from $12.3 billion to $13.3 billion, up 8 per cent. Applied research
would increase from $52 billion to $59 billion, up 13 per cent, with $3.5
billion for buildings. Nonscientific programmes average a 2.6 per cent increase.

Research for the military continues to consume the bulk – 60 per cent
– of R&D funding, even as overall spending on defence falls. All but
$1 billion is for applied research, for such things as new aircraft, missiles
and electronics.

Asked why the US still spends so much on military R&D, Bromley replied
exactly as he did this time last year: ‘To protect against technological
surprises and being blindsided.’ The technological nature of the Gulf War
‘has coloured our approach’ to R&D spending, Bromley said. He noted
that one of the heroes of the Gulf is a missile, the Patriot. ‘That technology
was paid for a decade ago,’ Bromley pointed out.

Spending on the strategic defence initiative bears out the trend: it
will increase $2.1 billion to $5.2 billion. But Ronald Reagan’s vision of
a constellation of lasers in space to shield the US has shrunk to a portable
shield to thwart limited strikes of fewer than 100 missiles, Bromley said.

Bush’s 1992 budget breaks with Reagan’s philosophy that the government
should leave commercial research to businesses. For example, Bush will raise
the profile of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, whose
budget is to double by 1996. The NIST will support research on advanced
manufacturing and materials.

Bush also wants to add $149 million to a $500 million programme to build
faster computers and fibre-optic networks to link them to schools and industry.
The plan already has support in Congress. And biotechnology has been singled
out for its own $4.1 billion budget. Bromley says such ‘generic’ research
does not violate Republican antipathy toward picking winners and losers
in the marketplace.

Space science has won a huge increase in funding of 21 per cent, to
$2.1 billion. That supports new satellites for observing Earth and preparations
for expeditions to the Moon and possibly Mars. NASA wants $83 million for
a new programme to develop robots for space. The space agency will also
cooperate with the Pentagon to develop a rocket to take over some tasks
of the space shuttle. Support for NASA’s space station slows down from a
gallop to a walk, however, increasing by only $128 million.

Big science projects continue to occupy centre stage. The budget for
the superconducting supercollider will almost double, to $534 million. However,
deadlines for winning foreign contributions are drawing near and so far
the SSC has attracted nothing more than promises from abroad. The SSC must
raise one-third of its $8 billion budget from outside the government. James
Watkins, Secretary of Energy, said this will be the key year to win foreign
help. Likewise, the Human Genome Project has yet to win substantial help
from abroad. Nonetheless its budget will increase by 26 per cent.

Another project looking for help from abroad is fusion energy, which
Congress cut back severely this year. Watkins from the Department of Energy
called the cut ‘a tragedy’ and is asking to restore funding next year to
$337 million.

The budget includes $460 million for research on energy conservation
and renewable energy. This amounts to a modest increase of $73 million over
this year, although the White House claims it has reversed its decade-long
neglect of alternative energy. Funding for nuclear R&D would increase
by $93 million to $398 million.

Among Bush’s most controversial positions on R&D has been his insistence
that global warming is unproven and needs more research. To that end, he
asks for 24 per cent more spending, to almost $1.2 billion, or a doubling
of the programme in the next two years.