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Wouldn't it be better to fund this through NSF so that it could be part of a cohesive portfolio? Instead of the through the DOE which adds massive beurocratic

Wouldn't it be better to fund this through NSF so that it could be part of a cohesive portfolio? Instead of the through the DOE which adds massive beurocratic overhead/duplication of effort. Wouldn't one science funding research body be sufficient? Also, as for nuclear weapons research wouldn't that be best carried out by the dod, perhaps throug DARPA?

juiceandjuice 16y ago
There's a lot of things wrong with what you are assuming, and assuming that the DOE adds massive bureaucratic overhead is a bit naive, frankly. The NSF doesn't have a physical presence, and given that particle physics is a very natural extension of nuclear physics, that's why the DOE does particle physics (which includes lightsources). DARPA is purposefully limited in scope, they also have very few facilities (really, they are sort of like the NSF for weapons). Nuclear Weapons research is a small (but very important) part of the DOE's mission, but weapons and reactors are so closely tied together that it's really impossible to separate the too. There's certain levels of civilian and military separation that have been put into place by law. Many of the labs do weapons (usually conventional, only two do nuclear) research, many do only science, some do both, some do reactors and some do accelerators. The DOE services everyone though, defense, civilian, academic, everything, and that's largely why they are there and set up the way they are. It sort of ends up being this buffer zone between pure science and defense, and that's generally a good thing I think.
jessriedel 16y ago
Just to add to what juiceandjuice said: I get the impression you are arguing based off of the names of the various government agencies. This is silly; the names are historical. What's important is whether the agencies are organized properly to bring the people with the correct skills to bear on the particular investment problems. I have zero expertise in how large agencies should be organized, but I can assure you that the DOE has decades of experience funding all sorts of physics research. Moving funding jurisdiction to another agency would be an expensive shift with no obvious benefit.

juiceandjuice 16y ago

There's a lot of things wrong with what you are assuming, and assuming that the DOE adds massive bureaucratic overhead is a bit naive, frankly. The NSF doesn't have a physical presence, and given that particle physics is a very natural extension of nuclear physics, that's why the DOE does particle physics (which includes lightsources). DARPA is purposefully limited in scope, they also have very few facilities (really, they are sort of like the NSF for weapons). Nuclear Weapons research is a small (but very important) part of the DOE's mission, but weapons and reactors are so closely tied together that it's really impossible to separate the too. There's certain levels of civilian and military separation that have been put into place by law. Many of the labs do weapons (usually conventional, only two do nuclear) research, many do only science, some do both, some do reactors and some do accelerators. The DOE services everyone though, defense, civilian, academic, everything, and that's largely why they are there and set up the way they are. It sort of ends up being this buffer zone between pure science and defense, and that's generally a good thing I think.

jessriedel 16y ago

Just to add to what juiceandjuice said: I get the impression you are arguing based off of the names of the various government agencies. This is silly; the names are historical. What's important is whether the agencies are organized properly to bring the people with the correct skills to bear on the particular investment problems. I have zero expertise in how large agencies should be organized, but I can assure you that the DOE has decades of experience funding all sorts of physics research. Moving funding jurisdiction to another agency would be an expensive shift with no obvious benefit.