THERE was a time when Bill Richardson, who runs the US Department of Energy
(DOE), was one of Washington鈥檚 golden boys. He was even mentioned as a possible
vice presidential running mate for Al Gore. Then Wen Ho Lee was accused of
stealing nuclear secrets from the DOE鈥檚 Los Alamos laboratory, the place where
the first nuclear weapons were designed. And this year, another scandal:
computer discs containing nuclear plans disappeared when the lab was evacuated
during a forest fire. Eventually, the discs turned up behind a
photocopier鈥攂ut the investigation into their disappearance continues. Lie
detector tests for staff and tight security have followed.
And that鈥檚 not the end of Los Alamos鈥檚 troubles. That forest fire burnt down
hundreds of homes belonging to Los Alamos workers. They鈥檒l get compensation from
the government, but the town is a wasteland now. DOE insiders say the mood is
grim there; scientists are leaving. Add to that the fact that most of the
bomb-makers from the cold war era will be retiring en masse over the next four
years. The government is worried it won鈥檛 be able to find bright new
bomb-designers who will want to live in a charcoal-coloured town crawling with
FBI agents. Given that the Russians can no longer even pay their bomb designers
to stay on the job, we don鈥檛 really need international disarmament
treaties鈥e鈥檒l get there by attrition.
ONE of the great things about the US is that you can fail and people still
have faith in you. On numerous occasions, scientist-entrepreneurs from far
shores have discovered that if you go bankrupt here in, say, a new biotech
venture, bankers will still payroll you the next time around.
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The same works for NASA, too, apparently. The space agency failed last year
trying to put a weather probe into Martian orbit and, months later, a lander
near one of the planet鈥檚 poles. Botched software was responsible for both
crashes. A cloud of doubt enveloped the agency; it looked like the end of their
鈥渂etter, faster, cheaper鈥� philosophy of planetary exploration.
Now they鈥檝e emerged from the miasma of self-recrimination in true American
fashion. Rather than taking a cautious turn, NASA鈥檚 next Mars mission will send
not one but two robotic rovers to the surface. They鈥檙e due to land within weeks
of each other in January 2004.
NASA officials say it鈥檚 cheaper to send two at once rather than 26 months
apart. Not that they were ever seriously planning to send two identical rovers
to Mars years apart. There is a certain logic to the redundancy that plays well
in Washington鈥f one rover screws up, there鈥檚 another right behind it.
HERE鈥橲 a nifty practical joke you can play on any of your friends here who
happen to be presidents of large research universities. Just tell them that
you鈥檝e heard that the White House Office of Management and Budget plans to
revise Circular A-21, and then watch them turn shades of red and start
spluttering.
The cause of the apoplexy for the leaders of Harvard, Stanford and the like
is that Circular A-21 spells out how much these universities may charge the
government for the so-called indirect costs of research鈥攖hings like the
electricity bills or the janitorial services. Although universities may think of
themselves as lean, mean research machines, they鈥檙e not too proud to keep up to
a third or more of the cost of a research for overheads.
Like it or not, changes may be ahead for Circular A-21. The National Science
Foundation Authorisation Act of 1998 asked the White House to look into how
indirect cost rates are determined. Now the report is finished, and even though
it says basically, 鈥渟tay the course,鈥� a little tinkering is what Congress loves
to do. So your practical joke may really be a prudent warning.
