NEWS OF THE WEEK

Atmospheric research plane unveiled Engineers unveil Perseus A—the first plane de­signed specifically for high-altitude atmospheric re­search—at a ceremony in Manassas, Va. Slated to start test flights this spring and science missions by 1994, the aircraft was designed and built by Aurora Flight Sciences Corp. for the National Aeronautics & Space Administration's program, Mission to Planet Earth. The unmanned plane can carry up to 110 lb of instruments to altitudes of more than 98,000 feet, Aurora officials say. (The altitude record for un­manned planes is 67,028 feet, and for a manned plane in horizontal flight it is 85,069 feet.) Perseus A will be towed into the air by another plane and then released. It will be piloted by an on-board computer and by remote control. One of several Perseus mod­els under development at Aurora, Perseus A is de­signed especially for stratospheric ozone research, but it will be "a valuable new tool for many areas of A has a 59-foot wingspan, a tail-mounted propeller, weighs about 1500 atmospheric research," notes NASA administrator lb, and is made of lightweight composite materials like those used in Daniel S. Goldin. NASA is especially interested in sailplanes or gliders. Key team members now at Aurora derived much whether supersonic airliners can be built whose of the technology from their experience in 1985-88 in building the emissions would not harm the ozone layer. Perseus record-breaking, lightweight, human-powered Daedalus aircraft

say that if it's a matter of technologv

programs becoming WPA [Works Progress Administration] projects in the Clinton Administration, Jack [Gib­bons 1 would favor a space station over, say, a Sea Wolf submarine."

"I think Gibbons has a whole arrav of sterling attributes," observes Wil­liam G. Wells, a friend of Gibbons' and professor of management science and information systems at George Wash-ington University in Washington, D.C.

"He has the ability to work in a tou^h ο and complicated environment involv­

ing multiple interests and different [bosses]. He is just a master at facilitat­ing things. I have never at anv time seen him lose his cool."

Wil Lcpkowski

Grim NSF spending plans finalized for 1993 Three months into fiscal-vear 1993, the appropriations committees of the House and Senate have just approved the Na­tional Science Foundation's spending plans for the year. As expected, scien­tists—including chemists—looking for research grants from the agency will face the tightest funding situation in years.

Last fall, Congress appropriated NSF $1.86 billion for research and related ac­tivities, about $14 million, or 1%, less than in fiscal 1992. It told the agency to

submit an operating plan by Dec. 15, spelling out how NSF would place greater emphasis on technology transfer and on research tied to industrial inter­ests. Congress specified that the plan should reflect the recommendations of the Commission on the Future of NSF, whose report in November gave top pri­ority to NSF's role in supporting basic research but also stressed the need for more active efforts to work with indus­try (C&EN, Nov. 30,1992, page 6).

Accordingly, NSF's plan highlights agencvwide "strategic research" initia­tives slated for funding increases. These include manufacturing research and education, advanced materials and processing, biotechnology, high-perfor­mance computing and communica­tions, and global-change research.

"The development of this current plan has been extremely difficult," NSF director Walter E. Massey wrote the committees in a cover letter. "Tough decisions had to be made that will re­sult in funding levels in many pro­grams that will be significantly below last year's levels."

For example, funding for basic re­search programs in the mathematical and physical sciences (MPS) director­ate—which includes the chemistry divi­sion—drops 8 to 10%. MPS's total bud­get falls about $3 million, to $620 million.

That decrease is distributed uneven­ly, however. Budgets for the mathe­matical and astronomical sciences divi­

sions drop sharply, but the materials research division gets an increase, re­flecting the importance put on ad­vanced materials and processing.

The plan gives the chemistry divi­sion $112 million, the same as last year. However, about $2 million of that will be held in reserve at the directorate lev­el to address cross-disciplinary and big-ticket items, says chemistry divi­sion director Kenneth G. Hancock.

Moreover, says Hancock, the division expects to significantly increase spend­ing in four priority areas stretching across its traditional organic, inorganic, analytical, and theoretical chemistry pro­grams. The four areas are advanced ma­terials chemistry (up $3.5 million from last year's $18.5 million); biological chemistry (up $1 million from $10 mil­lion); environmental chemistry (up $1.5 million from $4.5 million); and high-per­formance computational chemistry (up $1 million from $3 million). This could result in fewer grants to more traditional areas of chemistry. However, Hancock notes, chemists already are shifting their research to the priority areas.

The division will stick to the strategy it devised last fall: making fewer new grants, but maintaining grant size and instrumentation funds (C&EN, Nov. 9, 1992, page 6). "Unfortunately, the situ­ation is very close to what we were predicting," Hancock adds. "It's the toughest budget situation in years."

Pamela Zur er

8 JANUARY 4, 1993 C&EN