https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/what-might-project-2025-mean-for-n-m-non-nuclear-cuts-at-national-labs/article_956aa830-8506-11ef-b30c-6bbad5000761.html
But tucked in the 922 pages of its report, “Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise,” is one recommendation that centers squarely on New Mexico.
The document, penned by the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, contemplates pulling funding from any work unrelated to nuclear weapons at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories and sister facility Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
Basically all non-nuclear science is to be cut. Mello is kind of cynical about the whole thing.
3 comments:
I think one can easily make the argument that the weapons labs should not be doing basic science, at very high cost, when that work can be done much more efficiently by universities. Any "science" the labs do should only be science that can't be done in the open for one legal reason or another, such as export control or clarification.
Not all nuclear weapons science is nuclear physics. There is chemistry, electromagnetic, explosives, computer simulations, and many other disciplines that contribute. Their recommendation is not nearly as restrictive as you think, it just serves to get rid of all of the green mandates and blue sky stuff that universities should do.
"I think one can easily make the argument that the weapons labs should not be doing basic science, at very high cost, when that work can be done much more efficiently by universities. Any "science" the labs do should only be science that can't be done in the open for one legal reason or another, such as export control or clarification."
I see the argument but if the NNSA are also suppose to be at the cutting edge in terms of national security science they need to have some kind of interface with the state of the art basic science. Also there is plenty of basic science is that is essential for long term science at the labs. All you have to do is look at the history of the labs to see this is the case. The size scale of the labs also means a lot of the science they do and the facilities that have simply cannot be done at most universities or only hand full and these that do often are strongly connected to the labs. Over the years the labs have had many people who chose to be the labs rather than become faculty due to the labs having resources you cannot find at most universities.
I do not mean to sound rude but whenever I hear the arguments like the one you make it just comes across as a completely naive view of what the labs do, how the do it, and how they did it in the past. I have to ask if you actually work at LLNL, LANL or Sandia or have you ever worked in science in any form at all? I would understand if you not a scientist but I have to ask how you come to your conclusions?
As for the cost this is also incorrect and shows you do know what the overheard is at universities. It is probably cheaper do a lot of science LLNL and LANL if you factor in everything. Also what do you mean by "blue sky stuff" the labs have never really had any "blue sky stuff" as you claim and the few cases you can argue for usually have some deep connections to the labs mission. I suppose you think NIF is blue sky, that gamma ray detection is blue sky, that science of plutonium is blue sky, shock waves are blue sky, large scale computation is blue sky? Again it shows a profoundly naive view of what the labs do.
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