A funding crisis in science.

My first thought was my project! Don't we all think that?

Well, yes, mine, of course.

Globally? I suspect I don't know enough to have an informed opinion.

So here's my uninformed opinion : sustainable, practical, fusion. Yes, money goes into it. But I'd like to see some sort of Apollo Program or Manhattan Project massive push to make it happen. Of course, maybe it's much harder than all of optimistic science-fiction reading people think; we know now it's harder than we thought it would be a few decades ago. But making fusion work as an Earth-based energy source is something I'd think is pretty important.

Re: your way of asking the question, I'm not sure there are any that should be underfunded.... There may be some that don't really merit a whole lot of funding, but the very phrase "underfunded" suggests it's not enough.

But, yeah, mostly, me. Myself. That's the most underfunded thing, and I wish you'd fix that for me. Thanks.

-Rob

Mine, of course, but I am making discoveries anyway. Aside from that, NASA is chronically underfunded for all it has accomplished. How about practical electric vehicles? When GM pulled the plug on EV-1 it was scandalous.

Funnily enough, a shining real example (at least for the US) emerged over a lunch discussion today - low temperature plasma physics (the kind that leads to your plasma TV and other nice goodies). Japan's annual investment is about 80 million, Germany about 60 million and the US invests about $300,000, annually, over the whole country.

The problem is that it falls in the gaps between DOE and industry. It's too close to applied physics for the government, but there is a lot of basic stuff (like cross-sections) which Industry doesn't want to fund. When they really need it, they apparantly outsource to the former soviet union, but that is apparantly getting harder because of the infrastructure failures over there.

I very much agree with Rob Knop. Fusion.
Potentially the greatest good for the greatest number.
Jim Graber

You're all wrong. It's *my* field.