Newsletter 105 ª June 2001 NEWSLETTER The American Astronomical Societys2000 Florida Avenue, NW, Suite 400sWashington, DC
[email protected] AAS NEWS PRESIDENT’S COLUMN 2001 Prizes: Anneila Sargent, Caltech, AAS President Bush’s First Budget: Grim News for Science Wallace Sargent President Bush submitted his budget to Congress on 9 April, and Russell Lecturer the news is grim. Seven of the ten largest R&D funding agencies are looking at a real decline in FY 2002. It seems like the only The American agencies with increases will be the National Institutes of Health, Astronomical Society has the Department of Defense and the Department of presented its 2001 Henry Transportation (due to guaranteed funding from transportation Norris Russell Lectureship trust funds, not as a result of Presidential favor). To make to Wallace L. W. Sargent matters worse, this budget is accompanied by a Presidential of the California Institute mandate for no new program or construction starts across the for Technology. The government as a whole. The mandate seriously threatens Lectureship is given several projects given high priority in the recent McKee-Taylor annually on the basis of a report, and also a hold-over project from the last decadal report, Wallace L. W. Sargent, Ira S. Bowen lifetime of eminence in the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). Professor of Astronomy at Caltech is the astronomical research. In 2001 Russell Lecturer. making their selection, the NSF is particularly hard hit — a major disappointment after the Photo by Robert Paz, FY2001 13% budget increase. In the President’s budget, the California Institute of Technology prize committee cited Sargent for “his total funding for NSF would barely increase and the contributions to astronomical spectroscopy.