77 



First of all I would like to assure Mr. Baker that he is absolutely 

 correct that physicists do not like to lift people up and drop them. 



[Laughter.] 



Mr. Ehlers. However, I also assure you that if it does happen, 

 we can help you calculate how soon they will hit the ground, and 

 how fast 



[Laughter.] 



Mr. Ehlers. (continuing) and what their velocity will be when 

 they hit. 



I would like to associate myself also with the comments of my 

 comrade from New York, Mr. Boehlert, who made some very wise 

 observations. 



They key issue here, and one we have to communicate to the 

 public and, to a certain extent, to our colleagues is that the future 

 economic base of this country two, three, and four decades from 

 now rests on the decisions we make this year about supporting 

 science because of the economic engine we have today that is a re- 

 sult of the sacrifices our parents and grandparents made in fund- 

 ing science research 30, 40, and 50 years ago. The same now holds 

 true. 



I believe if we do not provide the funds for basic, fundamental 

 research and science that is going to fuel the economic engine of 

 the future, we are doing just as good a disservice to our children 

 and grandchildren as we are when we do not balance the budget. 



So this leads to very difficult decisions. But I will join my col- 

 leagues certainly in trying to do what we can to maintain effective 

 science research programs in this country. 



I will not go into detail on the budget. I have discussed this pri- 

 vately with both of the witnesses. I think it is very important for 

 us to proceed with some of our major projects, such as the millime- 

 ter array radio telescope, also the superconducting cyclotron, and 

 there are a number of other areas — the NSF's participation in the 

 large Hedron Collider at CERN — all of these are important 

 projects, and I encourage their continuation and their funding. 



But in addition to those, the essence of NSF is thousands and 

 thousands of individual investigators across the Nation doing out- 

 standing research on behalf of our country. That is the unique role 

 of NSF that they perform very, very well, and that we have to sup- 

 port and communicate to our colleagues and to our country. 



I hope we can do that effectively. 



On a point related to that, I have circulated a letter trying to en- 

 sure full-year funding for NSF as soon as possible, if we continue 

 to drag along with continuing resolutions. 



Because of the nature of NSF and their grant-making mecha- 

 nism, this has jeopardized a great deal of scientific research in this 

 nation because they simply cannot make grants without an assur- 

 ance of their funding for the year. So we have many investigators 

 and scientists across the country who are unable to receive funding 

 from NSF. 



They will not receive their grants because Dr. Lane cannot prom- 

 ise money that he doesn't know that he has. I think it is incumbent 

 upon all of us on the Science Committee to work toward assuring 

 full-year funding for NSF, as well as NOAA, their scientific enter- 

 prises in NOAA, NASA, and so forth, as soon as we can. 



