Number 179 (Story #4), May 17, 1994 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein THE 1995 RESEARCH BUDGET REQUEST , submitted to Congress by President Clinton, calls for a 4% increase in R&D spending. Among physics programs at the Department of Energy, the 1995 request for high energy physics is $621.9 (all amounts are in millions of dollars), about the same as in 1994. The '95 request for nuclear physics is $300.8, down 14% from '94. The Basic Energy Sciences program, at $741.3, is down 6.2% from the previous year. The new request for magnetic fusion is $372.6, up 8.4% from '94, while the figure for inertial fusion is $176.5, down from $185.5. At the National Science Foundation, the 1995 figure for physics is $141.7 ($133.7 in '94), for materials research $185.5 ($175.6 in '94), and $443.1 for geoscience ($403.9 in '94). At NASA the physics and astronomy program calls for $1058.7 in 1995 ($1076.6 in '94), including $226.7 for the Hubble Space Telescope and $234.5 for the AXAF x-ray telescope. The planetary exploration request was $707.3, compared to $654.3 in '94. (Physics Today, April 1994.)