Number 222 (Story #3), April 17, 1995 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein THE 1996 FEDERAL R&D BUDGET REQUEST amounts to $72.8 billion, 52% of which is for the Defense Department, 9.5% for the Energy Department, and 12.5% for NASA. Within DOE the request (in millions of dollars) for high energy physics is $685.6 (up 6.8% from FY95), for nuclear physics $321.1 (down 3.1%), and $366 (down 0.6%) for fusion research. The high energy request includes operating budgets of $146.4 for Fermilab, $80.8 for SLAC, and $45.5 for Brookhaven. Construction projections of note are the Fermilab main injector ($62.4) and the SLAC B factory ($57.6). The largest nuclear physics construction project is the Brookhaven Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, at $71.3. The DOE request for basic energy science is $811.4, up 10.6% from FY95. This includes $169.6 for materials science, $178.7 for facilities operations, $118.3 for chemical sciences, and $108.7 for applied mathematical sciences. A separate category, major user facilities (mostly synchrotron sources at Oak Ridge, Argonne, Brookhaven, and LBL) will cost $240. At the NSF, the request for physics research is $142.2 (up 9.1%), while for materials research it is $190.9 (up 8.9%). The request for geoscience is $451.5 and for astronomy $110.4. The NASA request for physics and astronomy is $1131, including $237.6 for development of the Advanced X-Ray Astrophysics Facility, $182.7 for Hubble Space Telescope operations and servicing, and $93.2 for small explorer missions. The NASA planetary exploration request is $827.8, including $191.5 for Cassini development, $108.5 for the Mars Surveyor, and $75.1 for Galileo operations. The budget for the Mission to Planet Earth is $1341.1. (Physics Today, April 1995; Physics World, March 1995.)