It seemed an inauspicious time to seek funding for a large physics experiment. During the midterm elections in 1994, with Newt Gingrich and his Contract with America at the vanguard, Republicans stormed to power in Congress after successfully painting President Bill Clinton as a “tax-and-spend” liberal. Gingrich and his new majority promised to balance the country’s budget.
Meanwhile, at the offices of the National Science Foundation, the foundation’s director wanted to press ahead with the construction of gravitational wave detectors that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. There was no guarantee that these instruments would find gravitational waves. In fact, many scientists predicted they wouldn't work. And even if they were successful, the discovery of gravitational waves would not advance the interests of the United States in any material way.
The foundation’s director at the time was particle physicist Neal Lane, who would go on to become President Clinton’s science advisor. When I asked him about the Gingrich revolution and the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, he chuckled. “When Gingrich came to town with the Republicans, that could have definitely been a major hiccup,” Lane said.The discovery of gravitational waves, announced earlier this month, capped one of the most profound physics achievements of the last century. It illuminated how a single human mind could conceive of a fantastical idea, and others could take those ideas and build an incredibly precise measuring device to prove the theory. But it was a long journey, and not a cheap one, at a cumulative cost of more than $1.1 billion over nearly four decades. Physicists had to conceive the technology, build it, test it, upgrade it and so forth. And all the while, they weren’t sure they’d find what they were looking for.
In short, only a large government could really underwrite such a speculative venture with no financial return. "I think it’s truly remarkable that ordinary people, through their representatives, have consistently chosen to contribute part of their taxes to science," said Geoffrey Lovelace, a California State University, Fullerton physicist, who is part of the LIGO experiment. "You'd probably have a hard time pitching this on Shark Tank."
In today’s world of budget battles and Washington dysfunction, it’s important to remember that governments can still do great things.
The Gingrich revolution
Neal Lane understands the challenges of big, basic science projects better than most. He led the National Science Foundation from 1993 to 1998, during a time when $216 million was spent to build the large interferometers in Livingston, Louisiana and Hanford, Washington. It was a dark time in the physics community, with Congress having recently canceled the Superconducting Super Collider already under construction in Texas.
I wanted to know how LIGO managed to escape the same fate, especially at a time when Gingrich was ascendant. I wanted to understand how government would keep putting money into a program for so long, uncertain whether it would ever pay off—and indeed when the payoff would largely be pure science rather than anything practical. And finally, I wanted to know if we were still capable of doing these kinds of projects today.
We met for coffee in the middle of Rice University’s campus, where Lane is now a professor emeritus. The Sun shone brightly, and as we looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Brochstein Pavilion, we enjoyed a view of a verdant campus already sliding into spring. Lane sipped an iced coffee and cast his mind back 20 years.
He had heard about the LIGO proposal as far back as 1979, when the NSF urged the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and California Institute of Technology to work together on a joint proposal. That work, managed by NSF program officer Richard Isaacson, continued for 15 years, when it became clear that enough theoretical and technology development work had been completed, and it was time to start building. Lane decided that as part of the 1995 budget, he would push to begin construction.
“The thing about the project that excited me was that it’s just the kind of thing NSF ought to do,” he recalled. “It was really basic, fundamental research. We had no idea what kind of impact it would have on any product down the road, or the mission of the federal government. And I kept asking Kip Thorne, ‘Can you say with confidence when this observatory is going to observe something?’ Kip Thorne said, ‘Well, there’s no way I can tell you that.’”
To Lane, the project seemed technologically impossible. Measuring distances one ten-thousandth the width of a proton? As a particle physicist, he was doubtful. But he also had great respect for physicists like Thorne and others involved in the project. They were first-class, he said, and because it was an exciting proposal, he decided to bet on the quality of the people involved.
But the NSF just could not really just ask for a permanent $50 million budget increase, so Lane and his staff created a new funding avenue. Called the Major Research Equipment account, it would periodically be used to fund larger projects, such as LIGO and, later, the South Pole Research Station. He managed to include this funding amount in the fiscal year 1995 budget without too much difficulty.
After that, however, came the 1994 midterm elections. Led by Gingrich, Republicans gained control of both the House and the Senate, promising to rein in federal spending. Gingrich himself became Speaker of the House. Meanwhile, as he contemplated ongoing construction, Lane realized he would need even more money in the fiscal year 1996 budget, $70 million, to keep the projects going.
“That was a big issue,” Lane said. “Gingrich and crowd could have killed that. So immediately, when Gingrich came to town, I took the National Science Board over and met with him in his conference room to talk about what we were doing and why it was important. He was very positive about us at NSF. He’s a techie. He likes science and technology. I don’t recall him promising anything, but he did express appreciation for what NSF was doing.”
Nevertheless, the budget battle turned ugly. The government was shut down for 27 days during the period of November 1995 through January 1996. Later, Lane learned of a meeting of the House Appropriation subcommittee chairs called by Gingrich. “During that meeting, he said they were really going to try and cut the federal budget,” Lane said. “But Gingrich told the chairs to protect science as best they could. I was told that had Gingrich not given those instructions, NSF would have been in even worse shape than it was. And so the money stayed in.”
LIGO today?
Those were bitter political times, Lane said. After all, the Republican Congress would move to impeach Bill Clinton in a few years. But there were still Republicans and Democrats working across party lines on the appropriations process. Work was going on, staff to staff, principal to principal. Today, Lane doesn’t see that kind of cooperation, and it spells major trouble for any new programs a president might seek to fund, like construction of LIGO instruments.
“Never say never,” he said. “We should always hope, always try. I would just say the conditions are very different. Polarization is one thing. The other thing is the private sector some time ago—but even government now—is moving steadily toward short-term deliverables for everything. Expectations are not patient. If the President’s Office of Management and Budget sent this over today, I think you’d have a very hard time getting it through Congress.”
Lane is probably correct. On the very same day that physicists announced their spectacular findings in early February, the US House of Representatives passed legislation sponsored by Texas Republican Lamar Smith, HR3293, that allows the NSF to award grants only for research it can certify as being in the national interest, such as benefiting the economy or improving national defense.
“It really is an irony,” Lane said of the timing. A bitter one.
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