from the gathering-momentum dept.
An article on the web site of MITís Technology Review Magazine ("Nano Gets Boost from Bush," by A. Leo, 13 April 2001) reports that the Bush Administrationís proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2002 for the U.S. federal government would significantly boost research and development funding for nantechnology-related efforts. According to the TR report, in his budget proposal released last week, Bush requested $485 million for nanotechnology research in fiscal year 2002, a fifteen percent increase from the $422 million Congress granted last year. This is still less than the $495 million the Clinton Adminstration originally requested for the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) for FY2001.
Analysts with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) R&D Budget and Policy Program put the nanotech funding for FY2002 at $482 million, and note in their preliminary analysis of the budget proposal that nanotech is one of the few areas that receives an increase in research and development funds.
The TR article also contains this interesting teaser: The NNI has also begun "to address how nanotechnology will affect society. This month, the National Science Foundation will publish a 400-page report, authored by Roco, on those implications. In that report, Roco predicts that in ten to fifteen years the entire semiconductor industry, as well as half the pharmaceutical industry, will rely on nanotechnology."
