UT to Run High-Tech Weapons Lab?
Might control of the famous Los Alamos Research Labs be turned over to the University of Texas? The Statesman reports today that the contract to run the top-secret weapons research lab - currently held for over six decades by the University of California and Bechtel National Inc. - is now up for grabs. A joint venture between UT and Lockheed Martin is seeking to wrest control from the incumbent, with a potential annual funding budget at around $79 million. Needless to say, there's a lot at stake.
Los Alamos is best known as being the centre of the Manhattan Project, when Oppenheimer and his insanely intelligent cronies developed the atom bomb, but they currently have their hands in several pots:
Slightly more than half of the lab's science portfolio is focused on weapons. The rest involves other national security matters, basic science, alternative energy, computational biology and other fields. The lab has assembled the world's largest electronic archive of genetic codes for flu, allowing researchers to track the disease as it mutates and spreads. And it has made important advances in the development of hydrogen fuel cells, which someday could reduce the nation's reliance on imported oil.
After a series of embarassing scandals involving charges of international espionage, interesting accounting practices and "inventory control" problems, it would seem that the Energy Department is looking for a changing of the guard. Or, at the very least, to frighten Cal into more regimented control of the research facility.
