A federal government science group has issued recommendations based on the National Research Council’s 2002 report Connecting Quarks With the Cosmos: Eleven Science Questions for the New Century, and dark-energy research projects have received the strongest endorsement. The recommendations come from the Interagency Working Group on the Physics of the Universe (IWG), which was organized by the National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on Science to examine federal investments required by the NRC study (see Physics Today, Physics Today 0031-9228 55 7 2002 22 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1506740 July 2002, page 22 ).
Although the recommendations don’t have dollar figures attached to them, they are important because they define the priorities federal research agencies are placing on the NRC recommendations. The IWG included members from the US Department of Energy, NASA, NSF, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Office of Management and Budget.
“The IWG recommends three highest...