Just 22 months after Norman Augustine sat before a congressional committee to urge support for the recommendations in the landmark report Rising Above the Gathering Storm , the retired CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp was working the phones from his car as he zipped from meeting to meeting in Washington, DC. Congress was about to vote on the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science (COMPETES) Act, which would authorize funding for science programs in almost every federal agency at levels higher than even advocates for science had thought possible.
Augustine, who was chair of the National Academy of Sciences committee that issued the Gathering Storm report (see Physics Today, December 2005, page 25), was talking mostly to reluctant Republicans who were worried about voting for legislation that allocated $21 billion more in domestic spending than President Bush had requested. Although almost everyone...