NSF has an account for Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC), to support the development of very large research instruments. Typically, the goal of these instruments, which may cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build and tens of millions of dollars annually to operate, is to find answers to some of the most fundamental questions in science today. For example, LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) is designed to detect ripples in space-time caused by changes in very large masses (e.g., a star exploding). Such observations, if made successfully, would finally confirm Einstein’s prediction of the existence of gravitational waves. LIGO has a construction cost of about $300M and […]
Computing Community Consortium Blog
The goal of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is to catalyze the computing research community to debate longer range, more audacious research challenges; to build consensus around research visions; to evolve the most promising visions toward clearly defined initiatives; and to work with the funding organizations to move challenges and visions toward funding initiatives. The purpose of this blog is to provide a more immediate, online mechanism for dissemination of visioning concepts and community discussion/debate about them.
Archive for June 17th, 2008
