WHAT'S NEW Friday, 12 Sep 03

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 12 Sep 03   Washington, DC

1. EDWARD TELLER: PHYSICS WILL BE LESS INTERESTING WITHOUT HIM.
He died Tuesday at age 95.  His passionate anti-communism and
work on exotic weapons made him an almost mythic hero to many.
Always a technological optimist, he produced a flood of
unconventional ideas on a wide range of subjects.  He was most
effective when he worked with other great physicists such as Hans
Bethe.  He was strongly supportive of: Star Wars, the X-ray laser
and Brilliant Pebbles.

2. ENERGY BILL: WHITE HOUSE WANTS DRILLING IN WILDLIFE REFUGE. 
The Administration plan to finance the Iraq War with Iraqi oil is
not working, so the White House has renewed its call to open the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.  The plan made
it into the House version of the energy bill, but the Senate is
balking, with a filibuster possible.  The Administration also
rejected Senate provisions on global warming, saying they are
inconsistent with the President's strategy on the issue. The
"strategy" is to turn to hydrogen fuel cell automobiles some day,
with "voluntary" emission controls in the meantime.  

3. SHUTTLE: DAMN THE FOAM, FULL SPEED AHEAD.  Based on its
Return-To-Flight plan, NASA hopes to fly the shuttle again as
early as March and conduct as many as four missions in 2004. 
Members of the House Science committee are uneasy about such an
ambitious schedule, but even before the accident, Columbia's
mission was to be the last "science" mission of the shuttle. NASA
chief Sean O'Keefe acknowledges that NASA is considering robotic
shuttle flights to resupply the International Space Station.  

4. BIOSPHERE0-2: ANYONE LOOKING FOR A REAL CONVERSATION PIECE?
Biosphere-2, the $200M dream house of oil billionaire Edward P.
Bass, was built as an experiment to see if a self-sustaining
human colony could be built on Mars as a refuge from the unruly
masses on Earth.  Alas, a Garden of Eden it was not, although
ants and morning glories have reportedly thrived.  Bass turned
Biosphere-2 over to Columbia University to convert into a
legitimate science project.  Columbia soon tired of it (WN 24 Jun
03), and DOE was approached next.  Sadly, the rather neat idea of
climate change research in a terrarium never quite caught on. 
Bass, who might have been getting a little testy by then, sued
Columbia claiming they had let the property run down.  Last week,
Columbia and Bass reached an undisclosed settlement, so once
again the owner is looking for a new tenant.  Anyone interested
in acquiring a place with lots of windows and an indoor ocean,
should contact Decisions Investment Corporation.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND and THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY.  
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the
University or the American Physical Society, but they should be.
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