APPENDIX 3 EXCERPTS FROM ANNUAL REPORT OF THE UNIVERSITIES RESEARCH ACCELERATOR AUTHORIZATION AND APPROPRIATIONS ACCELERATOR A major forward step on the Accelerator occurred this year when the full $250M for the construction of the Accelerator was included in the authorization bill passed by Congress and signed by the President on July 11, 1969. During the first half of the current fiscal year, there were many uncertainties as to the funds that would be available for Accelerator construction this year, since the appropriation bill was passed and signed by the President only on December 11 for the fiscal year that began the preceding July. Initially, the sum requested by the National Accelerator Laboratory for fiscal year 1970 was $102M. This was reduced to $96M in the budget submitted to Congress by the President. The House of Representatives in its version of the appropriation bill drastically reduced the appropriation to $64M whereas the Senate favored the full $96M requested by the President. The final compromise bill that was signed by the President in December provided $70M of new construction funds for the Accelerator during the current fiscal year. Despite the disappointment that the final appropriation fell so far below the original sum requested by the Laboratory, Dr. Wilson, the Laboratory Director, expects to hold to his original schedule for the Accelerator which calls for the initial operation by July 1, 1972. However, the reductions and delays in funding will seriously delay the main laboratory building and other facilities badly needed for fully effective research, NATIONAL ACCELERATOR LABORATORY At one time it was feared that there might be great difficulty in recruiting an effective staff for the National Accelerator Laboratory. It is now apparent that this fear was not justified; an excellent staff has been recruited for the Laboratory and at present the recruitment of new staff is primarily limited by insufficiency of funds and not by disinterest on the part of qualified candidates. Three years ago there were no employees of the Laboratory, two years ago there were 52, last year there were 320, and this year there are 585. Of this number 65 are scientists and 64 are engineers. In addition to the NAL employees, the architect-engineer firm of DUSAF has 175 employees engaged on the Accelerator project. The Laboratory has benefited greatly from its strong affirmative action program and the special training programs it has helped encourage for minority groups. A year ago the Batavia site was still being acquired and some delays were occurring because some of the needed land was still inaccessible to us. By now the entire site has been acquired by the Atomic Energy Commission. REDUCTION IN NEW CONTRACTS FOR GOVERNMENT CONSTRUCTION On September 4, 1969, a national directive was issued for a 75% reduction in new contracts for government financed building construction. Had this directive been issued a few months earlier it would have had a devastating effect upon the accelerator. However, by good fortune a number of large contracts for the most essential construction were placed during the preceding months. The most critically needed building construction not on contract was the main ring and the AEC was able to allocate sufficient funds under the allowed 25% of new construction to permit contracting for the essential portions of the main ring. DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF ACCELERATOR A succession of models has been constructed and tested for the major components of the Accelerator. It has been found that costs can be reduced by changing the planned booster energy from 10 BeV to 8 BeV. As time progresses the improvements in design tend to be dominantly on details rather than in the overall plan. The attached Fig. 1 shows the present overall lay-out of the accelerator. The LINAC building has now been completed and occupied by the Laboratory and is shown in Fig. 2. The booster tunnel is now essentially complete and the booster galleries on top of it are taking shape as shown in Fig. 3. The contract for the main ring has been placed at a cost significantly less than that estimated by DUSAF, and the actual construction has been started. The 10 MeV prototype LINAC operated so well that it is now being installed with the new preaccelerator in the LINAC building. A prototype cell of the booster is also performing satisfactorily under power and vacuum and is shown in Fig. 4. This has permitted the Laboratory to let contracts for the booster components. Most of the main ring components also are either under contract or negotiation. Despite the rapid rise of national construction costs during the past two years, it still appears that the Accelerator can be completed within the original $250M cost estimate. By December 31, 1969, 30% of the estimated basic cost of the Accelerator had been either incurred or committed and only 1.6% of the funds reserved for contingency and escalation had been obligated. Although this situation is most encouraging, it must be remembered that contingency and escalation costs are ordinarily greatest in the final stages of a big project. USERS ORGANIZATION The Users Organization continues to be active and of real value to both the Laboratory and the potential users. Many aspects of Laboratory policy and Accelerator design, especially as they affect the research scientists, have been profitably discussed at meetings of the users and of committees established by the Users Organization. The present chairman of the Users Organization is Professor Harold Ticho of the University of California at Los Angeles. 42-051 O 70 pt. 2 27 PROGRAM COMMITTEE A Program Committee is being appointed by Dr. Wilson to advise him on the Laboratory research program including the selection of research experiments to be assigned time on the Accelerator. Even though the time for the first beam is more than two years away, the necessary time for the preparation of experiments is sufficiently great that there is already a need for a Program Committee. The Program Committee will consist of 9 scientists from the universities and other high energy laboratories, and a smaller number of scientists from the NAL staff. SUMMER STUDIES A second highly successful and valuable summer study pertaining to the Accelerator and its facilities for research experiments was held at Aspen, Colorado during the summer. The summer discussions have affected many of the decisions on the design of the Accelerator, the experimental areas, and the research equipment and facilities. The summer studies have been so valuable that another one is planned for next summer. However, with the greatly increased activity at the NAL site, it appears best to have the experimental portions of the study at or near the Laboratory rather than in Colorado. BUBBLE CHAMBER The conclusions of both NAL summer studies and other studies are that a large bubble chamber will be essential for several of the most important experiments, and extremely useful for others. For two years the primary reliance of NAL for a bubble chamber has been a joint proposal between NAL and Brookhaven National Laboratory for a 25-foot bubble chamber to be built primarily by the Brookhaven staff but to be operated at NAL. However, the proposed 25-foot bubble chamber has so far not been funded and its prospects appear poor in the budget for FY 1971. In that The urgency of the need for a major bubble chamber in the early Accelerator operations is so great that an alternative course is being devised if no provisions for the 25-foot chamber are included in the FY 1971 budget. case NAL will propose the construction by the NAL staff of a 30,000 liter bubble chamber modeled closely after the Brookhaven 7-foot chamber stretched to incorporate a 12-foot sphere. CANADIAN PARTICIPATION The Canadian National Research Council is currently considering a proposal for more active Canadian participation in the Accelerator project, including a Canadian financial contribution to the facilities. |