Budget for Science / NASA / Sir Roger Penrose

Two separate radio broadcasts are featured: the first discusses NASA's 16 billion dollar-plus budget of 2005, the second is an interview with a physicist and mathematician about quantum mechanics and the laws of the universe. Significant NASA budget items include fixing the Hubble space telescope; sending astronauts and robots to the moon and Mars; revolutionizing aeronautics with unmanned airplanes; and employing Earth observing satellites. The broadcast discusses whether doing actual science, including Earth science, is being shortchanged. It features the chairman of the House Science Committee, who was holding hearings on the NASA spending plan, and a NASA administrator. The broadcast is 30 minutes in length. The interview with Roger Penrose is about his book, which explores the relation between mathematics and physics, how quantum mechanics must be modified before a quantum gravity theory is found, and our search for the basic laws of the universe. He describes experiments that will test how long a superposition of a mirror lasts when impacted by a photon, the basics of Twistor Theory and how String Theory can be formulated in twistor space, and how dark energy can be explained by the cosmological constant. The interview is 18 minutes in length. Educational levels: General public