Fast Track International Linear Collider: "Give me $10B or give me death"

Bill Foster's resignation letter from Fermi Lab's Proton Drive Project after having lost the funding wars to the International Linear Collider's tactics of Give me $10 billion or give me death

Interesting reading for those who think being a Scientist and Businessman is all nerdy stuff.

It's a link to a pdf.

...in the likely occurrence that we do not immediately get $10B of federal and international funds to build the ILC, congress may tire of funding R&D for a project with an uncertain time scale, and the HEP budget at both US universities and labs will collapse. (By this time, of course, Rep. Hastert will have retired as Speaker of the House and we will no longer have him to defend our budget….)

Guess Foster's going to pick up Hastert's fight. Just please don't try and build that tunnel proposed in the 90s through my aquifer again.

Foster may also want to explain this admission with the flood of commercials about ending the bickering in Congress,

It has been a great disappointment to me that I have been unable to convince DOE to agree that the Proton Driver Project is a reasonable option to preserve. But I also realize that my voice will not be heard, since after years of insisting that unpleasant technical realities be respected in strategic planning in HEP, I find myself branded as a troublemaker with an axe to grind. Since the starting points for progress must be an acknowledgement by the ILC planners that a realistic ILC schedule is well into the future, and that a U.S. system test is essential, future progress may in fact be quicker if I am not in the room. In any case, I have no desire to continue a debate in which one side feels free to ignore demonstrable facts.

They don't grind axes in Congress. It's the silent stab in the back. I'm not sure this Professor is ready.

Be a bit of a trouble maker --but never admit it 'cause people will know if you're good-- buy the opposition a drink, smile, and never ever give up.