NSFNET: Over the past decade, the NSFNET Program has invested about $200 million to develop a computer networking infrastructure for research and education. This networking infrastructure, originally intended to connect academic researchers nationwide, is the basis for the current Internet. Because of the tremendous growth of the Internet, it is estimated that these NSF funds have been matched ten-to-one by other organizations from both the public and private sectors. These extraordinary investments fundamentally changed the way that research is conducted in many areas of science and engineering by enabling almost instantaneous communications among researchers and educators worldwide. At the same time, this new infrastructure made possible experiments in high speed networking by serving as an actual research platform.

Supercomputer Centers: In the 12 years of their existence, with a total NSF investment of approximately $670 million, the NSF Supercomputer Centers have fostered fundamental advances in our understanding of science and engineering and in the application of computing, communications, and information technologies to important national problems. One major accomplishment has been the dramatic expansion of the use of high-end computing to new disciplines, making possible a major paradigm shift to the acceptance of computational science as a full partner in the scientific method. Without access to high-end computational capability, many important discoveries in the fields of chemistry, biology, oceanography, meteorology, and many others would not have been made. In addition, the Supercomputer Centers have contributed to the education of our nations children in many ways. For example, a major section of the new IMAX film, Cosmic Voyage, was devoted to the evolution of the Universe and depicted the collision of two galaxies. The actual galactic collision simulation was done on the Cray C90 computer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. The conversion of these results to images was done at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. In FY 1998, transition to the new Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI) program will occur.

Climate System Model: Created in 1960, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) serves as the world center for atmospheric research. Facilities available to university, NCAR, and other researchers include advanced computational resources and research aircraft to measure meteorological and chemical state parameters. Scientists from NCAR have recently completed the development of the first community-use, comprehensive climate system model and have released it for general use. The team of scientists has produced one of the world's best atmospheric general circulation models (GCM), which has been coupled to its underlying ocean and land surface. The CSM provides a powerful new tool for understanding the natural and anthropogenic factors contributing to climate variability and change. The CSM is composed of a set of four independent models for the basic system components: atmosphere, ocean, land surface, and sea ice, each communicating with a "flux coupler" using message passing. Teams of scientists from NCAR, universities and Federal laboratories are now working to develop advanced versions of the CSM and apply the model to studies of global and regional climate.

Observations of the Deep Hot Biosphere: The Academic Research Fleet includes ships, submersibles and large shipboard equipment necessary to support NSF-funded research and the training of oceanographers. The twenty-eight ships in the U.S. academic fleet provide the resources necessary for the research community to explore new areas of science. For example, in 1991 an ALVIN dive series on the East Pacific Rise observed bacterial material venting from the seafloor, and in 1993 another ALVIN dive series, responding to a volcanic eruption on the Juan de Fuca Ridge off Washington State, also observed bacterial material venting continuously and in great abundance from the seafloor. These observations strongly suggest that significant subsurface bacterial production was occurring in the pore spaces in the seafloor sustained by hot water circulating through the pore spaces. Work in progress indicates that subsurface biota are consuming hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and iron from hydrothermal vent waters and releasing methane. Questions being investigated about this newly-discovered biosphere include species diversity, biomass, physiology, and growth rates of the biota. This work emphasizes the importance of the emerging study of water-rock-biology interactions.

Probing the Interior of the Sun: Theories of the internal structure of the Sun have been developed over many decades, but these theories have never been able to be put to an experimental test. It is now possible for astronomers to make measurements which give us this internal structure, and to compare these measurements with theoretical predications. Astronomers have now adopted techniques currently used by geologists to produce a detailed picture of the interior of the Earth. Geologists use sound waves set off by earthquakes and study the propagation of these waves through the Earth to create a picture of the Earth's interior. Astronomers studying the Sun use a similar technique-they study vibrations on the surface of the Sun and use these observations to deduce the underlying structure of the Sun.

All this has been made possible by a network of six observatories built the Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG), funded by NSF, and located in California, Hawaii, Australia, India, the Canary Islands, and Chile. The observatories in this network are located so that at any moment at least one of them is observing the Sun, and making measurements of the vibrations of the solar surface. These measurements are now enabling astronomers to understand the physical origin of sunspots, the distribution of helium in the solar interior, and large-scale motions within the Sun. We now know the values of the density and pressure throughout the Sun to an accuracy of 1%. In addition we are now able to use the Sun as a laboratory to measure a physical quantity under conditions that cannot be achieved in a controlled state on Earth.

NHMFL: In FY 1991, NSF made an award to Florida State University (FSU) for the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL), which is operated by FSU, the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Florida with NSF funding totalling approximately $18 million per year. The NHMFL is now participating in a new and exciting international cooperation driven by Los Alamos National Laboratory and the All Russian Institute of Experimental Physics (Arzamas-16) to provide extremely high magnetic fields utilizing explosive driven flux compression techniques developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory and in Russia. This series of experiments represent a truly international and multi-agency cooperation responding to very high-risk experiments with enormous potential of opening new areas of scientific exploration. The international team includes participants from the U.S., Great Britain, Japan and Russia. The series of extremely high field experiments named the "Dirac Series" explored the quantum Hall Effect at high electron density, the quantum Hall Effect and quantum limit phenomena in two dimensional organic metals, magnetic field induced superconductivity, and studies of the chemical bonding of molecules and optical properties of magnetic semiconductors at fields approaching 1000 tesla.

Polar Facilities and Logistics: Special facilities and logistics are necessary to support research in the polar regions. In the Antarctic, NSF manages all U.S. activities, while in the Arctic, NSF is one of twelve federal agencies.

In Antarctica -- a remote, hostile environment at the end of a long logistical supply chain -- NSF supports research stations, research ships and field camps; a fleet of aircraft operated for NSF by DOD; and an icebreaker operated by the US Coast Guard. This infrastructure allows the pursuit of unique scientific opportunities. For example astronomy and astrophysics research have grown rapidly over the past 10 years, taking advantage of unusual geographic and environmental characteristics. Using the Antarctic Submillimeter Telescope and Remote Observatory (AST/RO) at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, researchers have made observations which are key to understanding the evolution of matter in the galaxy and the formation of the solar system. AST/RO operates at wavelengths between 200 and 3000 microns, where water vapor in Earth's atmosphere makes the sky opaque from most sites; however, routine measurements with AST/RO demonstrate that the Antarctic Plateau is the best site on Earth for submillimeter-wave telescopes.

In FY 1997 a civilian contractor began providing helicopter support to the U.S. Antarctic Program, formerly provided by the U.S. Navy. Helicopters are used to support scientific projects and remote field camps and allow scientists a great deal of flexibility in selecting research sites -- flexibility not available with other aircraft. Savings have already been realized as a result of this change, and personnel reductions have resulted in a smaller "footprint" in Antarctica. In addition to savings, greater operational versatility is possible due to the use of both light and medium-lift aircraft, in contrast to solely medium-lift helicopters flown by the Navy.

In the Arctic, field stations and large instrument facilities enable research in Alaska, Arctic Canada and Greenland. Support is provided through Polar Programs and other NSF Budget Activities. Within Polar Programs increased emphasis is given to Arctic logistics, including special opportunities such as Arctic research cruises on U.S. Navy submarines. Since these cruises began in 1995 under an interagency agreement involving NSF, ONR, NOAA and USGS, scientists have been able to gather previously inaccessible data on ocean temperature, the chemical and physical properties of the water, pollutants reaching the Arctic, sea floor geology and surface ice changes. Such data help to increase our understanding of global environmental change.

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