That was a juicy read, Jed. FWIW, I know someone who's employed at the National Science Foundation. He's an old Science Fiction fan/friend we've known for decades. He reviews funding grant proposals for promising new science projects. It's a position that wields a lot of responsibility and power. Every day he has to make decisions on which projects are worth funding and which aren't. I don't envy him, as there is only so much grant money available to spread around the scientific community. Again, there is a lot of power in these kinds of positions and the agency knows it. It's my understanding that after a few years of reviewing proposals pertaining to a certain subject the agency shuffles these decision makers around to different departments in an effort to lessen their strong-hold on a particular subject.
It's been my experience that the higher a scientific reviewer climbs within the administrative hierarchy of the agency they work for the more conservative their out-on-the-limb decisions tend to get. Based on conversations I've had with him over the years, not in a million trillion gillion years would I EVER expect him to, on his own reconnaissance, give a single proposal related to a "CF" project the light of the day. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
