Hal Plotkin argues that the U.S. should declare a goal of \"developing a practical, working, cost-efficient nanovehicle within 10 years\" to excite the public imagination and reinvigorate the ailing technological sector in the same way the \"Space Race\" did in the 1960s\'.

The science of small will get a big boost next year, if President Bush has his way. In his budget proposal released last week, Bush requested $485 million for nanotechnology research in fiscal year 2002, a fifteen percent increase from the $422 million Congress granted last year.

On Friday January 21, 2000, in a speech at the California Institute of Technology, President Clinton proposed a $2.8 billion rise in U.S. research funding, including a $497 million 'National Nanotechnology Initiative.'

Government agencies, leading universities and major corporations are rapidly expanding their efforts to design and build machines and structures on the scale of atoms and molecules. This exploding new discipline -- known as ``nanotechnology\'\' -- has become a top scientific priority in Congress and at the White House.

NASA looks to commercialization and entertainment opportunities to protect itself from the uncertainty of budgetary cycles.

The appropriations subcommittee has recommended an 11 percent cut to next year&s proposed US$13.6 billion budget for NASA, threatening the survival of several long-term projects.