Before You Can Say, “Let there be light,” you first have to say, “Let there be concrete and steel.” At least that is the way the process works with some of the scientific research at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., where $150 million of stimulus funding is speeding up parts of a big new research laboratory.
Upon the 2012 completion of the various segments of what is called the National Synchrotron Light Source II, the scientists will shoot very strong beams of X-ray, ultraviolet and infrared light at all kinds of materials, searching for breakthroughs in medicine and physics. The lab has not moved up the official start date for the experimental beam lines, but the stimulus-speeded parts of the project may help gain critical time for the delicate and complex scientific equipment to be installed and commissioned. The stimulus money also has ramped up the staff on-site to about 140, many of them craft-workers employed by subcontractors doing ground and foundation work.