Though not finally, settled some news have emerged from Washington;
At the spokesperson meeting yesterday it was mentioned that the 'conference' budget meeting have taking place
and the outcome for the HEP/NP budget was settling on the presidents budget. This implies that neither the
senate ~10M markup for rhic running or ~1M in the house was acted upon.
Though no formal plan has come from CA-D based on this information, it is Kirk's intention to stick with the 11/26 end of
Au-Au running followed of pp commisioning and running likely up to 1/24 - followed by warm-up.
The next running will be in FY2003. In principle startup could be at October 1, but both STAR and Phenix has extensive
installation plans that require 9 and minimum 7 months respectively. Also the machines needs work in this period.
A scenario is startup on or about November 1, 2002 (and who knows for how long ?). I expect this will be worked out in the coming
weeks.
A concern is where the funds for improving and fixing the machine can come from, though lot of it comes from man-power.
Too this low budget has a severe impact on the RHIC research and operations group in Physics and chemestry, and on available
capital funds.
regards
Flemming
------------------------------------------------------
Flemming Videbaek
Physics Department
Brookhaven National Laboratory
tlf: 631-344-4106
fax 631-344-1334
e-mail: videbaek@bnl.gov
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