[ttraub]

Raising budgets don't intrinsically guarantee better results. Would a larger staff of physicists etc. lead to more breakthroughs or quicker results? Or would it just be piddled away in frivolous experiments, nicer Aeron chairs and the like?

A physicist friend from NSF told me once that $50 billion would be about right.

[jatone]

depends on where the bottle necks in the research are. I doubt its man power. its most likely production of the various parts.

generally speaking you don't get great returns on increasing the number of scientists. you do get great returns by speeding up the production of data.