Facility for Rare Isotope Beams

The University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Wayne State University and Western Michigan University continue to push the boundaries of discovery in the area of biomedical research as they search for better ways to cure diseases and develop new medical devices to help patients navigate their disabilities. And our many other colleges and universities are working hard to educate the next generation of scientists and engineers as well.

The first glass panels now are being put up in the exterior courtyard area of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, and the university continues to prepare utilities at the future site for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, campus construction officials said today.

Central Michigan University's department of physics is planning to hire three tenure-track faculty to assist Michigan Sate University research rare isotopes. The new faculty will join the two current faculty members working on the research, Physics Professors Joseph Finck and Mihai Horoi. Finck and Horoi have already been working with other colleagues at MSU's National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory studying atoms.

The great thing about Michigan State University is that I could do Tech Tours from now until Doomsday and they'd never run out of cool things to show me. My final visit was a repeat with Thomas Glasmacher, director of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, the $600 million atom smasher MSU will build between now and 2017.

Under a growing cloud of concerns surrounding science funding cutbacks by the federal government, more than 200 scientists flocked to MSU on Aug. 18-20 for a conference with implications for the future of nuclear physics work in the U.S. All the while, conference attendees looked forward to the future of MSU’s Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, a project with an estimated completion date of 2020 and a budget topping $600 million.

FRIB, expected to serve around 800 users a year, will accelerate ionized atoms down a 500-metre-long series of tunnels folded around like a paper clip and then shatter them against a graphite target to produce beams of rare isotopes at higher intensity than at any other facility in the world. The fragments could include thousands of isotopes that are predicted but have never been seen on Earth.

Michigan State University is taking a bold step in pushing up the construction timetable for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, but it’s the right step. A project of this magnitude will have lasting benefits in Greater Lansing. Its economic impact during its first decade is estimated at $1 billion. Construction is expected to create more than 5,000 jobs. Once operating, it will have some 180 scientists and hundreds of additional support personnel.

Michigan State University has advanced the start date for construction on the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams to the summer of 2012, a year earlier than originally planned, and is using its own money to do so.

Two new technology managers recently joined the MSU Technologies (MSUT) staff at Michigan State University. Ray Devito will work with the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, Colleges of Engineering and Natural Science, and other campus units.

Michigan's future economic security will be determined by our willingness to invest in science and technology. Michigan has long been a leader in science and technology development. And now we have earned an opportunity to show that our state is still the right place to build massive tools for new discovery, with the selection of Michigan State University as the site for the more than half-billion-dollar Facility for Rare Isotope Beams. FRIB is a game-changer for our state. The U.S. Department of Energy's decision in the waning days of President George Bush's administration gave Michigan the chance to develop and build this facility to find and study new rare isotopes. These isotopes have uses in national security, medicine, materials science and more.

Considering the budget-cutting mood of Congress, an appropriation of $24 million for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at MSU is encouraging and essential. Certainly, jobs are important. But of even greater significance is that the FRIB ensures the pre-eminence of MSU and the Greater Lansing region in the rarefied field of nuclear research. With the FRIB, MSU will house the world's most powerful heavy-ion accelerator. It will be the site of cutting-edge research.

Innovation is the backbone of the American economy, and for entrepreneurial innovators to bring ideas to market, they need new discoveries. The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, in the final days of President George Bush’s administration, decided to give Michigan an opportunity to develop and build the half-billion dollar Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). This facility will leverage the proven track record of discovery and innovation developed by the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) at MSU, which includes pioneering work in technology now used routinely to treat cancer.

Just over two years ago, all of Michigan was buoyed by the announcement that Michigan State University had been selected as the site for the more than half- billion dollar Facility for Rare Isotope Beams. FRIB represents a win for our region, and more than $1 billion dollars in economic activity over the next 20 years. The decision, issued by the U.S. Department of Energy in the final days of President Bush's administration, reflected 40 years of nuclear science excellence at MSU, exemplified by top scientists managing the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. But more important, it represents a commitment by our nation to maintaining technological leadership in science that is vital to our national economic security.

With the inclusion of a $30 million award from the Department of Energy in President Barack Obama’s budget, the construction of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, moves one step closer to its expected completion in 2020.

It will be two years before ground is broken on the $600-million Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University. But already this haven for nuclear physics research, projected to inject $1 billion of economic activity into the state, is having an impact. When it's done, it will house the world's most powerful heavy-ion accelerator, which will be 1,000 times more powerful than existing accelerators at MSU and capable of creating intense beams of rare isotopes. The implications are enormous, and the project is expected to lead to cutting-edge research in nuclear physics and medicine.