Science, a New Golden Age

Extracted Attributes

Golden Age of Science Fiction

In the history of science fiction, the Golden Age is the period in which the genre is considered to have matured in American science fiction magazines, in particular Astounding Science Fiction; the period is usually referred to as the Golden Age of Science Fiction (as a whole), though sometimes more specifically as the Golden Age of Astounding. Its beginning is marked by John W. Campbell's assumption of the editorship of the magazine in the late 1930s. The end date is less agreed upon: it is often placed in the mid-1940s, though it ranges from 1941 to the early 1960s. Historiographically, the Golden Age follows the pulp era and precedes the New Wave. Other eras have also been referred to as golden ages of science fiction in more specific contexts. For instance, the 1950s are considered to be the golden age of science fiction cinema. A common humorous statement is that "The Golden Age of science fiction is twelve" years old, or thereabouts.

Web Search Results

• Space Policy Edition: "Science: A New Golden Age" - Reimagining US science policy - Planetary Radio

  The White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy recently released "Science: A New Golden Age", a sweeping report that calls for a fundamental reimagining of how the United States funds and conducts science. Explicitly modeled on Vannevar Bush's landmark 1945 report "Science, the Endless Frontier," it challenges the traditional linear model of innovation, advocates for empowering individual scientists over institutions, proposes faster grants with less bureaucracy, and envisions a greater role for AI in the scientific process. But this ambitious vision arrives in a deeply contradictory context: the same administration has proposed slashing science agency budgets, cutting new NSF funding awards by over 50%, and imposing new bureaucratic controls on scientific grants. [...] in turn to what it's coming out of and what it's trying to do? Yeah, in every presidential administration, the Office of Science and Technology Policy helps integrate across the program and across all the agencies a vision for the president on science and engineering. And the report that was released last week, called Science, a New Golden Age, by OSTP Director Michael Kratsios, is a pretty interesting read. It's the attempt by this administration to lay out its more detailed vision for what science policy should look like across the administration's term. And the the report in some ways tries to highlight a very old version of a comparable report from 1945 by President Roosevelt's science advisor during World War II, Dr. Vannevar Bush. And that report was called Science, the Endless [...] they actually had thermodynamics. And so, there's lots of various engineering often leads the way. And there's lots of areas where engineers and scientists work collaboratively. There's no easy way to distinguish between basic science and applied engineering efforts. And then you want to have them done together. The Science and New Golden Age report is unique in that it makes the linear model of innovation a central target that is trying to replace that vision for how science works and it's trying to give a new argument for what the nature of innovation is and how you should support that using a variety of approaches, from funding different types of institutions, different ways to do meta-science, and to track insights to shape the way in which we manage science and to make it better.

• What Does it Take to Deliver a New Golden Age?

  The vision outlined in Science: A New Golden Age is a serious reimagining of the structure of the scientific enterprise and its relationship to society. Michael Kratsios, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), ambitiously frames the report as an update to Vannevar Bush’s pivotal Science: The Endless Frontier, which set the general tone of federal R&D post-war. The structures and institutions formed under Bush’s vision helped position the United States as a global science and technology superpower, but prior success should not prevent an honest reflection on our ability to meet today’s needs and to regain the public’s trust. Kratsios’s report is a timely, constructive contribution to the ongoing debates on the direction of scientific inquiry, the technical merits

• How will Trump's new science strategy change US research?

  OSTP’s Science: A New Golden Age sets out a bold vision for restructuring how federal research and development (R&D) dollars reach the research community. The report knits together many of the leading ideas circulating in recent years in the “science of science” community: longer time horizons for grants, investments in people rather than projects, supporting focused research organizations, using “golden tickets” in the review process (empowering individual reviewers to fund unconventional proposals), and more. The Atlantic Council recently made a similar case for embracing these mechanisms to strengthen artificial intelligence (AI) innovation. To the administration’s credit, the vision arrives with a bureaucratic cudgel—the annual OMB/OSTP budget guidance memo, which includes guidance on [...] Science: A New Golden Age can be viewed as an expanded continuation of the science and technology priorities articulated during President Donald Trump’s first term, supplemented by proposals for changing how R&D funding is administered. Most of the approaches discussed are not entirely new; many are already used to varying degrees within the federal R&D enterprise and/or by philanthropic research funders. In the absence of congressional action, increasing the funding for the stated R&D priorities will require agencies to redirect existing funding—with significant legal and administrative constraints. (Though the current administration has shown a willingness to take this path.) [...] They’re rethinking R&D. Last week, the Trump administration released a pair of documents guiding its science and technology strategy. Science: A New Golden Age, by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), lays out the administration’s path to “reexamine America’s research and development ecosystem in light of changes brought on by the 21st century.” Then the Ushering in a New Golden Age of American Innovation memo, by the OSTP and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), details how that strategy will be implemented in the administration’s budget priorities. The dual documents raise a number of burning questions. We had our experts research the answers below. ## 1. Big picture, what does this mean for US research and development?

• Breakdown of the OSTP Report "Science: A New Golden Age”

  ### Roohi Dalal American Astronomical Society (AAS) On 21 July, the Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), Michael Kratsios, published a new report titled _Science: A New Golden Age_, which provides OSTP’s insights and recommendations on how to re-work the federal government’s role in research and development (R&D) in order to revitalize American superiority in STEM. The White House’s web page states that this report is “the first comprehensive rethinking of the U.S. science and technology enterprise in over 80 years since Vannevar Bush’s _Science: The Endless Frontier_.” [...] The report asserts that the US is no longer the unchallenged leader in science and technology, and that the nation “risks losing its first position to competitors that are quicker to update their models of research funding, maintain greater institutional flexibility, and can build tighter connections between different sectors of their scientific enterprise.” When discussing what is needed to regain leadership, the report claims that “we train extraordinary global talent at enormous expense, only to lose this effort when foreign governments recruit them to build up their own technological enterprises. The interest of vast scores of Americans in using taxpayer dollars to invest in our STEM pipeline has, consequently, eroded.” [...] 1. Chapter 1: Introduction 2. Chapter 2: Revitalizing America’s Science and Technology Enterprise 3. Chapter 3: Securing US Dominance in Critical and Emerging Technologies 4. Chapter 4: Ensuring that Science and Technology Better the Lives of All Americans 5. Chapter 5: A New Golden Age 6. Annex: White House Fiscal Year 2028 Administration R&D Budget Priorities Memo 1. R&D Priority Areas 2. R&D Priority Practices ## “channels resources overwhelmingly to a single type of performer, the university-based, principal investigator-led research group,” growing administrative burdens on researchers, and high indirect cost rates.

• What's missing from the White House plan for the future of ...

  Science: A New Golden Age, at its core, is a set of priorities from Trump’s administration for scientific leaders to focus on. The fields named include “AI, quantum information science, semiconductors, advanced communications, robotics, advanced manufacturing, nuclear fission and fusion, and space systems”. Such large-scale instructions to the research community, without transparent consultation with its stakeholders, is rare for a democratic country — let alone for a powerhouse of research and the home of many globally respected universities and science-based corporations. [...] Last month, Michael Kratsios, head of the US Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), released a report called Science: A New Golden Age. The 123-page document is a response to a letter from US President Donald Trump tasking Kratsios with ushering in “a new golden age of American innovation” (see go.nature.com/8tyfk4k). But how likely is it that the report will help the country to achieve this aim? White House rolls out AI funding — and signals a new era for US science Such a letter from the president to the OSTP head is not uncommon. It is a signal of the government’s interests and priorities. However, Trump’s letter and the response come amid a systematic effort to reshape US research. [...] White House proposes vast overhaul of US science funding: what you need to know Science: A New Golden Age has also been written during a tumultuous period, but of a different kind. It was released after 18 months of executive orders, rule changes, abrupt funding cuts, delays to grants being awarded and political interference in many scientific matters that should be the domain of experts, ranging from vaccine safety to climate change. However, unlike the 1945 report, the current one does not name the members of scientific and technical communities who were consulted. This follows a pattern: Trump’s administration has substantially reduced the flow of advice from independent specialists to the federal government, as we documented in an April News Feature (Nature 652, 1106–1109; 2026).