THE FUNDING

The Aspen Center for Physics a non-profit corporation is funded by grants and contributions from government agencies, foundations, corporations, government research laboratories, and individuals. These funds have been used both for capital and operating expenses.

The major continuing grants for the summer program come from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In the early days, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) supported the Center for the winter program, major funding comes from the Department of Energy (DOE), NASA and NSF.

Special scientific programs, such as workshops and some winter conferences, have been funded by the DOE, ONR, AT&T, the National Institutes of Health, and the Aspen Foundation among others.

Some of the national research laboratories have contributed to the general operation as well as to special projects of the Center. Those have included Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory.

Basic operating support also comes from the Center's corporate membership program. Member corporations and foundations have included AT&T Bell Laboratories, IBM, the North Holland Publishing Company, the Xerox Corporation, ARCO Foundation, Exxon Corporation, Dupont, Schlumberger, Fine Associates, Springer-Verlag Publishers, University Research Associates, General Electric and Ford Motor Company.

Major capital funding for the Center's three buildings was provided by the Needmor Foundation, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the Kellogg Foundation and the Fleischmann Foundation.

Many individuals have contributed generously to the Center. One of the first was Hans A. Bethe who donated a substantial portion of his Nobel Prize money to the Aspen Center for Physics. An endowment fund was established in 1988 to further guarantee the continuation of the Center's programs.

Called the "most cost effective program of its kind" by a major funding agency, the Aspen Center for Physics takes pride in the fiscal responsibility that has allowed the Center to grow and prosper since its beginnings in 1961.

For I can end as I began. From our home on earth we look out into the distances and strive to imagine the sort of world into which we are born. Today we have reached far out into space. Our immediate neighborhood we know intimately. But with increasing distance our knowledge fades . . .until at the last dim horizon we search among ghostly errors of observations for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial. The search will continue. The urge is older than history. It is not satisfied and it will not be suppressed.

- Edwin Hubble

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