AS THE SECOND world war drew to a close(接近尾声), President Franklin D. Roosevelt tasked(委派任务) his science adviser, Vannevar Bush, with reorganising America’s scientific enterprise for a post-war order. Bush’s answer, a report entitled “Science: The Endless Frontier”, became the blueprint(蓝图，行动方案) for American government support of basic science. In turn(反过来，继而) this led to the creation of the National Science Foundation (NSF), a federal agency that supports fundamental research, and shaped the triumphal(胜利的，凯旋的) attitude to science and technology that defined so much of the “American Century”.
第二次世界大战接近尾声时，富兰克林·D·罗斯福总统委托其科学顾问万尼瓦尔·布什为战后秩序重组美国的科学事业。布什的答案是题为《科学：无尽前沿》的报告，它成为美国政府支持基础科学的蓝图。这份报告进而促成了国家科学基金会（NSF）的成立——一个支持基础研究的联邦机构，并塑造了定义“美国世纪”大部分时期的对科学技术的胜利主义态度。
The belief that government should support basic research, that this research can be a foundation of national prosperity and that America can organise its scientific institutions to facilitate that process, remains as true today as when Bush laid out that schema.(政府应支持基础研究等信念至今仍与布什时代一样正确。) But I believe Bush would be the first to recognise that the world in which science is conducted has changed dramatically since 1945, leaving the American research system in need of an update.(但我相信布什会第一个认识到科学世界已巨变，美国研究体系需要更新。)
政府应支持基础研究、这种研究可以成为国家繁荣的基础、美国能够组织其科学机构来促进这一进程——这些信念与布什当年提出这一构想时一样，在今天依然成立。但我相信，布什会第一个认识到，自1945年以来，科学得以开展的世界已发生巨变，使得美国的研究体系亟需更新。
Bush wrote his report to Roosevelt at an exceptional(非凡的，特殊的) moment. America stood on the cusp of(处于……的边缘) final victory in the largest conflict in human history. The countries of Europe, the previous century’s scientific powers, lay mostly devastated(被摧毁的，满目疮痍的). This structural reality produced the heights of American manufacturing power. Similarly, it explains part of Bush’s success in continuing wartime organised science in peacetime. In 1961 President Dwight Eisenhower described the cold-war culmination(顶点，高潮) of Bush’s initiative. Eisenhower observed that “research has become central” and “more formalized, complex, and costly”, as “task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields” displaced the “solitary inventor”.(艾森豪威尔观察到研究变得核心且更正式、复杂、昂贵，科学家工作组取代了孤独的发明家。) Mass industrial science soon mobilised(动员，调动) government, corporations and academia to beat the Soviet Union to the Moon.
布什在非同寻常的时刻向罗斯福提交了报告。美国正站在人类历史上最大冲突最终胜利的关口。欧洲各国——上一个世纪的科学强国——大多满目疮痍。这种结构性现实造就了美国制造业力量的巅峰。同样，它也部分解释了布什为何能在和平时期延续战时有组织的科学。1961年，德怀特·艾森豪威尔总统描述了布什倡议在冷战中的顶峰。艾森豪威尔观察到，“研究已变得核心”，且“更加正式化、复杂和昂贵”，因为“实验室和试验场中的科学家工作组”取代了“孤独的发明家”。大规模工业科学很快动员了政府、企业和学术界，在登月竞赛中击败了苏联。
Homage to Vannevar
向万尼瓦尔致敬