Broad observation: Physical science research was a sleepy area until The Bomb. Then supposedly Ike with J. Conant, et al., said, IRCC, "Never again will US academics operate independent of the US military." Then the US Congress via the NSF and DoD went to the leading US research universities and "made them an offer they couldn't refuse" -- accept the grant money or cease to be a leading research university. And, oh, BTW, you can take 60% or so as overhead for the English department, the string quartet concerts, the little theater production, the glossy alumni magazine, the new front gate to the campus with the big, round fountain just inside, the new art gallery, a new, on campus, 6000 square foot Georgian house for the president with, of course, a black limo. Or some such!!!!

Then the bio-medical sciences mentioned to Congress that a big fraction of Members of Congress are old and need medical care for heart disease, cancer, other diseases of aging, etc. so should have, say, the NIH to do for bio-medical what the NSF does for the STEM fields. Congress went along.

Ultimately, physics showstoppers matter more than any others.