Defense Department officials on Monday are expected to unveil a fiscal year 2009 defense budget request that would boost funding for basic research by $300 million over last year's requested funding level, according to defense sources. The addition would increase the smallest of the Defense Department's research, development, test and evaluation accounts to approximately $1.7 billion -- compared to $1.4 billion sought for FY-08. The Pentagon budget process categorizes RDT&E funding into six main accounts. They range from relatively untargeted...