In moving into high energy physics Bacher had the full support not just of DuBridge, but of Anderson and Lauritsen as well. Lauritsen had already hired Robert Langmuir to begin designing a new 600 MeV synchrotron, and Bacher found a large building to house it that had originally been used for grinding and polishing the Palomar Observatory's 200-inch (5,100 mm) mirror, but which had been empty since 1948. He arranged for Atomic Energy Commission and Office of Naval Research grants worth $1 million to build it and the other required facilities, and $300,000 a year to run it.