It's absurd that research from a government (read: public) funded lab should be stuck behind a paywall. It's great that they were able to publish in a prestigious physics journal, but it should be available elsewhere.
Open access is a recurring problem, addressed to some degree with presidential orders. You might be interested in FASTR (Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act): https://plus.google.com/u/0/+PeterSuber/posts/G2uebVhVtBv
Abstract and more info are here (albeit the paper itself is paywalled):
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nphys...