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Arecibo Observatory Loses Funding
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Nov 21, 2007 12:50 PM
from the well-isn't-that-sad dept.
from the well-isn't-that-sad dept.
An anonymous reader noted that "The Arecibo Observatory funding was slashed. Cut to $8 million from $10.5 million, which will decrease the amount of time that the telescope is operational. "A quarter of its staff was laid off last year," and Arecibo, which is located in Puerto Rico, could possibly be completely closed in four years, according to the "National Science Foundation (NSF), which pays for the operation of the telescope." This comes after "a review panel for the foundation's astronomy division two years ago" suggested cutting Arecibo's financing by 25 percent as a way to pay for new facilities. There has been "[a]n outcry" in response to the "decision, particularly from planetary scientists" who argued that the panel "overlooked Arecibo's role in cataloging potential dangers from asteroids." The Times notes that in Arecibo's favor is the fact that it "may be much cheaper to keep...open" than dismantle, which "could cost hundreds of millions of dollars."" I've been considering a vacation to PR for a few years, and seeing this thing is on my list of awesome things to try to see. Guess I should hurry ;)
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Adaptive Thirty Meter Telescope Sees Progress 61 comments
Hugh Pickens writes "Caltech and the University of California have been making progress toward the development and construction of the Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT) with the recent $200 million commitment from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The core of the TMT Observatory will be a wide-field, alt-az Ritchey-Chretien telescope with a 492 segment, 30 meter diameter primary mirror, a fully active secondary mirror and an articulated tertiary mirror. TMT will be the first ground-based astronomy telescope designed with adaptive optics as an integral system element that will sense atmospheric turbulence in real-time, correct the optical beam of the telescope to remove its effect, and enable true diffraction-limited imaging on the ground. TMT will have 144 times the collecting area of the Hubble Space Telescope and a spatial resolution at near-infrared and longer wavelengths more than ten times better, equivalent to observing above the Earth's atmosphere for many observations at a fraction of the cost of a space-based observatory. TMT will reach further and see more clearly than previous telescopes by a factor of 10 to 100 depending on the observation and will be a fundamental tool for the investigation of large-scale structure in the young universe including the era in which most of the stars and heavy elements were formed."
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No es bueno (Score:2, Funny)
Rob Peter to pay Paul (Score:4, Informative)
I love this practice. I see it going on where I work. Pick on the weak department, which can't easily defend its funding and feather your own nest. Well, what goes around comes around.
Re:Rob Peter to pay Paul (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:2)
I've been to Arecibo. It was cool to look at, but at that point about the only thing they had for the public was a couple of posters. I hear that since then they've made a small visitor center. I think it is about an hour off of any main road through twisting, turning roads.
Re:Rob Peter to pay Paul (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to correct your being off by over an order of magnitude... 90 minutes of Iraq war would pay for the whole budget [usatoday.com] and 20 minutes would pay for how much was just cut from it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatever it is, it's extremely expensive, and we have better things to do. When we leave, it will take about six months for Iraq to return to the same condition it was in when we found it (ruled by a dictator) or worse (all-out civil war).
Knowledge gained at Arecibo and similar facilities lasts forever.
So what's a better investment?
Re:Rob Peter to pay Paul (Score:4, Insightful)
The war destabilized oil prices, and until we get out of there, they won't remain stable for any long periods.
I agree though, the chances of the earth being hit by a significant asteroid are ridiculously low and to say we should fund Arecibo for that purpose, is just noise. There are plenty of good reasons to keep funding sites like this, but using fear of uncertain doom is childish.
Parent
Re:Rob Peter to pay Paul (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, to make this on-topic: don't discount the thousands who have died in the Iraq war, versus the potential of saving all life on earth, now and in the future, due to the discovery of an earth-bound asteroid.
Risk evaluation (and mitigation) is all about measuring probably times cost. Think about that, the next time the common pretext of "weapons of mass destruction" comes up.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you probably meant probability. Governments (all governments) are notorious for making poor judgments when it comes to cost-benefit analysis. Well, that's not entirely true
Re:Don't blame Iraq (Score:5, Insightful)
Sooo - if you're short 2 million dollars, don't look to an place where the budget is bleeding billions?
You know, a billion here and a billion there, pretty soon you're talking some real money. NASA was also just recently cutting back. Obviously we (the USA) have LOTS of cash to burn as long as it fits the correct agenda. 6 BILLION seems a lot - ever seen what the DOD gets? 440 Billion. That's a pretty large investment, I think. I would suggest that perhaps cutting them back a few billion could maybe MAYBE do some good in other sectors.
Oh, sorry. I'm spreading humainst FUD. My bad. Ignore the troubles - watch out for terrorists!
Parent
I know its ANTI-/. and going to get me another (Score:4, Insightful)
But can ANY OF YOU honestly say that if Iraq wasn't occurring (which btw I think has gone far too long) that the budget issue faced here wouldn't still be present?
Face it, the government budget process is all about buying votes and paying off political donors through whatever method that they can do it.
This project is probably not getting funding because
a. Its not in a voting member's domain
b. Its not flashy
c. Its not in the news enough to interest people
It certainly isn't being sidelined because of Iraq. In fact the NSF keeps getting bigger budgets year after year!
Why not ask, what EARMARK can be converted to real science instead of building memorials to living Congressmen!
What is so sad is the damn partisan hate on places like
If you want science like this continue don't raise Iraq with your Congressmen, instead raise the issue of America falling behind in science. Write your Congressmen today (I wrote both of my Senators and provided the link to the article). If you do not know your Congressmen then use WIKIPEDIA to find them!
Look, we aren't going to save valid science expenditures by going on about Iraq, fact is most of Congress doesn't really care anymore about Iraq and will write you off as just a whiner. Instead PROMOTE it on its own merits. That is how we can advance the cause of science. Get your friends to write. Congressmen react to many people showing concern over what may be an item they never heard of. The amount of money needed that most can slip it in on any old bill.
I am sure there are many science friendly Congressmen, it needs to be brought to their attention as well.
Yes Iraq sucks and its eating billions, but to blame it for every little project that is favored here and elsewhere is to ignore the way Congress works. They are buying votes with your tax dollars, Iraq offends many of them because it deprives them of billions to spend - not just because its wrong. Show Congress that this is a concern! Otherwise you will be left with taking out your hatred for others on message boards and getting nothing done
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Re:I know its ANTI-/. and going to get me another (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok - I agree with you that bitching about Iraq doesn't get the science field funding. I *totally* disagree that we should stop bitching about it. I think it is important to keep pressure on our reps and our media with our viewpoints... whatever they may be.
I also agree that even in the best of times Arecibo would probably still get budget cuts. That's life. Convincing an increasingly anti-science country to fund more science is a long fight, and one that's being lost.
I personally chose against a path in science after college (wasting all that math education) because I was dismayed to learn that the US economy really had no science jobs that paid decently. Scientists in the US... hell, SCIENCE in the US, is a joke. We are one of the richest countries in the world, we do lots of good science, but rather than do *great* science we would rather waste money on every little thing but.
Our military prides themselves on their tech. Our government largely funds development of this tech. Good, but we need more tech research than simply ways to kill and avoid death. Most medical research money goes to 'political' causes. Cure the popular diseases, let the rest figure it out. Astronomy has little to do with the government's plans, so there isn't a lot of focus on it. The same goes for every science with no short-term glamour. I do my part - I contribute to science foundations, teach science to my kids and their classmates, and do what I can to encourage science.
So no - I don't think that we would ever see a drastic over-spending effort on science in the US.
But I sure as hell won't stop trying to get one
Parent
Re:Don't blame Iraq (Score:5, Insightful)
C) Porkbarrel projects that benefit the special interest groups
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That is the key right there. We should be trying to promote general welfare, not give general welfare.
Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think our (and your) priorities are a bit off.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What kind of screwy world do we live in where advocacy of turning our money from bullets & choppers toward scientific research qualifies one as hating?
Re:Uh... (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean seriously, the nationalists are the biggest threat to America's well being, joining them isn't going to solve the problems that ignorance of science and international politics brings.
I'm not trolling here, I am genuinely curious as to how further weakening our reputation in the international community is going to lead to the international community loving us.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're just recycling John Kerry's "rebuild our alliances" argument. Its just as flawed now as it was then.
We've refused to abandon Iraq and Afghanistan, and rather than pushing Europe over the edge, those aging-leftists that were in office have been kicked out. Germany? Elected pro-alliance Angela Merkel. Britain? The new PM says
Re:Don't blame Iraq (Score:5, Insightful)
NSF funds programs in biology, math, CS, engineering, geosciences, physics and astronomy, education, and sociology. So, that's probably less than ONE BILLION dollars per subject. So, we spend the same amount of money for one day in Iraq than a year's worth of physics research.
It's commonly accepted that general research pushes technological boundaries back which can drive research in the economy. So, if we are an "idea based economy", we had better invest in infrastructure.
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
Iraq has nothing to do with it, raising that as an issue is just beyond ignorant.
So you're saying that the money that was literally wasted in Iraq couldn't have been used to fund the observatory? Because that's ignorant. I'm not talking about the money that was spent on the Iraqi war effort as wasted, I'm referring to the pallets full of American currency which have yet to be accounted for. I don't have specific information that the money is in terrorist hands, but since nobody knows where it is, that is a definite possibility.
I do think that security in Iraq could have been improved h
Robbing Arecibo to pay for ALMA (Score:5, Informative)
Arecibo was a loser in the Senior Review; something has to give to pay for ALMA operations!
Parent
007 (Score:4, Funny)
Arecibo photo (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Worth it (Score:4, Informative)
I was actually there in early 2006, and I have to say it was really well worth it. It's hard to put into words how HUGE it is. The attached Museum is also quite nice- it even includes a small sliver of the moon [googlepages.com], which was a bonus for me.
unless there is some other technology that comes along and blows this telescope out of the water, it really is in our best interests to keep it running.
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
You can hand in your geek card on the way out the door.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
ignorant knowledge leads to misinformation (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to say your comment is very ignorant, specially because you are form the island, you should know how some things are just tourist traps. But there is a lot of things to do at the radar if you know how to look at it. For example, there is this nature tourist group called Aventuras Tierra Adentro (Adventures in the Motherland), that will take you around, and under the radar, not only seeing the technological wonder the Observatory is, but how it was constructed, why they chose the Arecibo Valley to place its location and more importantly how has the vegetation and fauna of the area has been affected by its presence.
More importantly why is the observatory so important to Science, and how powerful the observatory really is compared to other radio telescopes.
Further more, I don't know where you went, but the museum on the top of the hill inside the observatory has the basic information for the radar. There is a movie theater where they run a documentary of the radar, its location and how it was constructed. Also the discoveries they have made using the Radar are displayed in the museum. The old radio equipment they are exhibiting there goes to show what they were using back in the day to do what the radar does now. Aside from that, the radar received an overhaul recently. Its actual transmiting time of information towards outerspace is of minutes and the retrieval of data is also in minutes compared to the observatory in New Mexico which takes 12 hours to receive or send any kind of data to outerspace.
Granted the observatory is not a place to take 30 family members with noisy children. Its a hike, and if you are not in shape, granted you will need a breather when you get on top. But it is not a bad experience or one that makes you feel you wasted your time going to. It is located in a beautiful valley, lots of nice restaurants around, great view, the trip is not so bad and if you finish early, you can always head out for the West Coast and have some Mojitos and seafood in Rincon.
I can tell you all this because I recently (from oct 16 to oct 31 2007) went to Puerto Rico and took my fiancee with me. She is North American and she was fascinated with the radar and how impressive it is. She is not as big of a Nerd/Geek like I am, but she was able to appreciate the wonder it is.
You should be proud this technological wonder is sitting in the mountains of the country you love so much. To me its always been one of those things that should be considered a Wonder of the World, because its simply humbles you as a human being to look at one of the modern marvels we have constructed in our time.
Or you are not as much of a Science Nut as you think you are...
Parent
Man this one broke my heart to hear (Score:3, Insightful)
If this causes a decrease in alarmism ... (Score:3, Funny)
Well, if an asteroid is going to hit the earth ... (Score:2)
... I'd prefer NOT to know about it than to know about it.
So I'm happy.
Vacation (Score:2)
I'll bet many of the scientists who pulled that gig considered it a vacation too!
Re: (Score:2)
Funny thing is I've lived here all my life and never been to the Arecibo observatory.
WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
# The first planets outside the solar system were discovered around Pulsar B1257+12, a rapidly rotating pulsar with three Earth-like planets in orbit. ( early 1990s )
# One of its first accomplishments: Establishing the rotating rate of Mercury, which turned out to be 59 days rather than the previously estimated 88 days ( 1965 ).
# Detailed maps of the distribution of galaxies in the universe ( late 1980s ).
# The first pulsar in a binary system was discovered ( 1974 ), leading to important confirmation of Einstein's theory of general relativity and a Nobel Prize for astronomers Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor ( 1993 ).
# Investigations of ice craters at the polar regions of the planet Mercury with the radar system ( 1990s ) and similar investigation of the lunar poles for evidence of ice ( 1997 ).
# Provided much of our pre-Magellan mission knowledge of the surface of Venus via 1.5 km resolution imagery of the surface through the planet's cloud cover using the radar system.
# The observatory has made major contributions to our understanding of the chemistry and dynamics of the Earth's upper atmosphere and ionosphere.
# Discovery of two classes of pulsars: millisecond pulsars, which rotate several hundred times per second, and slower-rotating pulsars, which rotate about once per second. The slow-rotating pulsars speed through space, while millisecond pulsars move slowly through space.
Closing down Arecibo would be like closing down the Fermi Lab particle accelerator to Particle Physics. Its A MASSIVE asset to the Radio Astronomy field, and this short sidedness to get a few measly million (when compared to the countless millions allocated to other projects) is Absurd
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Unless they decide to build the ILA at Fermilab, it will probably be shut down in the not too distant future. I think they now have some Neutrino experiments scheduled out to 2011, but past that nothing.
Skate park (Score:3, Funny)
Charity? (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be a shame.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is one of the greatest technological wonders... (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the most interesting things I admire about it, is that Puerto Rico has the worst hurricane season's ever, and that thing has hold several Cat 5 hurricanes without having a glitch damaged.
Cmdr Taco should defenitely go see it before its shutdown and abandoned... In fact he should organize a slashdot tour and while the tour guide is explaining mumbo jumbo, someone should connect a linux terminal somewhere and use it to transmit some slashdot to outerspace...
Jokes aside, I am really sad they are loosing funding. US Government should end their investment in the stupid war and drop some money in science for a change... I bet a whatever 1 month costs Congress the war, would put the observatory running for another 5 years or more.
PS. There is a village about 5 miles behind the observartory where they make the meanest Skirt Steak you can eat and one of the meanest moonshines you could drink...
Strategery.. (Score:2)
Out of that $8million in funding, spend $1million lobbying to Bush/Hillary/Guilliani Co. to get asteroids labeled as 'trrrrerist threats.' Then, declare that you plan to eavsdrop on all asteroid activity under a contract with Haliburton. Now, contact Haliburton and tell them you will do trrrrerist hunting for $50million/year. Haliburton will ask for $100million/year from the US gov't. Boom.. the Fed will print more money!
If that doesn't work..
Spend another $1mill
Going Away? I don't think so (Score:2)
stop whining (Score:2)
The section of the NSF report (Score:5, Informative)
Note that there is a report due in December on the cost of decommissioning the telescope and that Cornell is working with the Puerto Rican government to find ways to fill in the funding gap.
* National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC)/Arecibo - Cornell acted quickly to implement the first of the Senior Review's recommendations to reduce the base operating budget to $8M over the next three years, by modifying the operating mode for astronomy observations, increasing the fraction of time for survey work, and limiting the number of receivers supported and the number of hours for astronomy observations. They also eliminated 30 FTEs, or 25% of their staff. Not all of these savings are realizable immediately, since personnel termination costs must be covered and the observatory requires basic maintenance to ensure safety of operations. By FY 2010, the full $2.5 million savings identified by the Senior Review will be recovered into the AST base budget and available for other uses.
Cornell has said that it will cease operations of the planetary radar in October 2007 to meet these budget reductions. We have recently learned that, in fact, they are maintaining the capability to operate the planetary radar, although on a less frequent schedule. In conversations with NASA management, it has been made clear that NASA has no intention of resuming support of the planetary radar, which they terminated in FY 2006.
With NSF's encouragement and support, Cornell and Arecibo staff are actively pursuing partnerships with the Puerto Rican government, local businesses, and academic institutions to provide additional operations support by 2011. We recently visited Puerto Rico, held a town hall for the Arecibo community, and met with commonwealth officials, business leaders, representatives from the universities and concerned citizens. We clarified the Senior Review recommendations and NSF's role in supporting the observatory and helped foster discussions among the many parties interested in maintaining the observatory as a viable operating facility for scientific research, education, and public outreach. The meetings were very positive with many expressions of a desire to work together to identify creative solutions to obtaining additional support. Many challenges face Cornell in preparing a plan for sustained long-term support from non-AST sources. I am optimistic that such a plan can be put together. NSF has informed Cornell that a concrete plan for operations in 2011 and beyond must be in place by spring of 2009. It is at that point that NSF must set the FY 2011 budget and so make a decision about the long-term future of Arecibo.
Nonetheless, in order to plan responsibly, and weigh the various options, we have to understand the cost of closure to be weighed against other options. As recommended by the Senior Review, NSF is also engaging an engineering firm to carry out a study of the cost of decommissioning the observatory facility. The study will explore a variety of possible endpoints, ranging from complete deconstruction and restoration of the site to its natural state to securely 'mothballing' the facility. The results of this study will be available in December 2007 and will serve as critical input to our planning for the long-term future of the observatory. This is part of responsible lifecycle costing, and should not be regarded as indicating that any final decisions have been made.
FUDdy duddy? (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a lot of events in scientific funding that are a damn shame but this one really isn't that horrible. There really is no need to FUD this one up.
Re:FUDdy duddy? (Score:5, Funny)
Applekid, a long time Slashdot poster, plummeted to earth earlier today. He was last heard from criticizing the Slashdot editors(**). An anonymous poster who was apparently a witness to the scene describe is as "horrific. These guys in black suits came up and pushed him to the ground. I think I saw blood on his knee!"
The incident is being investigated by the Slashdot Lynch Mob in an effort to find those responsible.
(*) For certain values of "fatal"
(**) For certain values of "edit".
Parent
Astronomers don't consider Arecibo top priority (Score:5, Insightful)
There are more cost-effective solutions, such as very long baselines and antenna arrays. Those have advantages like being able to resolve smaller angles.
The radio astronomers might have been playing a Washington-monument game. (The legend is that Congress threatened to cut the Parks budget, so the NPS threatened to close the Washington Monument.) That is, they hoped that the public outcry that has, in fact, occurred on
Good science requires ruthlessness. The idea that any particular icon or business is too big or too famous to fail has been very bad for the economy and would hurt the US scientifically.
National Astronomy AND Ionosphere Center (Score:4, Informative)
Cutting funding for Arecibo would be quite a blow to ionospheric & magnetospheric physics research, as well as to astronomy.
Richard Link, Ph.D.
silver lining to every nebula (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Underfunded? Help! (Score:4, Insightful)
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