SKA Telescope Site Debate Not Over Yet 78
angry tapir writes "Although earlier reports claimed that a scientific panel recommended South Africa over Australia as the best site for the proposed Square Kilometre Array, the SKA board of directors is still debating which country will host the enormous US$2.1-billion radio telescope. The scientific panel only recommended South Africa by a narrow margin earlier this month."
GNU Zealand... (Score:1, Funny)
If only we could get reasonable internet access
It's a 50-year research program (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever decision they made will have a lasting effect for the next 50 years
They should not make the decision based on any other criteria but for the best of this program itself
Political correctness has no place in Science research
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If I had mods points right now, you'd have 'em.
Re:It's a 50-year research program (Score:5, Informative)
Political correctness has no place in Science research
What makes you think that political correctness has anything to do with the decision? Apparently the scientific board didn't have an "enormous preference for one over the other". According to a article linked in TFA [nature.com]:
Since 2006, South Africa has competed against a joint bid from Australia and New Zealand to host the project. The South African site has some compelling advantages: construction costs are lower, and it sits at a higher altitude. But the Australian site would be cheaper to insure, and is less likely to be encroached on by future development. The margin in favour of the winner was extremely narrow, the source says.
It looks like they were making the decision on very practical concerns. They are weighing the cheaper initial costs verses the running costs and practicalities over time. I can see no reason to complain about the process. The idea that political correctness had a part merely because South Africa is the favourite is in itself a form a political correctness.
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You can deny it all you want, but we have eyes
We can see how much political correctness has influenced the psyche of the Europeans
While it does *NOT* mean that the so-called "Panel" made their decision based on PC alone - the suspicion is unfortunately, unavoidable
As I say, this research will last for 50 years. By the time it ends, it would be year 2070+
I am no fortune teller, I can't see the future
Maybe by that time SA will be more advance than AU, or maybe not
Nevertheless, I'm sticking to my original stat
Re:It's a 50-year research program (Score:5, Insightful)
Nevertheless, I'm sticking to my original statement - Whatever decision they want to make, make it according to one criteria, and ONE CRITERIA ONLY -
What is best for the program, which will last for the next 50 years
Fair enough, but I shall stick to my assertion that this is exactly what the SKA board is doing.
You say that we all have eyes, but I cannot see any evidence of political correctness going on here. You say that political correctness has influenced the psyche of the Europeans, and yet I don't know of any multi-billion dollar project that has been unduly influenced by such things. And even if they had, the SKA member countries include Australia, Canada, India, China, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA which should be a diverse enough group to rise above the PC level.
While it does *NOT* mean that the so-called "Panel" made their decision based on PC alone - the suspicion is unfortunately, unavoidable.
It is only unavoidable if you base your opinion on your pre-conceived prejudices rather than looking at the facts. And what is with calling the SKA panel a so-called "Panel"? Is there something about the make-up of the Square Kilometre Array organisation that you are not telling us? Perhaps you have more "unavoidable suspicions" ready to rock the world of astronomy!
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the SKA member countries include Australia, Canada, India, China, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA
The SKA organization currently consist of Australia, Canada, China, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, and the UK. Other countries do participate in the development programs.
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Made my first pilgrimage to parkes and tidbinbilla as a kid, in the late sixties around the time of the moon landings
Re:It's a 50-year research program (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's a 50-year research program (Score:5, Interesting)
It just costs a bit more and noone can get the "feel good" factor they get from giving money to African nations.
I cited my quote about the pros and cons considered by the SKA board for each country. Perhaps you can cite your quote about this "feel good" factor to which you refer. Otherwise I shall just have to assume that you are filling in the blanks with your own biases like Taco Cowboy did.
Re:It's a 50-year research program (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's a 50-year research program (Score:4, Insightful)
If Aus/NZ has a technically better (lower noise, larger area etc) proposal, what other factors should be taken into account by the scientific panel?
Did you even read the part that I quoted? It lists some of the factors that were considered. Yes, there are some non-scientific things on the list, but scientists are not so insular from the realities of the world that they cannot consider cost, access etc. Do you really believe that a scientific panel would not consider things like the cost to build the site, but would actually be more guided by what you described as the "feel good" factor they get from giving money to African nations?
I notice that you forgot to include any citation for your "feel good" factor claim too. You probably should try backing up your claim that the Australian site is "apparently" technically better too, and preferably neither citation should be from the Australian camp either.
As the anonymous coward (dom) pointed out, and as was also stated in my quote, the South African site "sits at a higher altitude" than the Australian site. There is not a huge advantage of one site over the other. We know that this is true, because it is exactly what the panel said! I think that I will take their word for this over your "apparently it is technically better" remark.
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What difference does altitude make to a radio telescope?
If you need to ask that question, it means that you do have a lot to learn about SA
Of course, for SA's sake, higher altitude makes _all_ the difference !
It's an open secret that SA's ruling party ANC is in danger of being controlled by the faction that represents the younger generation - the faction which wants to turn SA into yet another Zimbabwe, with its anti-White, anti-Asian, anti-Everybody point of view
That's why, for SA's sake, they have to find any excuse, _any_ excuse at all, to state their case
Hig
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Speaking from a Brussels perspective, the South Africans are trying harder. They send the minister for Technology here often and she works hard to promote it. Her message is very simple, as she told me, Africa is a place for cutting edge science
Australia? One scientist and a couple of aboriginal artists, once, for a couple of days in an obscure corner of the European parliament
The SA tried harder, and the AU didn't try enough ... In other words, you are saying that the SKA panel made their decision on the basis of SALES PITCH?
Oh, what a notion !!
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The SA tried harder, and the AU didn't try enough ... In other words, you are saying that the SKA panel made their decision on the basis of SALES PITCH?
Oh, what a notion !!
It may be a sales pitch, but perhaps it is also an ongoing indication of the prestige that the country assigns to that project and the effort they are willing to put in to make sure that any problems they have in the project will be addressed at a high level and priority.
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My view, and although I am not a scientist but a journalist, is that ultmately there will be two SKA's on OZ and SA, linked together.
I was thinking of posting this as a suggestion (not that anyone is likely to listen to me) - in the long run this would provide orders of magnitude better resolution, double the flexibility and better compensation for atmospherics and light pollution.
Having said that, the point in one of the earlier comments about the probability of encroachment in SA due to nearby population growth gave me some concern.
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Re:It's a 50-year research program (Score:5, Insightful)
I sort of agree, but have this to add - From the article, the scientific panel had "no enormous preference for one over the other". To me, it means that both sites are good, fit the needs of the SKA and would work well. While I haven't read the recommendations in all their lengthy glory, I sort of get the feeling that both locations are well suited to the needs.
Given that, it is actually political correctness that comes down to the final choice being made. You are absolutely right in the fact that this is a 50 year project. If both geographic locations fit the needs, then the final choice will rely on what political aspects of the locations can cause problems somewhere in the next fifty years. Will both countries be politically stable for the next half century? Will there be religious stability, will there be stability in infrastructure, are political relations with all the SKA members likely to stay on friendly terms?
Given the large financial investment in the SKA, you really need to ensure the place you build it will be the best overall location, not just the one that has a fraction better INSERT SOMETHING that makes the scientics go "Ooohhhh" just that little touch longer. They need to be able to use the facilities for the entire length of the project in the best possible means. Having a location that is 0.12% better in terms of measurable 3 doesn't mean that much if the folks running the show have to be evacuated due to a political influence, or they run out of electricity, or some other potentially foreseeable event occurs.
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why build one when you can have two at twice the price?
Because this isn't a Jodie Foster movie based on a book by Carl Sagan, and because in the scientific world we generally have to make do with less money than we want and do twice as much with it. Secondly, because you are not doubling the chances to succeed. To use a car analogy, you don't need two cars to drive you from here to the shops, in fact you can't drive both cars there. Whether the SKA is in Australia or in South Africa doesn't mean that we would get "twice as much data" or "twice as good" data. We
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We would get the same data twice, which is a terrific waste of money.
Actually, this isn't true. If you look at the same patch of sky with two telescopes, and sum the images together, the noise averages out, and you get a better image. sqrt(2) times better, in fact.
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This is exactly what the SKA are going to do.
Look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Long_Baseline_Interferometry [wikipedia.org]
It does mean though that there has to be a an incredibly fast, low-latency and reliable data connection between all the elements in the array for it to be of any use though.
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I know about VLBI, and it's not quite the same thing. If you combine the signals from separate telescopes coherently, as in VLBI, the noise in the image goes as 1/n, where n is the number of telescopes. If you just form separate images with separate telescopes, then add the images together incoherently, the noise goes as 1/sqrt(n). So, in exchange for the extra effort required to phase up the separate telescopes for VLBI, you get a bigger reduction in the noise.
You don't actually need a low-latency conne
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Given the petabytes of data that will pour from SKA, the carrier pigeon would have to carry one hell of a lot of flash drives.
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Coincidentally, I recall a story from SA a year or two ago where some geeks proved that the throughput by carrier pigeon between two points was better than their ISP. :D Latency, of course, sucked.
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Political correctness has no place in Science research
Surely you meant this to refer to politics and not to making sure we're saying nice things, right?
A matter of safety (Score:5, Funny)
I guess it comes down the safety and political stability for the long term.
In South Africa there have been problems with rural people being murdered, and while their political change appears to have by-and-large completed, no guarantee.
In Australia, their government appears stable, but they've had some issues with censorship and excessive searching of people at their ports, plus one runs the risk of running afoul of biker gangs, and having to be avenged by a lone cop driving the last of the V8 interceptors. Then there's the problem of who runs Barter Town and breaking deals and facing wheels...
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As someone that ACTUALLY lives in Australia i can tell by reading this that you either don’t live here and have a tiny fraction of an idea about what goes on here OR you do live here and have you head in the sand.
Bikie gangs are so irrelevant I live close to where they are meant to be and I am same because they are suck a non-event that the papers blow out of proportion because they finally have something to write about.
Stability 1
Australia is the model of stability, there are only 21~2 million of us
Re:A matter of safety (Score:5, Informative)
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All those mutants in shoulderpads driving around in a big circle can make the viewer very dizzy too.
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Same here.
Hope he was drunk while writing that rant
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plus one runs the risk of running afoul of biker gangs, and having to be avenged by a lone cop driving the last of the V8 interceptors. Then there's the problem of who runs Barter Town and breaking deals and facing wheels...
Less known, but on the plus side... God will not interfere with SKA; failing that, the churches would pay.
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Choose the most US friendly country. (Score:1)
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South Africa, not South America. South Africa is a country, South America is a continent. I'd Imagine it would be much more difficult to build a telescope which spans multiple countries (regulation-wise)
South America is an urban legend - it doesn't really exist. I read it on Snopes.
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South America seems like a bunch of tin pot dictators (Brazil excepted, of course).
Either you jest or you didn't read the summary very well.
No news (Score:3)
How does anything in this new story conflict with the earlier /. story? To quote the original summary:
A scientific panel has narrowly recommended South Africa over Australia as the best site for the proposed Square Kilometre Array (SKA), an enormous US$2.1-billion radio telescope. While the project's member states have yet to make a final decision on where the telescope will go, the odds are now that the African bid will ultimately win out against the joint bid from Australia and New Zealand to host the project.
So to summarise the summary, the scientific panel recommended South Africa by a narrow margin, but the member states are still to make a final decision.
But this new story says that the the scientific panel recommended South Africa by a narrow margin, but the board of directors is still to make a final decision.
This is simply a dupe. Actually, that is not quite true. It is probably more accurate to say that it is simply a dupe. A dupe, simply.
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+1 for you - so far you're the only one who has made a ska reference! :D I was thinking about something on the lines of "Weren't the Beatles inspired by ska?" - but didn't come up with anything funny enough to post by itself.
The obvious decision (Score:2)
Build it across both. The increased distance between the extreme ends of the telescope will give you a larger virtual dish (which is the whole point of the telescope) and the increase in lines of longitude mean that you get longer to observe something.
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You get the best possible virtual dish by have a central concentration of antennas, with gradually wider-spaced ones as you move out. (The term astronomers use for this is "u-v coverage".) See here [sciencelearn.org.nz] for an example: the Australian bid would have most of the antennas in Western Australia, with a handful scattered across the rest of the continent and New Zealand. Similarly, the South African bid would have most of the antennas in-country, but with a few scattered northwards across the rest of the continent.
Re:Fascinitating (Score:4, Interesting)
South Africa has mining experts, heavy engineering, defence experts, past nuclear experts, good computing and maths backgrounds.
They built their own nuclear reactors, nuclear weapons, bio/chem weapons and did well with very complex aerospace upgrades.
Australia has a research reactor, a few universities with hand me down computers and still needs direct guidance from UK and US intelligence/contractors for complex projects.
Staff would always be an issue in Australia - getting the right people out of the cities is really, really expensive.
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A good way to compare these countries, given that we're talking about a radio astronomy project, is to look at their radio astronomy facilities. Trimble & Ceja [harvard.edu] did a study of the citation rates of papers based on data from different telescopes (as a measure of how significant the rest of the world thinks the results from those telescopes are). Numbers 2 and 3 are the Australia Telescope Compact Array and the Parkes Radio Telescope, also in Australia. (Number 1, by a large margin, is the Very Large Ar
Jamaica.... (Score:3)
Jamaica wouldn't work.
It's too hot.
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But SKA come from Jamaica mon.
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I Know a Place with Nothing Important There (Score:2)