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Arecibo Observatory Loses Funding
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 ;)
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.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I thought Bond already destroyed that thing?
FYI, Wikipedia has a fantastic hi-res image of the radio telescope.
"Flag on the moon. How did it get there?"
# 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
"Iraq has nothing to do with it, raising that as an issue is just beyond ignorant."
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!
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
The whole National Science Foundation has a $6 billion budget, but we spend $75 billion a year (off budget, mind you, that's not counting the $400 billion a year we spend on defense) on a war that does nothing but foment hatred against the US?
I think our (and your) priorities are a bit off.
I never thought that we would start needing charities to fund astronimcal science, but maybe it is time? It doesn't help that people think NASA is better funded than it is. Maybe there needs to be a campaign illustrating this, as a form of hitting people with the clue stick.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I am from Puerto Rico. And it has been my absolute favorite technological wonder mankind has ever built. I dont know how many of you have actually seen it. It is simply amazing. I used to go there since I was a kid around the age of 16... I started going with my father at least 1 weekend a month, then with my boyscout troop we would do a hike that would end in the forest next to the radar. I even had the opportunity once to go where the radar itself is, in that dwindling pendulum up above the Dish. A lot of people have had to see it from the "tourist trap" point of view from the top of the observatory road. But as a boyscout we found a way around that sits us right on the dish. The thing is huge, and the 3 towers that hold the antenna's are simply impressive.
:) that or use the dish for some gnarly skatebording contest... ;)
:)
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...
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
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.
SIX BILLION dollars is a pathetic amount of money for research
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.
They should definitely keep the observatory open if it is useful to the scientists using it, but as a visitor there are definitely a thousand things I can do in Puerto Rico that are more fun than looking at a big huge dish.
You can hand in your geek card on the way out the door.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Otro Puertorro ignorante...
;)
:o
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...
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
Arecibo was a loser in the Senior Review; something has to give to pay for ALMA operations!
Call my cynical, but I'm going with
C) Porkbarrel projects that benefit the special interest groups
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The funding was cut because its own community of researchers no longer considers it to be very important. Specifically a panel of experts was tasked to prioritize expenditures in radio astronomy. IIRC, Arecibo was ranked approximately fourth.
/. would lead to more money coming into their field. I, personally, have no sympathy for such tactics. When I was in the government, I suspect that experts may have tried that on me once or twice. I never caved.
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.
As usual, astronomy makes all the headlines, but 50% of the observing time is devoted to ionospheric research. I have published scientific papers analyzing ionospheric data from Arecibo. I have also visited Arecibo at NSF's expense, and have been on top of the gondola (the transmitter/receiver boom suspended over the radar dish). What a view!
Cutting funding for Arecibo would be quite a blow to ionospheric & magnetospheric physics research, as well as to astronomy.
Richard Link, Ph.D.
Thank you for posting such an insightful and well-thought-out comment on slashdot... they're rare, and worth seeing. It's why I read it :)
:)
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
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.