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Jodrell Bank May Close Down
Anonymous Astronomer writes "MERLIN, the UK's only radio astronomy facility, is facing closure following the results of a Programmatic Review carried out by the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the results of which were announced on Monday. The review placed MERLIN and the upgraded telescope e-MERLIN, due to go online later this year following an investment of £8M, in the low-priority category under serious threat of funding cuts. The upgraded array of telescopes, situated across the UK, will be 30 times more sensitive than the current array and will be a unique facility for observing distant objects and helping us understand the universe. If these cuts go ahead however, not only MERLIN but the entire Observatory including the iconic Lovell telescope, based at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire, will be under threat of closure."
Or divert some of that money from setting up and monitoring 20 million CCD cameras to looking outside the goldfish bowl ...
Kevin Smith on Prince
A pathetic decision, especially considering the relatively tiny cost of maintaining the facility.
I live an hour or so away, and in addition to the excellent science conducted, it is a magnet for school kids for a hundred miles around, who are pretty much guaranteed a trip to its brilliant, inspirational visitors' center.
If this closure goes ahead, they are giving up so much to save so little.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
It's standard negotiating tactic in the UK, to list the most popular projects at the bottom of the funding list. They are sure to be saved (in one form or another), and all the other projects listed above them will also be safe.
Our council does the same. Every time they want to cut taxes, they threaten to cut the festivals (which consume the tiniest pittance of the budget). No-one wants the festivals to die, so the council gets to raise the taxes. If the council proposed to cut some of their unpopular expenditure, they would never get to increase taxes.
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This is sad. Extremely sad. The destruction of the pursuit of knowledge due to money. Now, one may argue that we have lost so much money due to broken down space exploration robots, like a few to Mars, and some Shuttle explosions which also slew the innocent crew inside; however, observatories, telescopes and other ground-based astronomical projects, if any, should not be undermined or removed by money.
I agree with one the posters about volunteer work. If people love the project enough, this is their chance to get it by supporting MERLIN.
-Aegis Runestone-
Looks like the housing crisis in the US is even causing problems for UK banks... sorry about that, mates...
Since Tony Blair's election, the UK has firmly and clearly been headed straight for a new Dark Ages. This is just another sign of the impending apocalypse.
The fat, retarded, drunken, violent UK youth of today will have no need of telescopes in the future -- other than to spy on each other, of course.
If you are a scientist, if you have a brain, make plans to leave the UK -- it's your only hope.
But the big dish isn't the only thing at the Jodrel Bank facility. Their homepage mentions that the Square Kilometer Array Programme Development Office is located there. This is an international project of enormous significance. (Imagine being able to see an Earth-sized planet, orbiting at 1 AU from its sun, 100 light-years away, and have enough data to take measurements of what gasses are in the atmosphere.)
Jodrell Bank also has cultural significance and references pepper the British conciousness. Had he not pursued music, Brian May would have been the one slamming the UK Government's move from the offices of Jodrell Bank.
Then there's the research exchange program with Europe. European countries trade time and access at a facility in one country for access to another facility somewhere else, for free. Closing Jodrell Bank will mean British radio astronomers have nothing to trade and will need to pay to access telescopes elsewhere in the world. Access other countries will still get for free. This means research grants will be worth less to someone from Britain than to someone in another country. This will worsen the "brain drain" - nobody wants to live in a country where they can't afford to hold a job. You will have noticed that British scientists are doing far less high-energy physics since they shut the nuclear structure facility in Daresbury (home of Lewis Carrol, interestingly). It's because they can't afford the prices they now have to pay. From free to thousands of dollars an hour, without a single penny more in grant money to cover it.
Finally, there's the secondary impact. It'll likely cause several departments at the University of Manchester to shut their doors forever. Cheshire is a largely agricultural, impoverished region, so the loss of jobs in the community will be severe. Jodrell Bank is also a major tourist icon, which means there's a significant risk tourism will crash in the area - another major source of money. You can only split time on existing telescopes so far, putting astronomers out of work. This is not a degree you can really use to get a job elsewhere. Many existing projects rely on Jodrell Bank as part of a network of telescopes. Losing it will create a lot of ill-will and possibly cost a lot of projects a lot of money in a bid to fill in the data gaps as best they can.
But, then, why should a White Hall mandarin care about such petty details?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
If Joddrell Bank is closed who's going to fail to detect the Vogon's when they show up?
Chance 'em.
The Guide has already established that Goonhilly and Jodrell Bank perform poorly in real-world situations such as detecting large-scale near-earth-orbit objects. Despite a proposed upgrade, I still have to come down on the side of the STFC review and agree that throwing good money after bad doesn't make any sense.
This is not just about Jodrell. The funding for a lot of UK astronomy projects is being cut.
At the moment, no one really seems to know why .
Disclaimer: I work for one of the projects under threat, so I might be a bit biased.
That's what they get for buying all that sub-prime debt. If more of these banks went out of business over it, maybe they'd learn something.
p.s. I'm kidding. I know this is about radio astronomy and not about a financial institution.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
Haven't they only recently done some work at Jodrell Bank? It might just have been replacing some bearings that support a dish (no small task, but nothing amazingly interesting) but it'd be a shame to lose it.
I lived the other side of Manchester to Jodrell Bank and visited a few times with family and with school. That and Goonhilly are amazing places for anyone with even a slight scientific interest.
Also, I've driven past one of the gates recently and I'm sure that the University of Manchester has some stake in it as they have a sign on one of the gates (how much land do they own?!). I wonder what impact it'll have on the new Super-University after they swallowed UMIST.
There's a petition to save Jodrell bank here.