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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."
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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Perhaps astronomers could happen across a suspected terrorist or two, out in the void...
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
All of the above is certainly true but I'd like to add to your excellent points with a little personal flavour.
As a boy I, like many in the region, went with school to Jodrell Bank and stood in awe, looking at the great dish. In my youthful mind the very thing that this dish represented was alien and strange, but at the same time watching it scour the autumn sky looking for something so distant was awe inspiring. It really fired my brain as I'm sure it did to many others like me and to lose it not just as a telescope, but also as a symbol for British scientific endevour, would be a terrible loss.
Astronomers have a nasty habit of detecting space-based weaponry. There IS a master plan for a global fascist state led by the USA with Britain its lapdog, remember?