SKA Might Be Split Between South Africa and Australia

gbrumfiel writes "The Square Kilometre Array will be the world's most powerful telescope, assuming the nations involved can agree on where to build it. A scientific panel recently backed South Africa over Australia to host the project, but neither side has conceded defeat. Rather than splitting the partners, project leaders are now thinking about splitting the telescope between the two countries. There's little scientific advantage, but the thinking is that a split telescope would be better than no telescope."

Comments

No public recommendation

[Anonymous Coward]

None of the official sources has confirmed that the recommendation went to South Africa.
It springs from two Australian newspaper articles which weren't sourced.
This isn't to say South Africa wasn't recommended, but you shouldn't report it as fact.

Sarah Wild
South Africa

Re:No public recommendation

[Anonymous Coward]

Nature claims independent verification of the Sydney Morning Herald's claim that South Africa was recommended. That's pretty damn strong evidence. In any event, if you want to tell someone they "shouldn't report it as fact", you're in the wrong place. Slashdot has no reporters and does not report anything.

Interferometer

[vlm]

There's little scientific advantage

Make it a interferometer? Seems obvious, so there must be something wrong with that idea.

Re:Interferometer

[buchner.johannes]

Make it a interferometer? Seems obvious, so there must be something wrong with that idea.

Not very useful, since there's not a lot of sky visible both from South Africa and western Australia.

Also, any radio telescope array is already a interferometer. The SKA is the mega-version of a interferometer, or you could say a hybrid of an ATA and VLBI.

Re:Interferometer

[Hadlock]

The real reason is that it's much harder to kill the telescope project once it's in two separate jurisdictions. The B-2 bomber had parts made in all 50 states so nobody could vote to kill the project without killing jobs in their state when the project went horrendously over budget (it's still a cool plane, though).

Re:Interferometer

[Idarubicin]

The design already calls for dishes scattered across a circular region roughly 3000 km wide (though the highest density of dishes will be in patches 5 km across in the center of the array) to create a very large synthetic aperture.

The problem with an interferometer having just two widely-separated points is that it only provides high angular resolution along the axis between those points. (It's not useless, but it is very limited.) The two sites are about 10,000 km apart, which somewhat limits the amount of sky that both sites will be able to see simultaneously (and observe continuously for any extended period of time). If a large number of telescopes are involved in the interferometer array, one needs some very high bandwidth data connections, which I'm not certain exist between South Africa and Australia. In practice, I suspect that what you'd be getting would be more like two Half-Kilometer-Arrays rather than a long-baseline SKA.

What has been proposed, and should be technically feasible, is dividing the array up by frequency band. The plan already calls for three overlapping arrays of different types of telescopes in order to capture three different frequency bands. (Phased array dipole antennas work great at 100 MHz, whereas you need dishes for 10 GHz.) In principle, one could put the low- and mid-frequency arrays on one site and the high-frequency arrays on another. That avoids the problems with bandwidth associated with long-baseline interferometry, and it allows each array to scan its entire local sky without worrying about what's over the distant station's horizon.

The downside is that this increases overall costs. Two sites need to be prepared; two sets of computing facilities need to be built; two different national governments have to be placated. Scientifically, it means that the entire array can't always be 'pointed' in the same place across its entire frequency spectrum--sometimes the high- or low-frequency portion of the array will be below the horizon.

Re:Interferometer

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Yeah, I was an advanced public school student. I know the earth is round, but forget that its spherical, rather than cynldrical.

South Africa?

[Vinegar Joe]

Not a place I'd want to move my family to or have any long term plans.........and it seems a lot of South Africans feels the same way.........

http://www.sa-austin.com/blog/2011/04/what-were-your-main-reasons-for-leaving-south-africa-263.html
http://digitaljournal.com/article/267776

Re:South Africa?

[Trepidity]

Yeah but the alternative is Australia, land of scary fauna.

Re:South Africa?

[camperdave]

I met Flora once. You're right. Scary!

But also little disadvantage

[Hentes]

According to TFA the only disadvantage of splitting is that there has to be a computing centre built on each site, slightly increasing the costs. But I'm sure that the losing one of the two countries would happily foot the bill for that if it meant that they could still get one half.

Gods, it's like dealing with children.

[Fishchip]

'OK, OK, you can each have half of the damn telescope, just shut up and give me some peace.'

Re:Gods, it's like dealing with children.

[msobkow]

The insanity of building TWO facilities because neither side is willing to let go of their new favourite toy is absolutely mind-boggling.

So if they're like children, the public and governments are being really shitty parents be letting this foolishness continue instead of spanking them both and giving it to a third nation that isn't even on the application list just to spite both greedy contestants.

I live in South Africa...

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in South Africa so I can give some context...
For a few years around our first democratic elections many people were scared the country is going to go downhill etc. They left in droves to places like the UK, Australia, Canada, NZ. Hundreds of thousands of people emigrated. The best part is that the country didn't go downhill and many of the people who left are having a hard time justifying why they left. We've had the longest period of economic growth in the country's history since the 1994 elections and anyone who attended the 2010 soccer world cup can tell you what a beautiful friendly place South Africa is.

I think the biggest problem we have in terms of our image is that the hundreds of thousands of people who left for other countries feel a constant need to justify why they left and talk about SA is if it were some sort of war zone. People who actually live in South Africa (like me) often are not sure how to respond to Australians and others who we meet. Their perceptions of SA are so badly warped by the nonsense spouted by those who emigrated from SA 10 to 17 years ago. The amusing part is those returning from London to SA in search of better economic and career prospects here. Those of us who stayed here just smile knowingly.

Re:I live in South Africa...

[eugene ts wong]

Yeah, I met a guy, whom I respect. He came from South Africa. He told me why he left, but I can't remember the details. It was probably because his parents brought him along, and he was of school age.

He told me that it was very comparable to Canada, in that it looked nice, and it was one of the more prosperous places in Africa. He did mention some bad stuff, but that was because we were having a well rounded discussion. I don't think that we discussed how peaceful the situation was, but I recall thinking of it as quite good.

If I were offered the opportunity, I would visit SA. I don't want to bash America, but contrast that with travelling in America. I've got nothing to hide, and I respect authorities, but I don't like the idea of being spied upon, and treated with disrespect. I get the sense that I will be treated as guilty until proven innocent. Whereas in SA, I get the impression that I will be treated with basic respect in basic situations, and that's all I need.

Of course, I could be wrong.

No doubt, because he spoke highly of his home country, I have the impression that splitting SKA between both countries might be a good thing. It could make it easier for both countries to form cultural bonds. It could also help SA to shed the bad parts of its reputation.

Re:I live in South Africa...

[FreakyGreenLeaky]

Yes, you are wrong.

Living in SA means being constantly vigilant to random crime like rape, murder and violence. SA has the highest violent crime rate in the world (second only to Mexico because of their current drug war). Defenceless old (white) people on smallholdings and farms are very often targets of unbelievably brutal and violent murder (we're talking about being tortured with boiling hot water, or stoves, or being bashed with bricks, hammers, spades, or burned with hot irons, etc). So are defenceless old African folk. Being defenceless means it's ok to rape, steal from, torture and beat. You'd be surprised how many children (black and white) get raped, then murdered, in SA. ...or gutted like a pig - while conscious - to harvest their organs for African witchcraft. Kids and toddlers, for fuck sakes.

Recently some nice men invaded a family home while the parents were at work. The nanny and baby whom she was looking after - were beaten and tortured. The baby so badly she ended up being blinded. A baby. Beaten on the head and face by grown men, so hard they blinded her. For money.

If you are white, you are seen as a soft target. If that means breaking into your home at night, gang raping your wife and daughter, then torturing and murdering you, then so be it. Being shot in the head while waiting for the traffic light to change (because they want your car), is just for kicks. If you, your family or community complains about this, then you are branded a racist.

When a respected African bank leader speaks out against government corruption and the degradation of the rule of law, instead of taking stock and debating the issue on a social and national level, the government and it's barking dogs attack the man personally. It's the African way.

There are more police men and women murdered in SA every year than any other country, per capita.

It just goes on and on. We tolerate it because not much can be done when you don't have a true functional democracy where the electorate cast their vote based on merit.

Sadly, nothing will ever change in this country. ...but, it's home. I may have my roots in europe (english/dutch/german descent), but this is my home.

SA too risky

[mauriceh]

Ask anyone who is a resident or ex resident of S.Africa..
It is simply a matter of time until the place descends into chaos.
And yes, i have lived there.

Re:SA too risky

[Anonymous Coward]

We have the longest period of economic growth since the 94 elections and our democratic institutions are functioning pretty...

Keep in mind that most of that 3.4% growth comes from mining exports (including manufactured iron and steel). This shouldn't be confused with diversified economies in more stable regions like... Australia.

Also just last year there were renewed fears of increased violence against foreigners as the the rate of xenophobic violence continues to rise unabated by the anemic attempts by the South African government. Some political leaders have been implicated in the report from the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) Monitoring Project.

Re:SA too risky

[dkleinsc]

For what it's worth, my father and step-mother are in the north-eastern area of the country right now as a Peace Corps volunteer, and since they've settled in has had no real concerns about safety or riots or anything like that.

The basic problem in South Africa is that there are no jobs. And I don't mean 'no jobs' like the 20% unemployment that's common in US cities right now, I mean 'no jobs' like 80% unemployment, most people surviving off of government aid, and no startup capital available for investment. The private industries that have any presence at all in the area are tourism (hunting, safari adventures, etc), mining, and a few general stores. Now, the economy is growing, but it has a very very long way to go.

Re:Ska should be rightfully split

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Yep, That's the Impression That I Get.

I get it!

[cforciea]

They are just waiting to see which country loves the telescope enough to cede ownership rather than let it be cut in half, then they will give it to that country because they must be the real, loving mother!