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US Astronomy Facing Severe Budget Cuts and Facility Closures

Posted by Soulskill on from the but-i-like-pie-in-the-sky dept.

Nancy_A writes "The U.S. astronomy budget is facing unprecedented cuts, including the potential closure of several facilities. A new report by the National Science Foundation's Division of Astronomical Sciences says available funding for ground-based astronomy could undershoot projected budgets by as much as 50%. The report recommends the closure – called 'divestment' in the new document — of iconic facilities such as the Very Long Baseline Array and the Green Bank Radio Telescope, as well as shutting down four different telescopes at the Kitt Peak Observatory by 2017."

11 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. But we can have .. by ackthpt · · Score: 3, Insightful

    All the rockets we want, as long as they are ordered by the Pentagon.

    Science, it's now for total warfare.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    1. Re:But we can have .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      You think we rode to the moon on civilian hardware? Those were repurposed ICBMs made to blow up cities. The SALT treaties put an end to them.

      MOST of the cool stuff NASA did in the 60's was on military hardware or tests for the air force (using air force hardware).

      You seem shocked as if this is a new thing. The same people who build the NASA hardware (what they do build) are the same ones who build the military hardware. NASA has always been getting other agencies leftovers... Pretty much the shuttle is the only BIG project that they did all by themselves.

    2. Re:But we can have .. by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You think we rode to the moon on civilian hardware? Those were repurposed ICBMs made to blow up cities. The SALT treaties put an end to them.

      Cool story bro. Too bad it's completely wrong.

      The Saturn series rockets were designed by Von Braun's team to launch military satellites into low earth orbit. Every single one of them was launched from Cape Canaveral. The Saturn V was the largest of the Saturn series and was built for the purpose of launching astronauts into space. NASA never launched astronauts on rockets that were not designed to be human-rated.

      The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) treaty (more specifically SALT I) agreement was made in May 1971 which is a little late for the Saturn V to repurposed since it flew from Nov 9, 1967 to Dec 6, 1972.

      BTW, ICBM were originally mounted on Atlas rockets then were replaced by the Titan II rockets.

      --
      These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
  2. Get the public interested. by stevenh2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The interest of the general public could help keep funding. If people never heard of it, they will not notice or care.

  3. Re:Can't have it all by h4rr4r · · Score: 3, Insightful

    While that is totally true, we could just try a couple less wars, or raising the retirement age, or any number of sane ideas to pay for something this small.

    At this point as the US gov can borrow money at negative rates, we might as well do that.

  4. The military does drive space science... by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...and has throughout our history — but it shouldn't be the only thing that drives space science and other human achievement.

    If you're interested in a truly insightful and inspiring speech on this topic, I highly encourage you to set aside an hour for Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson's recent talk on just this subject at the University of Wisconsin - Madison:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqJzHHkmJ-8

    It's well worth your time to watch, to think about — and to discuss with your elected officials.

    1. Re:The military does drive space science... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      tax breaks for oil companies? Always in the plan.

      Solar and stellar astronomy? Cut.

      "Then we're stupid, and we're going to die"

      --Khyris

  5. Re:Hey NASA, idea: by geekoid · · Score: 3, Informative

    Typical. You have no clue how much something takes to do, so naturally you assume your share is tooo much.

    Here is a clue: Tax dollars aren't yours. Ever. They are all ours, societies. DO you really want New York, Detroit and Dallas and California to be the effective determination for all tax money?

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  6. Re:Hey NASA, idea: by ackthpt · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Typical. You have no clue how much something takes to do, so naturally you assume your share is tooo much.

    Here is a clue: Tax dollars aren't yours. Ever. They are all ours, societies. DO you really want New York, Detroit and Dallas and California to be the effective determination for all tax money?

    Figure this: WW II was funded by the sale of bonds. Bond drives went on everywhere and were widely supported by the entertainment industry to underwrite the massive expense of a massive undertaking. But today we don't buy War Bonds, it's assumed we are all going to pony up $5,000 (on average) for our share of the annual Pentagon Budget, for whatever they decide they need. Let. Me. Tell. You. $5,000 is probably what I could have afforded for war bonds, had I lived in the 1940's in 1940's adjusted dollars. But this has been on-going since after the war ended and is still eating up a high percentage of our GDP, for years on end, even when we are at complete peace.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  7. Re:Can't have it all by Electricity+Likes+Me · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The long term survival of the country is in Science and engineering. If your society doesn't do that, then you are done as a civilized society.

    Thank goodness Congress was there to develop electricity, automobiles, radio, and telephones!

    Oh, wait, those all happened before general income taxes when people still had money to spend on preposterous ideas.

    It sure was a good thing those private companies built a massive national highway infrastructure for automobiles to run on, or standardized, built and maintained the telephone and electricity grids.

  8. Re:Just wondering by hde226868 · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, this has nothing to do with JWST being over budget. The review concerns the astronomy funding through the National Science Foundation, whose budget is independent of NASA's funding. NASA funds all of space based astronomy (including data analysis), while NSF funds ground based astronomy. NSF mainly funds the national optical astronomy observatory on Kitt Peak in Arizona and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, VA, with facilities in West Virginia and in New Mexico (plus some other states). In addition, NSF funds data analysis/theory grants. Overall, NSF's budget is much smaller than NASA's, but then, ground based hardware is much cheaper than space based. To put things in perspective: for about 50% of all university astronomers, NSF facilities are the only way to get optical observing time (the remainder of astronomers have access via privately funded telescopes, such as the Keck). The closures of the instruments proposed in the report to NSF essentially mean the US giving up its current leadership in large areas of radio astronomy, and significantly reducing access to medium sized facilities for optical astronomers, if the (realistic) flat budget for the astronomy program is realized.