Astronomy Portfolio Review Recommends Defunding US's Biggest Telescope

derekmead writes "Data from the enormous Green Bank Telescope at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory has been used to test some of Einstein's theories, discover new molecules in space, and find evidence of the building blocks of life and of the origins of galaxies. With 6,600 hours of observation time a year, the GBT produces massive amounts of data on the makeup of space, and any researchers with reason to use the data are welcome to do so. The eleven-year-old GBT stands as one of the crowning achievements of American big science. But with the National Science Foundation strapped for cash like most other science-minded government agencies, the NRAO's funding is threatened. In August of this year, the Astronomy Portfolio Review, a committee appointed by the NSF, recommended that the GBT be defunded over the next five years. Researchers, along with locals and West Virginia congressmen, are fighting the decision, which puts the nearly $100 million telescope at risk. Unless they succeed, America's giant dish will go silent."

Comments

Re:Good

[NFN_NLN]

Good. That's a lot of money to be used to feed and provide health care to people.

In your dream, everybody know they will put the money in they shitty army based on quantity instead of quality.

You're both being silly... children and their education are what matters if the future of America has any chance. This money will be rightfully used to re-write text books to include creationism as a valid science.

So how else do you do this?

[Ravensfire]

Isn't this the way it should be working? Allocate X dollars to group. Group really needs X + Y dollars to do everything they want so they create a group to review all the projects and allocate the dollars. If you don't have enough funding, programs WILL be cut or scaled back. Save program A and program B is cut, which costs jobs around program B. Congrats though, program A's jobs are intact.

Prioritization sucks but if you don't have all the funding you need you have to make the call at some point. Having a (theoretically neutral) group review everything and make the call is better than having Congress make the decisions for you. And yeah, it would be much better for everyone if there was enough funding, that's the easy way out of this dilemma.

-- Ravensfire

Re:Silent?

[StormReaver]

But we've got money to teach Creationism in schools

Teaching Creationism doesn't require any money...or evidence....or logic...or intelligence....or anything else. It's dirt cheap to teach, as it relies only upon what someone wants to believe at any given moment in time.

Real universal-level science, on the other hand, is very expensive. It requires the ability to make observations, the attention to detail and time necessary to evaluate and collate enormous amounts of data, the ability to accurately spot and eliminate flawed data, and a tremendous ability to arrive at logical conclusions based on said valid data. And it requires a LOT of money to build and maintain facilities needed to acquire such data.

To summarize:

Teaching Fantasy: Dirt Cheap.
Expanding Human Knowledge: Not Dirt Cheap.

Re:Good

[ColdWetDog]

Actually, capitalism on the whole, has been pretty darn good for the world.

(Looks around)

Checks CO2 levels.
Checks water purity.
Checks air pollution levels.
Evaluates pesticides in food. ...

Looks at doctor's bill.

Yep, pretty good. If you define 'good' as maximal help for a limited class of human beings at the expense of large swaths of the population and the planet.