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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."
In your dream, everybody know they will put the money in they shitty army based on quantity instead of quality.
$10 million? I don't think that's going to feed and treat as many as you think.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
OK, I know I'm being a bit of a pedant ... but it's listening, it's already silent. ;-)
That being said, this sucks ... the amount of actual science we do seem to keep falling. But we've got money to teach Creationism in schools.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
And what is basic science today will feed millions in the future. I'm not saying this particular telescope will provide the insights necessary to advance overall economic productivity, but once shut down, it definitely won't.
Not just the GBT is at risk in all of this, and honestly NRAO is being selfish and shortsighted in their responses to the portfolio review. There are 5 optical telescopes at the national observatory at Kitt Peak, AZ that are set to be divested from the NSF as well, and their loss is much, much more devastating to the amount of open-access telescope time that is set to be lost if the facilities are closed or go into closed private partnerships. The closing of the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) means the loss of literally a one-of-a-kind setup as well. It's bad across all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, but the decision to stop spending money on these telescopes preserves the NSF astronomy grants program which funds a ton of astronomers, engineers, and students of all levels (myself included). The portfolio review didn't come up with any answers that we liked, but at least it's an honest estimate of what we have vs. what we expect funding wise; things are getting even worse with the upcoming budget sequestration. The big worry among astronomers is that we're returning to a time when only large institutions have access to telescope time, the exact reasoning behind the creation of the US national observatory system in the first place. Public-private partnerships will likely come around somehow to keep these facilities operating, but it's early still to know what those will entail in terms of open-access telescope time.
I'm hoping we are learning to take science (particularly space in this case) out of the 'gov't' sector...if this telescope was privately funded, they wouldn't have to be dealing with partisan crap based on ideological 'budgets'...politics...but that's the price for receiving 'public funding'...*shrugs*
There are three kinds of people in the world. Those that can count, and those that can't.
First its cuts to fund the Platonic schools. Then its limits on what can be said at the agora (nothing bad can be said about senators or Caesar). Then its cuts to the Legion. You change their breakfast diet, then you go for lower quality swords and shields. Then you ask that they join the legion with their own sword and shield. In a few short years, you go from ruling the world, to losing Brittania, then Gaul, and finally fighting off the Hun, and ultimately watching Rome burn. But start off by being cheap with the scholars. That's right. We already know all there is to know. Oh, by the way, are those proposing cuts from Crete? They seem like Cretans.
Yeah because the corporate bureaucrats in the insurance companies are clearly non-biased when it comes to health care decisions.
Oh please! Stop with this delusion. The money will end up in some banker's pocket, just like every other time a cutback is made.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
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.
Of course they're cutting funding. Green Banks has come close to finding the aliens living in orbit around a couple of nearby stars on several occasions. Damn close. The government needs to cut funding to prevent identification of the aliens --- the powers that be are aware of the aliens and know what kind of retribution they will bring on the Earth if humans become aware of "other" species existence. There has been very limited contact through Air Force satellites. The aliens have made their intentions very clear: As long as we remain a quaint backwater planet with no ability to travel off the small rock we live on, we are not a threat. As soon as we become a threat, the simplest course of action is to exterminate all life on the planet (that would be us). If Green Banks manages to identify the aliens, noone will be able to keep it quiet. It will drive interest in space exploration, funding for the space program, development of space vessels and then the genie is out of the bottle, so to speak. It cannot be allowed to happen. So, it is the Government's intention to quash funding for NRO and NASA, for the preservation of the human race.
I sleep under a radio telescope (the SMT on Mt. Graham) when I'm on site for several days. It creaks and groans like an old pirate ship.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
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
"But we decide which is right, and which is an illusion"
He's long since dead. Had a pre-existing condition that his insurance company refused to pay for and he couldn't afford the costs himself.
I can't help but think it would be better funded if it had some lesbians too.
Actually, capitalism on the whole, has been pretty darn good for the world.
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.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Wow, I knew science funding was bad but this is incredible.
Can't they find you a pup tent or something?
Maybe you could sleep in your car?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Having Bob Byrd or Bud Shuster's name on any project implies it had no redeeming value other than helping the pol get reelected. Thankfully both are gone.
So this unit has a bit of history -- there used to be a 300-foot diameter transit telescope on the site, which collapsed in 1988. The Byrd telescope was an upgrade, being fully steerable and covering more of the spectrum. The location is fairly special too, it's in a radio-quiet zone with some other NRAO telescopes, and close to the Navy's radio observatory site.
The thing only started working in August of 2000, it seems a shame to shut it down after such a small fraction of its expected operating lifetime.
2*3*3*3*3*11*251
Maybe if they didn't spend so much money on other things they could afford to keep it.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
"fund the things I like and stick it to the other people" is exactly how we got to the present situation.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
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.
Well one should expect that capitalism is good, if not very good for the capitalists. Unfortunately, for those who have to work for the capitalists, a different story emerges.
Capitalism is very much like Darwin's survival of the fittest. Both favor the most successful at the expense of everybody else. There is a reason why in the early 20th century there were a lot of anti-trust laws created. The good of the people required protection from the most successful capitalists. There is also a reason why now, most of those laws are ignored. The good of the corporation is now above the good of the people.
Unfortunately, today, people ignorantly shout capitalism when the reality is fascism and today's "capitalists" are actually fascists.
No, the VA is in worse shape because it's run by a lot of government employees. While there are some folks in there who really do their best to provide decent care (and some have managed to pull of miracles), the reason the VA falls down a lot? Because of the '7:30-4:30' mentality. Most of the employees there are just marking time (while getting one hell of a paycheck for doing so), and resent any/all intrusions into their day or their processes (like, you know, patients who need care?) More often than not, the process and attendant bureaucratic attitude is the biggest hindrance.
How do I know? My missus is a disabled veteran. Watching her fight with the pharmacy because they botched an delivery date for the umpteenth time is no fun (we're talking insulin and high-octane pain prescriptions here, not aspirin), and that's just the tip of one very ugly iceberg.
Having seen fully-US-government-run healthcare up close and personal? Let's just say that no matter how good Canada or the UK does it, I know full well that here in the US, we'll just fuck it up, and to the detriment of anyone who will have to suffer under it.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
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.
Actually global poverty has recently been falling rapidly, mostly due to the adoption of capitalism in China.
The poor countries that display the greatest success today in poverty reduction are those that engage the most with the global capitalist economy.
Air Conditioning the Military Costs More Than NASA's entire Budget: http://gizmodo.com/5813257/air-conditioning-our-military-costs-more-than-nasas-entire-budget
That says a lot about this country and where it's headed. It has no problem cooling troops in a war that has no purpose and no end, even when "we are broke!". But funding anything that might be remotely useful? Forget it!
Most telescopes on Mauna Kea are relatively quiet, both in terms of the mount moving and the dome rotating. Sometimes you'll hear a creak, or a clunk as a contact switch gets tripped or a chain moves to open or close something. One exception is Japan's Subaru Telescope, which when the dome drives are turned on plays a recurring audible alert in the area of the dome - Bwoop! Bwoop! "Warning! Dome drives are on! Dome could move at any moment!" (and then repeating it in Japanese).
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.