Funding Cut For Arecibo Observatory

satorchi writes "In a recent Senior Review conducted by the National Science Foundation, a panel of experts recommended the reduction of funding to Arecibo Observatory, the world's largest radio telescope. Unless other sources of funding are found, Arecibo faces severe cuts in its program, with the prospect of closure around the year 2011. Development of the global project called the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) is cited as a reason to decommission Arecibo, but with the SKA coming online around the year 2020, closure of Arecibo in 2011 is some ten years premature. Until SKA is up and running, Arecibo remains the world's most sensitive radio telescope."

I must disagree...

[SETIGuy]

I am an astrophysicist that doesn't limit myself to radio observations and I have to disagree with the above sentiment. The root cause of this issue is not the new instruments that are coming online. The long term cause is flat budgets. The current administration doesn't value this kind of research.

The short term cause is the Director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatories (NRAO) convincing a senator to earmark a significant portion of the NSF astronomy funding for NRAO. Since most of that money is going to be spent in the home state of that senator, he earmarked 20% more than NRAO requested. Of course these earmarks don't change the total funding for astronomy. They just restrict how it can be spent. In other words, the director of NRAO and the senator from New Mexico joined forces to fsck over the rest of the astronomy community.

It is possible that the senior review chose Arecibo for the cuts because of the public outcry that might result could cause an increase in the total astronomy budget.