Amanda... Ice Cube.. (Score 1)

Reading over the few comments here.. Yes, they do know a lot about drift rates for the amanda holes. The whole pole plateau around pole move pretty uniformly, but it does move. Amanda has a few GPS units on top of MAPO ( the observatory where most of their electronics are housed ) that read out where they are located as well as very good timing information. ( but good point.. they may have trouble with the sept 11 GPS network changes ) Anyway, 15 million will come nowhere close to funding the monster which is IceCube. The real price tag is up there, at my own back of the envelope calculation, at least 250-300 million ( includes support costs ). The fuel to melt one amanda / ice cube hole is 3 LC-130 flights. There are 80 holes planned. This translates to almost one year just for fuel. The equipment for one string is probably going to at least be 2-3 flights by itself ( 2KM of cables and a few dozen photo multipliers, high voltage supplies and readout electronics). They would require a new building ( stealing a bearthing building ) the elevated dorm ( or beaker box for short ). Anyway, I don't know how they can expect $300 million without producing much. A breeze through astro-ph shows the papers in the last 12 months ( 3 of them ) are related to data in 1997. I could be wrong, but it's somewhat suggestive.. Actually I think it's not quite true that IceCube if funded would be the largest scientific instrument ever. There is a radio telescope project called the Very Long Baseline Array. Ten sites spread across the states ( hawaii to st croix ). If you calculate the size of the single dish nessesary to get the same results it's in the neighborhood of the size of the whole continent of Antarctica. Well, you could probably make a case either way. All in the holy crusade for funding, yes? Of course I'm biased.. If you couldn't tell.. I work in radio astronomy...