Saving Arecibo – From Itself
Arecibo observatory director quits after funding row, Nature
“Kerr traces his departure to a disagreement over a possible windfall for the Puerto Rico observatory. In late July, he publicly criticized the NSF for planning to cut its contribution to Arecibo if the facility began taking payments for helping in a private survey for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. NSF officials say that his assertions were inaccurate and that its communication with Kerr never lapsed. Whatever the facts, some Arecibo observers see Kerr’s exit as an ill-timed loss for a storied, but financially threatened, scientific facility that faces a murky future.
… In Kerr’s telling, NSF officials told him that if Arecibo got funding from Breakthrough, its own funding would fall by the same amount. In a 29 July article, an angry Kerr told Scientific American that the NSF had placed Arecibo in an “unscrupulous” bind: walk away from the Breakthrough money or accept it and lose NSF dollars.”
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I think it’s pretty terrible on the NSF’s part to take advantage of the Breakthrough funding to immediately try and slash funding for the telescope.
Its punishment for Arecibo being creative and thinking outside the box.
Hey but We can use China’s Arecibo!! HAHA!
A nation with so much wealth and so little vision. Makes the pork barrel projects look all the more criminal.
Something that continually amazes me as well. Our great country is incredibly stunningly wealthy yet through mismanagement we find ourselves with both increasing debt and a failing infrastructure- both built and scientific.
At a time of historically low interest we should be out there bonding the hell out of construction projects. And we should raise the gas tax to at least match inflation. But the biggest mismanagement is in a foreign policy that is mired in WW2, Europe-centric thinking and driven by an oil-based economy.
But what do I know.
(I notice that Nissan is getting on the hydrogen bandwagon big time. At least they are thinking ahead).
I think the problem here is the money to sustain operations and maintain facilities/scientists.
True. But maybe the problem here is the pettiness of some individuals.
Hasn’t anyone at NSF seen the movie Contact? It doesn’t end well for the head of NSF.
I never get tired of that movie. The other day I flipped on the TV to find Jodie all suited up in the second machine– the best part of the movie is her experience with her ‘father’.
We don’t see Jodie Foster in enough movies.
NASA labs are encouraged to find outside money, so it’s hard to see why Arecibo should be peanalized for it. NSF funding has changed little in 10 years and they want to build new instruments and facilities, so existing programs are squeezed. The overall economy has grown considerably and an argument could be made that research funding should actually increase with time instead of stagnating, but that has not occurred for NSF. Promoting public interest in science might help, but we have been trying to do that for years with mixed results.
Sorry, folks, but the fact is that Aricebo is an aging facility over 50 years old. It’s glory days are behind it. Science has mostly moved on to interferometric arrays. The issue of shutting down increasingly non-productive facilties has been plaguing NSF across the board – many telescopes in many wavelength regimes are also facing closure for the same reason. Yes, there are always some uses for these facilities but they don’t justify the cost. So of course NSF wants to pull out.
It can do things that no other radar can currently do. It would be a shame to let it go when a rather small amount of money is needed to keep it functioning.
Intreferometric arrays have higher resolution but for sensitifvity and transmitting power I am not sure there are any facilities that do better. For SETI Arecibo could exchange messages with a similar instrument at a range of over 100,000 light years, although an exchange of greetings might take a while.