The Arecibo radio telescope is the single biggest telescope in the world. It has been used for decades to further our understanding of the Universe, so of course its funding is threatened.
However, Senator Hillary Clinton has introduced a bill to get much-needed money for the telescope’s operation. Since Cornell (which is in New York) operates the observatory, this isn’t totally altruistic of her, but still. Her official statement hits all the right marks.
I’m not thrilled that this is an earmark, because that forces money to go certain places and takes discretion out of the hands of the people who get the money (in this case, the Nation Science Foundation). However, in this case, the NSF has made the wrong decision, choosing to cut funding for this much-needed observatory. Besides all the science it does, it also can be used to get accurate orbits for near-Earth asteroids (by pinging them with radar), which is an obviously important function.
I asked my friend, astronomer Seth Shostak — an advocate of the ’scope — what he thinks on this, and here’s his reply:
It’s great that the legislature has noted the threat to Arecibo. This is one of radio astronomy’s most useful instruments — it’s used to study pulsars, galaxies, asteroids and for SETI, as well as for other research. This antenna simply has no peer. There’s no other instrument where you can wield 18 acres of metal mesh to catch the faintest radio static from the cosmos. Admittedly, it’s regrettable that this effort to save Arecibo involves earmarks. It would be better if American science policy was pursued in less ad hoc ways. But one shouldn’t let the idealistic wish for perfection interfere with a practical result that’s good. I hope that this gets passed, and that Arecibo continues to scan the skies.
Mind you, this bill has only been introduced, not voted on. A similar bill stalled earlier, so I urge you to contact your Reps and let them know what you think. Action for Space has the details.
April 25th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
It’s also been used as a location in several movies.
Hey, maybe they can collect royalties or something for additional funding …
April 25th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Hear, hear!
April 25th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Are there any suitable depressions for another disc like this in China or Japan, say?
April 25th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Given the common goal of locating aliens, perhaps Arecibo should be under the mandate of Immigration and Naturalization…..
Jess Tauber
April 25th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Never watch them make law or hot dogs.
April 25th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
I love Senator Hillary Clinton’s views of just about everything including science. She does not let her beliefs get in the way of letting others discover the truth. I know Obama and Clinton got some bad reviews for their views on the link between vaccines and autism but if you read the entire Clinton transcript she really wants to get to the bottom of the causes of autism and clearly wants scientists to discover the sources and treatments for it.
Anywho, if elected Hillary will be a VERY STRONG supporter of science funding.
April 25th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Phil,
I strongly disagree with you on this issue. At the AAS meeting in January (which I saw you at) both the spokespeople for NASA and NSF articulated very clearly why the funding for Arecibo was being cut.
It’s because there are newer, more powerful radio telescopes that are both being constructed and are currently in operation, and they take priority. Arecibo is still doing remarkable science, but it’s tying up funding for more important things that could better serve the science community.
If you don’t cling to your VHS, cassette tapes and the telescopes on Mt. Wilson, why would you advocate this bill? It basically will rob the NSF of projects that panels of scientists have decided are best for the community, because a small number of those who work at Arecibo are complaining loudly. It’s bad for science, and I’m calling you out for advocating this.
Ethan
April 25th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
As was mentioned on Spacepolitics.com, the similar bill that Phil referred to (introduced by Rep. Luis Fortuño of Puerto Rico last year) isn’t only similar, it’s word for word identical to Senator Clinton’s. I get the feeling this is more about Puerto Rico’s primary than helping out the NSF, especially when, as far as I can see, the bill doesn’t explicitly provide for extra NSF funding but commands the NSF to juggle funds internally to fully support Arecibo themselves.
April 25th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Here is a link back to your post from January where you talked about the NASA version of this:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/01/08/aas-3-nasa-chief-mike-griffin/
Remember? SIM planetquest and congressional mandates, and how that was bad for science?
April 25th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Based on some info I’ve picked up, the cost of maintaining Arecibo is on the order of $10M/year. I’d be curious to hear more about Ethan’s arguments (do you have a web link listing them?), but you’re not going to build something new with that kind of money.
April 25th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Tom (and anyone else interested),
An outline of the NSF’s budget is available here:
http://www.nsf.gov/about/budget/fy2008/pdf/22_fy2008.pdf
And here’s an excerpt about what the 2008 FY budget in Astronomical sciences (which is only $233 million, so $10 million is a big chunk o’ change) is mostly going towards:
Astronomical Sciences Division (AST) +$17.86
Increased funding for research grants and instrumentation, with emphasis on addressing
scientific priorities articulated in the National Research Councilâ??s â??Astronomy and Astrophysics for the New Millenniumâ?? and those of the interagency Physics of the Universe (POU) activity undertaken in partnership with the Physics Division, DOE and NASA; cyberscience and cyberinfrastructure, including implementation of a national virtual observatory in partnership with NASA and the development of tools to handle large data sets; Gemini Observatory operations and instrumentation and continuing ramp-up of early operations for Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA); and strategic public-private partnerships, including design for the Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope.
You can download the excel file which details astronomical funding from the NSF’s website here:
http://www.nsf.gov/about/budget/fy2008/tables/rra_mps_09.xls
Arecibo is lumped in with NRAO, which also runs the VLA and is trying to build the Allen Telescope Array. Arecibo has been doing the best science they can with the equipment they have. But they’re limited by the equipment they have. I am against this, and believe that 10 million dollars can, scientifically, be better spent.
Ethan
April 25th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Promises, promises. Most presidents in Argentina (And pretty much around the world) have promised, and promised. And they never fulfilled the promises.
Still waiting for those flying spaceship taxis, Menem!
Those who don’t know, Ex-President Menem “promised” that, “from a platform that may be installed in Córdoba, these space ships are going to leave the atmosphere,go back to the stratosphere, and from there choose the place where they would like to go, so in about one hour and a half they could go, from Argentina, to Japan, Korea, or anywhere else.
No joke. He actually did. It can be found on the wikipedia, http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Menem. It’s on spanish, but the Google translation is not so innacurate. The phrase can be found on “Imagen Pública” (Public Image).
April 25th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
This bill sounds good to me. Let’s see that gets tacked onto it.
Also keep in mind that this is a very political year. S. 2862 likely will face opposition not only from Republicans but from members of Senator Clinton’s own party. If you think this bill is a good idea, it’s very important to contact your senators. A simple phone call of “I ask that the senator support S. 2862″ can go a long way if there’s enough calls. It doesn’t have to be more elaborate than that.
April 25th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Thanks for the response, Ethan
It was my understanding that some of the best things going for Arecibo right now is asteroid characterization, along with Goldstone, as described here (http://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/). Do the new ’scopes cover that base?
April 25th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Ethan Siegel said:
“Arecibo is lumped in with NRAO, which also runs the VLA and is trying to build the Allen Telescope Array.”
This could be read as the NRAO has some involvement with the Paul Allen
telescope for SETI which I think would surprise say Seth Shostak, NRAO, and many others. Of course the NRAO is involved with building the ALMA telescope in collaboration with the European Southern Observatory and the Japanese. That was one of the projects mentioned in the outline summary Ethan provided. I believe that ALMA is scheduled to start the transition from construction to operation in 2009.
George
April 25th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Hmmm, Ethan, good point. I did say I was against earmarks in general… and while it’s great that new machines are being built, will they be working in time to decommission Arecibo? Will they be as powerful and be able to pinpoint asteroids and map them in 3D like Arecibo does? I’m not being rhetorical; I actually don’t know.
Also, telescopes don’t become obsolete like tech does. The 200 inch telescope at Palomar is still used, and still contributes to astronomy.
The problem here isn’t funding getting moved around; as usual, it’s that there isn’t enough to go around. I’ve written about this quite a bit; if we can choose to throw billions down the rabbit hole for Iraq, we can find funding to keep perfectly functioning machinery like this operating.
Still and all, in a practical sense, you’re right that this can take away funding for other projects. But the money is so trivial in the scheme of things; it seems silly not to be able to dig it up from somewhere without impacting other sources.
April 25th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
I always told myself I’ll go see Arecibo someday… I just want to look at the big thing.
April 25th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
People really interested in the possible shutdown of Arecibo after 2011 should download this pdf:
http://www.nsf.gov/mps/ast/seniorreview/sr-report.pdf.
FROM THE GROUND UP:
BALANCING THE NSF ASTRONOMY PROGRAM
Report of the National Science Foundation
Division of Astronomical Sciences
Senior Review Committee
October 22 2006
Arecibo wasn’t the only shutdown recommended, if outside funding couldn’t be secured. The NRAO’s Very Long Baseline Array has a similar recommendation. The solar telescope at Sac Peak in New Mexico will be going, going, …. Arecibo just gets a lot more publicity.
George
April 26th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Arecibo is a site with great historical, cultural (yes, movies, TV) and scientific significance to the USA, Puerto Rico and the world. To abandon it short sighted and a travesty. Sure, some some of the science can be done on the VLA and other projects but it has the unique status of the largest single Radio Telesope in history. It’s past and future value can be not be underestimated.
A well maintained and funded Arecibo is an asset that we can utilize for many decades to come. I’d personally like it to become a National (Scientific) Historical Site as well…
April 26th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
I’m not happy with the idea of science funding being allocated by political pull rather than scientific merit. Scientists should be making the funding decisions, not lawyers.
April 26th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
All science / tech (or any for that matter) funding is “political” be it institutional, academic, state, local, federal, non-profit or federal.
The merit is not always defined based on “scientific basis” no matter who funds it, there is always “someone’s agenda” involved be it scientific, social, commercial, political, religious, image (prestige), “mainstream thought” or just plain personal animosity…
I’d like some consideration made for historical science / tech sites whether it is supported via public, non-profit or commercial funding. We should always value our history. once it’s gone, its’ gone. We should always value where we (and our knowledge), came from.
April 26th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Dr. Barry D. Chalcroft said:
… “Sure, some some of the science can be done on the VLA and other projects but it has the unique status of the largest single Radio Telesope in history. It’s past and future value can be not be underestimated.”
Ah, but can Arecibo’s future value be over estimated? The range between over and under is what the Senior Review Committee had to deal with given the projected budget constraints the NSF gave them. (Those can be argued I think I seem some reference about.)
I am very much in favor of continued funding for Arecibo. But discussion of that outside of the context of Senior Review Committee report seems to be rather pointless and without full knowledge. I wish I had more!
George
April 27th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Arecibo’s greatest weakness is it’s size - it is not a pointable telescope like the 100m at Green Bank, so has a very limited field of view, basically the strip of sky that is at zenith from Puerto Rico +/- 20 degrees (and the quality of the data decreases as you move away from zenith). In terms of radio astronomy, this strip is undoubtedly the best studied part of the sky currently, but there is a limit to the number of sources in that strip.
This is the exact same problem that the VLBA has - it’s basically done the science it was designed to do, time to move on to newer and better instruments and telescopes.
Clinton’s bill is the worst possible way to handle the situation from astronomy’s point of view. It’s an unfunded mandate, trying to force the NSF to shift money to a project that is lower on the scientific community’s list of priorities than currently funded projects. This would be the equivalent of forcing DoE to shift funding from the LHC to support more experiments on the Tevatron.
April 27th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Arecibo also has a huge and increasing problem with Interference as does the rest of the VLBA sites (aside from Green Bank). I don’t see the Value keeping a site open that likely to be getting worse and worse data as time goes on.
April 27th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Gee - when is the PR primary, Hillary? Interesting that her bill is pretty much word for word the bill that Rep. Luis Fortuño and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher introduced last year.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct07/Arecibo.bill.lg.html
Phil, don’t say you don’t like earmarks. You like them when they suit you, which is what everyone else says. This is why earmarks are a problem.
Ethan is correct - NSF wants to use its $$$ for a much better telescope. Why this falls on deaf ears is beyond me.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:46 am
Hi, I don’t want to put spam in here so by all means remove it if I violate posting rules. I just thought people interested in radio telescopes might be interested in the “LOw Frequency ARray” (LOFAR) telescope being setup in North-Western Europe at the moment. LOFAR claims to be running the biggest radio telescope in the world. The first parts of this project came online last year and development is still ongoing judging from their website : www.lofar.org.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:54 am
There’s more discussion on this at Space Politics:
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2008/04/25/clinton-introduces-a-familiar-looking-arecibo-bill
April 29th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Didn’t Pete Dominici save VLBA from cuts (and The Robert C Byrd telescope at Green Bank has long been protected by … Robert C Byrd)? In any case, all national facilities are subject to earmarks; Arecibo is unfortunate in that competition because it has no voting members of Congress (and Hillary is about as close as it gets via the Cornell connection, but Cornell don’t themselves pursue earmarks). As for the solar telescope you’re referring to, I confess I don’t really know enough to say anything.
We shouldn’t be comparing 10 million dollars to the NSF astronomy budget when considering savings, but rather 4-5ish million dollars (the NSF is not calling to cut astronomy funding altogether, although the cuts it is proposing might effectively shut down astronomy there). As for it being replaced with better newer telescopes, which are those? Which ones will have planetary radar? The limited angular range of Arecibo is, indeed, a big weakness; on the other hand, the extra size that resulted in that limited pointing range also gives us great sensitivity. The large proposed Chinese FAST telescope is a candidate to do what Arecibo does (at least in terms of passive observing) and will be pointable via its adaptive surface, but why not wait to see how it works before trashing Arecibo? The Senior Review mentioned the SKA as a successor (whilst also not recommending any NSF commitment to building the SKA, understandable at present given the cost) but that’s years down the road.
No one’s claiming that the telescope (or any telescope) is going to last forever. The issue is why it’s thought that now is the right time (particularly given the potential cost of decomissioning which, if the closure happened too soon for other telescopes to pick up the slack, would look pretty silly).
As for ‘the community decided’, I think that’s potentially a rather idealistic opinion regarding how these things come to pass.
In any case, the money that funds most astronomy research is appropriated by politicians from taxpayers. We can hardly whine if the people’s representatives have opinions that differ from ours, particularly given that they indirectly are the source of our cash. In an ideal world, it wouldn’t happen. In this one, it always has and always will; the apparent amount of it may vary, but an Arecibo earmark is hardly the best example of a really heinous scientific earmark (of course, we all have our biases and none of us will agree on what those earmarks are); after all, thanks to Cornell’s policy against earmarks and Puerto Rico’s lack of voting representation in Congress, Arecibo might well have been picked in part because it was politically vulnerable.