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The military, foreign policy, and… astronomy?

There was an interesting article last week in the San Antonio Express-News about the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT), a joint US-Mexico project currently under construction atop a mountain in central Mexico. The LMT is a large radio telescope that astronomers hope to use to probe the early history of the universe and study clouds of gas and dust from which stars form, among other planned research projects.

Apparently, it has come as something of a revelation in Mexico that most of the $40-million US share of the project has been funded by DARPA. One Mexican congresswoman “said the Pentagon funding tie was news to her”, according to the Express-News article, even though (at least in the English-language version of the project web site) DARPA is listed as one of the sources of US funding. (Although they do use the wrong URL for the DARPA web site.) Although it’s not clear if DARPA has any plans to use the telescope itself for military projects once finished (as opposed to using the technology developed for the project for other applications), there is a concern among some that DARPA’s ties might generate a backlash against the project in Mexico. A US-based “Mexico expert” told the newspaper that “If there is any link between the telescope and U.S. military power, then it will spark a nationalist outcry in Mexico” and allow “nationalist politicians to raise pluperfect hell.”

5 comments to The military, foreign policy, and… astronomy?

  • I wonder if it will come as a surprise to these ‘nationalist outcriers’ that another joint international project – the Internet – was largely financied by DARPA in it’s early years. They best move their protests offline!

  • David Davenport

    Why did they put that in Mexico? Another foreign aid giveaway from Uncle Sugar Daddy?

    It was a mistake to locate that telescope in Mexico, assuming this is the agenda:

    The LMT is a large radio telescope that astronomers hope to use to probe the early history of the universe and study clouds of gas and dust from which stars form, among other planned research projects.

    A better location? the Moon’s far side, where the antenna[e] would be shielded from Earthly electromagnetic emissions.

  • Doug Lassiter

    Moon’s far side? What a concept. Even better would be the outer solar system, where the Earth would be a helluva long way away. Now that would be radio quiet! Cost? Not a lot different from the Moon. But hey, who cares about cost …

    Oh, and from the point of view of ops cost and sky transparency as well as INAOE partnership (the latter two you don’t get by putting it in Nebraska), Sierra Negra offers more value to science than any site in the US. Also, it happens to be more radio quiet than most places in the US. Gosh, those scientists actually use their noggins once in a while, don’t they? You’d think they’d listen to self-styled pundits on blog sites instead.

  • David Davenport

    Oh, and from the point of view of ops cost and sky transparency as well as INAOE partnership (the latter two you don’t get by putting it in Nebraska), Sierra Negra offers more value to science than any site in the US. Also, it happens to be more radio quiet than most places in the US.

    Do you have any objective proof for those assertions? You sound like a salesman.

  • I took a look at the Sierra Negra site survey. As far as I can tell the opacity is equivalent to the opacities at Mt. Evans and Pikes Peak in the Rockies.

    Is radio quietness really an issue at millimeter wavelengths on the top of a mountain? The wavelength of every wireless device in my house is a couple of orders of magnitude longer. Not to mention all the ground level water vapor that would damp it out at those wavelengths. I expect the large amount of lightning at the Sierra Negra site causes far more problems.

    That leaves cost… I guess it must be cheaper than building it in the US.