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Fighting for Arecibo

The front page of today’s Washington Post has an article discussing the potential closure of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico because of budget pressures at the NSF. The giant radio observatory, operated by Cornell University, will have to shut down in 2010 unless the university can find other sources to cover half of the observatory’s $8-million budget. NSF came to that decision in order to help close a projected shortfall in its budget for astronomy programs (a shortfall that may be easing now that NSF’s overall budget, as part of the American Competitiveness Initiative, is in line to double over the next several years.)

One challenge for backers of Arecibo, the article posits, is politics. Because the telescope is in Puerto Rico, a commonwealth with only a single non-voting “resident commissioner” in the House, it is at a disadvantage compared to other endangered astronomy facilities in New Mexico and West Virginia, who have ardent and powerful supporters in Congress. The closest the Post finds to an Arecibo supporter in Congress is Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), who wants to preserve Arecibo’s powerful planetary radar that is used to study near Earth objects, a pet interest of his. Rohrabacher would like to see NASA step in and cover any shortfall in Arecibo’s budget: “There are things in the NASA budget that are far less defensible than identifying and tracking objects coming from space that could cause colossal loss of lives on our planet,” he said, not identifying anything specific. (This is the only time NASA is mentioned in the article, and it’s at the very end: a change of pace given the usual attention focused on the space agency and cutbacks in space science funding in recent years.)

Another issue, though, mentioned in the article is the difficulty striking a balance between supporting existing, aging facilities and building new observatories. “The ambitions of the astronomy community for new things was far outstripping the capacity of the federal budget to cover them,” Wayne van Citters, NSF’s astronomy division director, told the Post. Given that it’s not at all obvious what an “appropriate” level of funding should be for astronomy programs (at the NSF or NASA, for that matter), the desire for both building new telescopes and maintaining existing ones—not to mention funding astronomers to actually use those facilities and analyze the data they collect—makes situations like these almost inevitable.

12 comments to Fighting for Arecibo

  • Adrasteia

    Have they considered asking Paul Allen to check under his couch?

  • anonymous.space

    I have a soft-spot for Arecibo and as sympathetic as I am to Arecibo’s plight, in the article, I didn’t see much in the way of cutting-edge astrophysical observations being used as a justification for continued funding of Arecibo. Just based on the article, it would appear that the activities that Arecibo is still used for — NEO tracking, upper atmospheric and space weather observations by a co-located center, and education –could all be done more cheaply using other observatories, research tools, and institutions. Unless there’s other better (or actual) research going on at Arecibo, it seems as though the prioritization process used by NSF’s astronomy and astrophysics division is working well.

    FWIW…

  • Peter Parker

    NSF is getting its budget doubled, a NSF facility is cut, and NASA somehow gets the blame?

    Damn.

    At this rate, you could blame NASA for your mother-in-law and get away with it.

  • Donald F. Robertson

    Astronomers and space scientists are used to a lot of public funding, partly because of the sensational results they often produce and partly because the latter group, especially, are politically and financially tied to a wider NASA. Should this level of support continue when other sciences and projects that may be more important get less? That decision is way above my pay scale, but it is not automatically obvious to me that these endeavors should continue at any given level without question — especially since they seem to have enough money to waste on over-priced and under-scienced projects like SOPHIA, and, if Anonymous is correct, Arecibo.

    Another important, related question: How much money are we going to continue to spend of far cheaper but far more limited ground-based telescopes, versus far more expensive but far more capable space telescopes and direct observation by going there?

    Just because “we’ve always done it that way” and “they’ve always got that money” does not automatically mean that should continue.

    — Donald

  • anonymous.space

    “Astronomers and space scientists are used to a lot of public funding, partly because of the sensational results they often produce”

    In the context of other federal R&D spending, astrophysics and space science don’t receive “a lot of public funding”. Total federal R&D spending is about $140 billion per year. Over half of that, about $75 billion, is spent at DoD. Another $30 billion is spent at HHS, mostly NIH. DOE gets another $10 billion. So we have tens and tens of billions going into R&D every year to support defense, health, and energy, versus the few billion dollars that go into NASA space science and NSF astrophysics every year. The results of space science and astrophysics may be highly visible, but the tax revenues going into them are not “a lot”, especially when compared to the tax revenues going to other R&D areas, not by any reasonable standard.

    “Should this level of support continue when other sciences and projects that may be more important get less?”

    But the important “science and projects” — those that directly affect the nation’s defense, the health of our population, and our energy supply — do get more, a lot more, than space science or astrophysics. We could wipe out space science and astrophysics and the few billion saved would make only a small dent compared to the spending going into these, justifiably more important, areas.

    “and partly because the latter group, especially, are politically and financially tied to a wider NASA”

    It’s a common mantra that NASA space science owes its funding to the human space flight side of NASA — that space science piggybacks on human space flight. But the statement does not hold up under scrutiny.

    Europe, for example, has the world’s second largest space science program, but a very small human space flight program. Russia has a very large human space flight program, but a relatively small and practically inactive space science program. Based on these and other foreign examples, there’s no clear 1-to-1 or cause-and-effect relationship between the size of a nation’s human space flight program and the size of its space science program.

    And in the specific case of NASA, before Columbia and especially before Griffin, the space science budget doubled over the course of a decade while spending on human space flight activities remained relatively level. Again, there’s no clear 1-to-1 or cause-and-effect relationship between the budget for NASA human space flight activities and the budget for NASA space science activities.

    “especially since they seem to have enough money to waste on over-priced and under-scienced projects like SOPHIA, and, if Anonymous is correct, Arecibo”

    Don’t blame the astrophysics community for continuing SOFIA — that was a (arguably politically driven) decision from Griffin, not the result of a review of astrophysics research priorities.

    And certainly don’t blame the astrophysics community for Arecibo — NSF is actually following the community’s research priorities by trying to cut off funding for Arecibo and move those dollars into new astrophysics research. In Arecibo’s case, the system is actually working as it should!

    “How much money are we going to continue to spend of far cheaper but far more limited ground-based telescopes, versus far more expensive but far more capable space telescopes”

    Ground-based telescopes will always have a place. The accessibility of their instruments and ease of operation allows for degress of research flexibility that space-based telescopes simply don’t have. For example, without ground-based telescopes, astronomers would have a very hard and expensive time following up to transient phenomena, like the gamma-ray bursts detected by space-based telescopes. Ground-based telescopes also serve an important role as technology demonstrators for space-based telescopes. Before Griffin cancelled SIM and TPF, NASA was planning to test out separated interferometry using outrigger telescopes at Mauna Kea. Heck, the adaptive optics that make JWST possible (and probably some number of intelligence satellites) were also first tried on ground telescopes. And this says nothing of the many detectors and instruments (not to mention graduate students) that are first tried out on ground-based telescopes before moving to space-based counterparts. And there are also still some observations, even massive galactic, stellar, or asteroid censuses, that simply don’t require the expense of a space-based observatory. Heck, neutrino physics requires that we put the observatory underground!

    “and direct observation by going there”

    Unless and until Einstein is overcome, the vast majority of the objects that telescopes investigate are not accessible by human or robot. And even if we could travel infinitely fast, some of the most important questions in astrophysics are cosmological in scale, involving phenomena that unfold over extragalactic scales or on the scale of the entire universe, often billions and billions of years ago, and in wavelengths that we cannot see. Those phenomena will never be directly observable by a human, no matter where we send them. Our senses do not operate on those scales or in those wavelengths, and we cannot travel back in time.

    For much of astrophysics, it’s not a question of remote versus direct observation. It’s a question of being able to do observation at all.

    “Just because “we’ve always done it that way” and “they’ve always got that money” does not automatically mean that should continue.”

    Agreed. And that’s exactly what’s happening with Arecibo.

    FWIW…

  • Donald F. Robertson

    Anonymous: Space science is science, or reconnaissance, not development. It should be compared with the science budget, not the R&D budget. In that comparison, I do not think we spend a comparable amount on, say, terrestrial biology or ecology or geology.

    Europe, for example, has the world’s second largest space science program, but a very small human space flight program.

    It may or may not be fair to say that Europe’s program is at least somewhat a result of their preceived competative pressure with the US and may not get this level of support in isolation.

    The accessibility of their instruments and ease of operation allows for degress of research flexibility that space-based telescopes simply don’t have.

    If we continue to explore space, and give physical observation and experiment sufficient priority, this may change.

    Regarding astrophysics, and local diirect observation and experimentation, and the way more of the latter should tie into the improvements in the former, I am preparing an Op Ed piece on that. I’ll continue writing that, rather than address it now.

    — Donald

  • anonymous.space

    “I do not think we spend a comparable amount on, say, terrestrial biology or ecology or geology.”

    Even setting aside development, during the 1990s, we spent roughly comparable amounts in astronomy, biology, and ecology research. Spending on geology research was somewhat smaller than astronomy, although spending on all enviromental sciences (including geology, oceanography, and the atmospheric sciences) was several times larger than astronomy. See Chapter 2 of this National Academies review:

    http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309075890

    Spending in astronomy research ranged from $800-$1,000M/yr. during the 1990s, per figure 2-13.

    Spending in the biological sciences (biology) ranged from $400-900M/yr. in the same period, per figure 2-19.

    Spending on environmental biology (ecology) ranged from $600-900M/yr. in the same period, per figure 2-20.

    And spending on geology ranged from $400-700M/yr. in the same period, per figure 2-25. (Although it must be pointed out that spending on all environmental sciences, including atmospheric sciences and oceanography, totalled $2.5-3B/yr. in the same period, per figure 2-22.)

    Hope this helps… FWIW.

  • Donald F. Robertson

    Anonymous: It still looks to me like you are counting only a part of the astronomy budget. Are you excluding Cassini, Deep Impact, the MSRs, et al? These are pure science in any reasonable meaning of the term, with “development” of spacecraft, instruments, and techniques to support the science. This is not “development” in the sense that the DoD does it — which is largely applied, that is learning ever more efficient ways to kill people — or the way the NHI does it — learing ever less efficent ways to patch them back together or keep them alive longer. You are comparing development of technologies applied to specific goals to the search for knowledge supposedly for its own sake

    A better comparison would be DoD R&D versus the human space program as it is presently configured, and NIH versus space science and astronomy. Even if you include just space science, they are still getting an awful lot of money compared to the other sciences.

    All that said, I suggest we stop here (or after your next turn!) since we are both cooking the books to support our respective points. . . . And I confess to being a bit uncomfortable with my own argument since I happen to believe that at least some fields of astronomy (e.g., planetary geology, asteroid and comet research) are more important than other sciences. I just wish sometimes the scientists supported by MASA would respect the great deal they’ve get, and see it a little less as a guaranteed entitlement that ranks high above all of NASA’s other jobs.

    — Donald

  • […] Update 11/2: A second panel has been added to the hearing, with a single witness: Luis Fortuño, the Resident Commissioner (non-voting representative) of Puerto Rico. Fortuño, along with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, has advocated keeping the Arecibo radio telescope open in part to help study NEOs, to the point of introducing legislation mandating that the NSF and NASA keep the telescope open even though the NSF wants to shut down the telescope by the end of the decade to focus on other astronomy projec…. […]

  • Arecibo should stay open, here is a list of good facts about the benefits
    of Arecibo and their contributions.
    http://www.naic.edu/general_int/posts/RadarFacts%20-%20English.htm

  • souriscriant

    Anonymous, don’t spout nonsense “Just based on the article, it would appear that the activities that Arecibo is still used for — NEO tracking, upper atmospheric and space weather observations by a co-located center, and education –could all be done more cheaply using other observatories, research tools, and institutions.”

    No other observatory now in existence or planned can determine the orbit of a Near Earth Object to anywhere near the accuracy of Arecibo. Or, to put it simply, without Arecibo, we can’t know what might hit us and can’t do anything about it. No other facility can do the ionospheric work Arecibo does with its radar, which provides a fundamental input into models of global climate. You know, the things we use to understand the weather and global warming? No other facility has anywhere near the sensitivity of Arecibo as a radio telescope or as a radar system. It is still generating Nature and Science cover stories on a regular basis (such as determining there is no ice on the moon’s polar caps).

    The trouble is not the science of Arecibo. The trouble is that billion dollar telescopes are being built based on promises of increased funding made in 2002 and those promised increases never happened, and they needed $30M a year to come from somewhere to operate the new telescopes. The Senior Review was told find $30M but don’t touch any of the new projects. So, Arecibo got cut. And the SKA (another billion dollar project) is vaporware. No chance of it happening for another 10-15 years at the earliest, and it won’t have a radar system. There are no “cheaper” alternatives for doing the science that Arecibo does.

  • […] designed to support the Arecibo radio observatory in Puerto Rico. The giant radio telescope is in danger of closing because of budget pressures on the National Science Foundation’s astronomy programs, much to […]

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