Radio Telescope from 'Contact' Under Threat from Budget Cuts

[The Straight Story]

Radio Telescope from 'Contact' Under Threat from Budget Cuts
By Cyrus Farivar EmailJune 01, 2007 | 5:53:57 PMCategories: Space

Arceibo_ao001 The Associated Press is reporting that the Feds are sending experts down to the Arecibo radio telescope, the world's largest of its kind, to investigate whether or not it should be shut down.

The famed telescope has had an illustrious career since its debut in 1963 -- it recorded the first planets beyond the solar system and helped detect lakes of hydrocarbons on Titan, one of Saturn's moons.

Associated Press:

But fears that it could face extinction began late last year, when a panel commissioned by the National Science Foundation, a U.S. federal agency, called for deep budget cuts and said officials should consider eliminating it entirely at the end of the decade.

Observatory officials said Thursday the impending study does not mean the complex will close entirely -- at least not immediately.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/06/radio_telescope.html

[The Straight Story]

1. Kicking for exposure (nt)

[sleipnir]

2. Well, at least they don't need to call in Gary Busey's son to blow it up.

Or do they....

[originalpckelly]

3. What is wrong with this fucking country?

:grr:

[The Straight Story]

4. We cut science to fund war and give tax cuts to the wealthy

pretty damn sad....

[Nevernose]

5. An attack by the fundamentalist Christians

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

This is part of a much larger conspiracy by fundamentalist Christians to shut down anything that continually proves that the Earth is more than 6,000 years old, Hubble being another example. They hate all science in general (the generic kind, not the kind used to create more consumable products), and astronomy/evolutionary biology in specific.

Can I prove it? No. Do I even have a shred of evidence? No, none of that, either. But that's still my hypothesis.