The US National Science Foundation recommends stopping financing six ground-based observatories in order to save money to build and operate new stations. At the same time in Africa former communications antennas are re-equipped to study far space objects. And China has announced a project to build a new solar telescope to surpass the existing ones.
In mid-August the US National Science Foundation published a report entitled “Advancing astronomy in the Coming Decade: Opportunities and Challenges”. The 170-page document contains a review of financial opportunities, scientific tasks, instruments and some other aspects related to research in astronomy. Among the recommendations issued by the committee is the proposal to stop financing of the six ground-based observatories, while spending the remaining funds to build and operate new ones. Two radio telescopes will be affected by that funding cut that is proposed to be spread over the next 5 years: telescope Green Bank (the diameter of the antenna is 100 m, in operation since 2000) and VLBA, short for Very Large Base Array (includes 10 antennas 25 m in diameter, in operation since 1993). Also included in the plan are four optical telescopes that belong to the Kitt Peak National Observatory: Nicholas Mayall telescope (4 m in diameter, in operation since 1973), the WIYN telescope owned by the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Indiana University, and Yale University and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (3.5 m in diameter, constructed in 1994), a 2.1 meter telescope and the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope (1.6 meters in diameter, in operation since 1962). The stations that according to the plan would be financed by the saved funding include the ALMA observatory (a network of telescopes in Chili, an international cooperation between the USA, Canada, East Asian countries, Europe and Chili). The observatory was opened in 2011 and is scheduled to become fully operational by the end of 2012. Also covered by the new funding would be the LSST, an optical telescope 8.4 meters in diameter that is being built in Chili. The choice of the Green Bank observatory and the VLBA observatory can but be called nothing but strange: the first one is one of the two largest radio telescopes with a turning antenna, while the second is also of a record size among radio antenna observatories with extra long baselines (the distance between its telescopes is about 8,000 km). Thus, it comes as no surprise that the NSF committee recommendations already caused serious dispute among the scientists, who are worried that due to the closing down of these observatories, the workload at the remaining observatories will go up so much that there will be problems with getting access to the observatories. In theory, the end of the state support does not mean that the observatories need to be closed down, but then the managers of those observatories face the need to raise money – from businesses or individuals. The latter is quite widespread in the USA – a great number of scientific facilities have been designed and operated with sponsors' funding. On the other side of the Atlantic, specifically in Africa, the change of the generations of the equipment is done by the method of continuous upgrade. This year it was Africa that together with New Zeeland and Australia got selected for the sites of a huge radio observatory - SKA (Square Kilometer Array), the construction of which is scheduled to be completed in mid-2020s. Specialists are required for the management and processing of the data, but today there are very few radio observatories on the continent. That is why a decision has been made to re-orient radio antennas that have been used in telecommunications that have been replaced by fiber optics. The re-equipping of the first antenna located in Ghana for astronomical needs is scheduled to begin already next month. It will become operational by June next year. In May Vodafone Ghana, a telecoms company, handed over the antenna to the Ministry of Science of the country. Three more dishes will be added in Kenya, Zambia and Madagascar, as well as four new antennas in Namibia, Botswana, Mauritius and Mozambique. In July the project received funding of about 14.6 million USD (or 120 million South African Rand) from the Africa Renaissance Foundation (sponsored by the South African Republic). It is stated that the price of the new telescope can exceed 6 million USD, while refurbishing the existing one costs 2.5-3 times less. An interesting fact is that about the same time, a few days ago, China announced its plans to build a new solar telescope 8 meters in diameter. It was just announced the beginning of the search for the construction site somewhere in Western China, which will take about four years. According to the announcement, the Chinese specialists are planning to surpass the other solar telescopes with a diameter within 4 meters that are being designed. In the era of space ships ground-based observatories remain one of the most important tools for astronomers despite their work range limitations and seriously dependent on the weather. Their advantage is the ability to be constantly upgraded (some of the world's telescopes are half a century old or older). In Russia the largest optical telescope is the Big Azimuth Telescope with a 6-meter diameter of the main mirror, which became operational in 1975. Its main mirror is currently undergoing upgrade at the Lytkarino optical glass plant – after it is re-polished the quality of images should improve significantly. Source: Voice of Russia
