, a project that originated in decades past, is now coming to fruition. But newer projects are finding funding scarce.)
BRIGHT SPOT: The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a project that originated in decades past, is now coming to fruition. But newer projects are finding funding scarce.
Image: ALMA (ESO / NAOJ / NRAO)
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BOSTON—Astronomy is facing a lean decade. That was the message handed down by senior representatives of the federal agencies that fund much of the field's research in the U.S. during "town halls" with scientists here at the semiannual meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Science agencies are facing flat or declining budgets, and in that environment new astronomy initiatives will often be possible only at the expense of existing ones. "We can turn off the old to enable the new," NASA Astrophysics Division director Jon Morse said in a May 23 town hall discussion. "That's where we are from a budgetary standpoint." NASA funds space-based projects in the U.S., whereas the National Science Foundation funds terrestrial telescope projects.
Morse said that the number of NASA astrophysics missions in operation had peaked at 15 in 2010 and was now in decline with the phaseout of spacecraft such as the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer and the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. "This portfolio is smaller than it used to be, and it will continue to get smaller," Morse said.
The agency is saddled with disproportionately large costs from building one large mission, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is in some sense the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. But JWST's launch date could slip years beyond the current estimate of 2015, pushing other missions further into the future as well. Morse said the mission's timing was currently under review.
In 2010 a committee of the National Research Council (NRC) produced a once-a-decade report intended to advise the funding agencies on which projects to pursue. Among the top-ranked large-scale space missions in that report, the third- and fourth-ranked projects—a gravitational wave detector and an x-ray observatory—have already dropped off the map due to funding constraints. The European Space Agency may revive those missions, but Morse said that NASA did not have the money to participate.
A similar scene is playing out in ground-based astronomy. The NRC decadal survey presumed a doubling of the NSF astronomy budget over the course of the decade, James Ulvestad, NSF division director for astronomical sciences, explained in a May 24 talk. But fiscal realities are playing out somewhat differently; the overall NSF budget has shrunk somewhat and is not likely to increase significantly anytime soon. "We really can't do any of the decadal survey with a flat budget," Ulvestad said.
The NSF is working on the development of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which had been endorsed by the previous decadal survey, in 2001, and was reaffirmed as the top project on the ground in the most recent decadal survey. (The report makes separate recommendations for space-based and ground-based initiatives.) Astronomers have high hopes for that instrument, planned as an 8.4-meter telescope with a 3.2-gigapixel camera on a Chilean mountaintop that can quickly scan the entire sky. But the agency does not have funds available for the second- or third-ranked ground-based initiatives in the 2010 decadal survey—an augmentation of funding for medium-scale projects and a U.S. share in a new giant optical telescope, respectively.
Even a business-as-usual strategy, without pursuing any of the new projects recommended in the decadal survey, would leave the agency with roughly $200 million in annual commitments to manage its ongoing projects, out of a budget of about $250 million. "We would be extraordinarily facility-heavy" if that were the case, Ulvestad said, with very little room to issue research grants.
So the agency is starting a portfolio review to pare back its commitments. "The time for the difficult decisions is here," said Thomas Statler, the NSF extragalactic and planetary astronomy program officer. "This has been said for a long time, but the community will face some tough choices, and we have to do it." He said that the agency was forming a committee to perform a thorough review and to recommend how the NSF can best invest its limited funds to further critical research areas. "These recommendations may include—and this is the bad part—closures, divestments and terminations of programs," Statler said. "We know that this is going to be difficult, and we know that this is going to affect the careers of a lot of people."
One example of the kind of progress that might be possible within a constrained budget is the ongoing upgrade to the Very Large Array (VLA), a chain of radio telescopes in New Mexico funded by NSF. The facility itself is decades old, but recent improvements to the electronics of the array are boosting its performance specs across the board by factors of at least 10, and in some cases by more than 1,000, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Rick Perley said at the meeting. The total cost of the upgrade project, known as the Expanded Very Large Array, is around $100 million, far less than it would cost to build a comparable observatory from scratch. The electronic nervous system of the observatory is new, but the radio antennas themselves are the same dishes that were built for the VLA in the 1970s. "They're not particularly fast, but they're paid for," Perley said.
Those relatively cost-effective improvements to existing projects may become more common as funding streams narrow to a trickle. Morse noted that the U.S. is in its third consecutive year with budget deficits of roughly $1.5 trillion, and even a nominal economic recovery in the future would leave an unsustainable chasm between governmental expenditures and revenue. "Something has to happen in the spending part, and that's what Congress is focused on," he said.
"We live in the environment of the U.S. budget deficit," Ulvestad said. "You can't say astronomy doesn't live there."
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13 Comments
Add CommentRelax, the money that NASA would have blown on manned space flight (useless) and unmanned activities (brilliant), will now be blown on propping up the military-industrial complex and the overseas empire.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Shuttle has averaged about 1.4 billion dollars a flight. I get a kick out of those who are Shuttle cheerleaders but bemoan the cutback of science funding.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll of these problems and still, we see NASA wasting tons of money on projects like SOFIA and the alpha spectrophotometer tied onto the space station. We just finished up the nearly useless Gravity probe B project after DECADES of expense. NASA always decides to make the projects take longer and thus cost MORE as a short term budget solution- EVERY YEAR. why not cut some programs, get the ones they have underway DONE on time, then take on some more. Each one would be cheaper and go operational faster. they are just some kids with eyes bigger than their stomachs... And- can we separate ground based astronomy OUT of NASA's bloated cost structure? as it is spaced based infrared astronomy will soon be dead in the water waiting for JWST. Finally would someone please tell me what science is being done on the space station? I love space habitats too, but this is a "way-station on the road to nowhere"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne day humans are going to have to expand out in search of a new home in the galaxy. It's better that we start researching the effects of space on our biology sooner than later.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with you. My best regards Dr.Kamlander@an.at
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Space Station is a proof of concept demonstrator. Eventually, commercial ventures will be offering trips to and stays on space habs, based on lessons learned there. Not a very cost effective way to go, but neither NASA nor any government ever has been in the business of making a profit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisrwstutler,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo are you saying that it is the job of government to develop ventures that are "handed over" (at least indirectly) to private enterprises to make profits?
Yes, it is one of the government's functions to create positive externalities (e.g. public schools) as well as reduce negative externalties (e.g. EPA). In that case, the US government has been very profitable. What has been the return on the interstate highway system created by Eisenhower for the US economy? A better US economy creates more income which then produces more revenue for the US government.
What about scientific research like the Large Hadron Collider (which was suppose to be located in Texas as the SSC until funding was canceled by Congress in the 1993--the last time when deficits were a great concern)? Does anyone believe that a private company (or even a large consortium of private companies) would have ever built the LHC? There is no certainty that the science from the LHC will ever produce any profits for anybody. However, positive externalities from the LHC do definitely exist; and those could be so great as to make it the most "profitable" project ever undertaken by man.
What many people fail to understand is that the US government is not a household and is not a business (in the short-term microeconomic sense). For a household, if my revenue drops, it would be prudent to reduce my spending. In a household, my spending has nothing to do with my current income and very little to do with my future income. This is not true for the US government. Reducing spending immediately reduces its revenue; and may drastically reduce its future revenue. Image the US without the interstate highway system. Image the US and the world without much of the past government spending from Columbus to NASA (note: I am NOT advocating for man flight to Mars nor neglecting the blight endured by the aboriginals).
Yes, overall, the US government has been very profitable, both for itself and the American economy as a whole. It is just impossible to tie revenue streams to the investment spending that produced those revenue streams. If we could match those cashflow streams, I believe we would find the US government as being very profitable.
The manned space program is as important to the nation and our species as the unmanned science only missions. However, with the implementation of a space railroad as envisioned by Dr. Robert Zubrin founder of the Mars Society (see recent Wall Street Journal editorial etc.) the cost of the human in space program and unmanned science mission access to space can be radically reduced making missions that were too expensive affordable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst, we bemoan the dearth of science and engineering graduates, then we eliminate places where they would have built their careers. The lip-service to education and developing technologies in this country is astounding. Obviously, the private sector is too wrapped up in quarterly earnings reports, share holder meetings and executive board bonuses to concern itself with innovation, so what do we do to keep from becoming a third-world nation?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI criticize only because I love the whole space program so much and I believe it is one of the most important programs in the government. It is not for profit, it is for knowledge. As such it is imperative to get a good scientific return on investment. -Think of voyager and mars rovers and Venus radar mapping and landing men on the moon, think of the more recent WISE and Kepler programs. These and other great programs DEFINE space science. I want to see us flying probes though ice plumes from distant moons, sampling billion year old lakebeds on Mars. As far as training young scientists, I want them to have the chance to dream and build, sweat and shout, and spend the quiet time in the middle of the night, to reach a goal. the NASA culture needs fixed and will ALWAYS need to be criticized and praised if it is to regain and remain a jewel in the crown. Somewhere inside me there is still the little boy watching John Glenn reach for orbit, as seen though a black and white TV.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy own life in science began in those moments.
I don't think you people get it. America is flat broke and deep in debt. We owe over 14 trillion dollars. We are racking up record monthly balance of trade deficits. We are like a guy who inherited an enormous family fortune, recklessly spent it all, and now doesn't realize he has no money left.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we don't immediately make meaningful spending cuts, immediately stop the borrowing, and immediately start cutting the government, all this talk about good or bad projects, about proper funding levels for science, it will all be irrelevant. There won't be ANY money for science. We are heading straight into a brick wall at 300 mph and we are about to crash. And it is going to be unbelievably bad. If you care about funding scientific research and scientific projects, or if you care about future space exploration, you had better care about that 14 trillion dollar plus deficit.
here's an idea...build and deploy 10 or 20 hubble class observatories...for a fraction of what the original cost...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHungry Doggy,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a science website, not the Glenn Beck Show. Please learn some basic economics before commenting.