Astronomers downsize their proposal for rebuilding Arecibo
Faced with little interest from the National Science Foundation to spend the half a billion dollars required for their initial proposal to rebuild the Arecibo radio telescope, astronomers have now downsized their proposal significantly.
[I]n 2021 Anish Roshi, the observatory’s head of radio astronomy, unveiled a proposal to replace the telescope with a phased array of 1112 parabolic dishes each 9 m in diameter, placed on a tiltable, plate-like structure. This new facility, with an estimated cost of $454m, would provide the same a collecting area as a 300 m parabolic dish. “It would have a much wider sky coverage and would offer capabilities for radio astronomy, planetary, and space and atmospheric sciences,” Roshi says. “It would be a unique instrument for doing science that competitive projects couldn’t do.”
A lack of support from the NSF, however, has forced researchers to go back to the drawing board to make the array “more cost-effective both for construction and operation” as Roshi puts it. In the revised proposal, submitted to arXiv late last month, his team now envisions a downsized version of the original concept. Dubbed NGAT-130, it would consist of 102 dishes each 13 m in diameter that would in combination have a collecting area equivalent to a single 130 m dish.
No cost estimates are as yet available for this new proposal. Nor has the NSF expressed any opinion on whether it is even interested. At the moment its only action at Arecibo has been to propose converting the observatory into an education center, one that is located far from anything, is hard to reach, and will likely see few students or visitors.
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Faced with little interest from the National Science Foundation to spend the half a billion dollars required for their initial proposal to rebuild the Arecibo radio telescope, astronomers have now downsized their proposal significantly.
[I]n 2021 Anish Roshi, the observatory’s head of radio astronomy, unveiled a proposal to replace the telescope with a phased array of 1112 parabolic dishes each 9 m in diameter, placed on a tiltable, plate-like structure. This new facility, with an estimated cost of $454m, would provide the same a collecting area as a 300 m parabolic dish. “It would have a much wider sky coverage and would offer capabilities for radio astronomy, planetary, and space and atmospheric sciences,” Roshi says. “It would be a unique instrument for doing science that competitive projects couldn’t do.”
A lack of support from the NSF, however, has forced researchers to go back to the drawing board to make the array “more cost-effective both for construction and operation” as Roshi puts it. In the revised proposal, submitted to arXiv late last month, his team now envisions a downsized version of the original concept. Dubbed NGAT-130, it would consist of 102 dishes each 13 m in diameter that would in combination have a collecting area equivalent to a single 130 m dish.
No cost estimates are as yet available for this new proposal. Nor has the NSF expressed any opinion on whether it is even interested. At the moment its only action at Arecibo has been to propose converting the observatory into an education center, one that is located far from anything, is hard to reach, and will likely see few students or visitors.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Spend $454M to put it in space, where it belongs
At least the locals seem amenable unlike the Hawaiians.
“the observatory’s head of radio astronomy,” in other words, somebody without a job, desperately trying to remain on the government gravy train.
” The staff consists of about 120 persons who work in different areas such as cooks, administrators, scientists, engineers, maintenance workers, technicians and telescope operators, ” So the taxpayer gets to pay about $3.5M per job – what a bargain! To quote Apollo 13 “Tell me this isn’t a government operation”. It also epitomizes government waste, when there is no constraints because you can pick John Q Public’s pocket, why should anyone care about the cost?
There was a time when observatories were privately funded. Palomar was built and operated that way. – and was a world class operation. Then academia got used to sucking on the government teat and became fat, lazy and careless.
A 3d space filling fractal job could fill that hole and balloons on tether above it provide directional info
Flat phased arrays are 1980s tech.
Like Goldstone, but unlike FAST, it had a radar.
I say put one in Meteor Crater.