Faced with loss of the federal gravy train, Lowell Observatory makes major changes
According to a press release last week, the Lowell Observatory in Arizona is now making major changes to it management and operations due to “declines in federal research funding.”
The new framework centers on two defining pursuits: Planetary Defense, safeguarding our world from cosmic hazards, and Exoplanetary Research, seeking to understand distant worlds and the potential for life beyond Earth.
Declines in federal research funding, coupled with uncertainty about future national priorities, have impacted research institutions across the country. At the same time, Lowell’s historic reliance on internal funding to sustain research is no longer a viable long-term model. To ensure stability and growth, the Observatory will focus its efforts on key scientific areas while building new endowments to support the scientists and technology that drive discovery.
Essentially, it can no longer depend on easy federal cash (thank you Donald Trump!), and thus needs to actually do real research work in fields that others consider important. It will also abandon its “traditional academic tenure system.” Scientists who use the facility will now have to earn that right, in a case-by-case basis. And such researchers will have to be funded by “private, endowed support.”
In other words, Lowell is returning to the model that had been used by American researchers for most of the nation’s history, until World War II, getting their funding from private sources rather than the federal teat.
We should expect therefore the work at Lowell to become more effective and focused, something it has not been for decades.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
According to a press release last week, the Lowell Observatory in Arizona is now making major changes to it management and operations due to “declines in federal research funding.”
The new framework centers on two defining pursuits: Planetary Defense, safeguarding our world from cosmic hazards, and Exoplanetary Research, seeking to understand distant worlds and the potential for life beyond Earth.
Declines in federal research funding, coupled with uncertainty about future national priorities, have impacted research institutions across the country. At the same time, Lowell’s historic reliance on internal funding to sustain research is no longer a viable long-term model. To ensure stability and growth, the Observatory will focus its efforts on key scientific areas while building new endowments to support the scientists and technology that drive discovery.
Essentially, it can no longer depend on easy federal cash (thank you Donald Trump!), and thus needs to actually do real research work in fields that others consider important. It will also abandon its “traditional academic tenure system.” Scientists who use the facility will now have to earn that right, in a case-by-case basis. And such researchers will have to be funded by “private, endowed support.”
In other words, Lowell is returning to the model that had been used by American researchers for most of the nation’s history, until World War II, getting their funding from private sources rather than the federal teat.
We should expect therefore the work at Lowell to become more effective and focused, something it has not been for decades.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Just goes to underscore how a lot of scientists went for the Climate change bucks when those were the available bucks.
Now that planetary defense has cash… and climate change money is gone…..that’s where they go.
They will go where the money is.
On the 25th of last month, Lowell Observatory’s director of science, Dr. Gerard van Belle was on Coast to Coast talking about the Perseverance mission and the search for life on Mars. https://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2025-09-25-show/
Say what you will, Lowell Observatory is so inextricably involved in the history of American astronomy that it would be a pity to see it fade from the scene. As suggested, it needs some patrons, and hopefully they will appear. The old model of conducting basic scientific research.
PS — Listening to most of Dr. van Belle’s presentation, I was a bit disappointed that relatively little was said about Lowell Observatory’s actual history with respect to studying Mars. Those who followed this research throughout the latter half of the 20th Century (and read about it’s history before this) know that there is quite a story to be told, and William Sheehan does a commendable job in his book, The Planet Mars: A History of Observation and Discovery. It’s truly the “rest of the story” about our enduring fascination with the Red Planet, and it has gotten short shrift from the breathless young reporters of the Internet generation.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1zm2t25
Sort of off the subject, but sort of not, I have enjoyed reading “The Martians” by David Baron. It’s the story of Percival Lowell and his role in the Mars mania which was part of the turn of the century. Tells of Lowell, the beginnings of the observatory and how the story of the canals became accepted then discredited. I was surprised by the roles of people like Nikola Tesla, Edison and others.
https://a.co/d/6cEQEAZ
To Saville
You broke the code.
The folks who scream the loudest about NASA being Old Space Pork don’t want to admit that USSF is just NewSpace pork. (VCs being unreliable).Redstone Arsenal and THAAD aren’t going anywhere.
Casey Handler, who I despise immensely, wanted to hurt my state. All that belly-aching did was to expose his JPL to the same blowtorch aimed at MSFC. He and Cowing’s shouts did nothing but trigger an avalanche that will hurt they and theirs.
I couldn’t be happier.
Over at America Space, Jim Hillhouse tried to get NewSpace and OldSpace to praise each other. Casey and his lot wouldn’t play ball.
I hope Trump kills Goddard and JPL both.