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Change rattles the world's biggest dish
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ML1 Send message Joined: 25 Nov 01 Posts: 20283 Credit: 7,508,002 RAC: 20 |
All change at Arecibo: Nature: Change rattles the world's biggest dish After nearly half a century, Cornell University loses stewardship of the renowned Arecibo radio telescope Keep searchin', Martin See new freedom: Mageia Linux Take a look for yourself: Linux Format The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3) |
Johnney Guinness Send message Joined: 11 Sep 06 Posts: 3093 Credit: 2,652,287 RAC: 0 |
Interesting! This story, along with the ATA going into hibernation will have a big affect on radio astronomy. Hope SETI@home will still be able to piggyback to get its data. John. |
skildude Send message Joined: 4 Oct 00 Posts: 9541 Credit: 50,759,529 RAC: 60 |
sounds like a management change. I bet the science will go on In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face. Diogenes Of Sinope |
Jason Safoutin Send message Joined: 8 Sep 05 Posts: 1386 Credit: 200,389 RAC: 0 |
That's exactly what it says. A new management team: Instead, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) has offered the job — and the US$41.2-million five-year contract that goes with it — to a consortium that includes SRI International, a non-profit research institute based in Menlo Park, California; the Universities Space Research Association in Washington DC; and the Metropolitan University in Puerto Rico. Seti@home is not part of any of those groups. So it is very unlikely that the project will be affected. Matt or Erick may be able to explain if this does have an effect. I hope to hear from them regarding this. "By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible". Hebrews 11.3 |
Slavac Send message Joined: 27 Apr 11 Posts: 1932 Credit: 17,952,639 RAC: 0 |
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Julie Send message Joined: 28 Oct 09 Posts: 34053 Credit: 18,883,157 RAC: 18 |
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SciManStev Send message Joined: 20 Jun 99 Posts: 6652 Credit: 121,090,076 RAC: 0 |
At the very least they should be an official partner. As long as Berkely doesn't have to fund the maintenance for the telescope on the current budget. That could get very expensive. Steve Warning, addicted to SETI crunching! Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group. GPUUG Website |
Jason Safoutin Send message Joined: 8 Sep 05 Posts: 1386 Credit: 200,389 RAC: 0 |
At the very least they should be an official partner. I am actually surprised they weren't even asked. "By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible". Hebrews 11.3 |
Julie Send message Joined: 28 Oct 09 Posts: 34053 Credit: 18,883,157 RAC: 18 |
At the very least they should be an official partner. Me too. It's a shame and kind of an insult I think. Berkeley is doing the most productive and interesting thing of all with Arecibo. rOZZ Music Pictures |
ML1 Send message Joined: 25 Nov 01 Posts: 20283 Credit: 7,508,002 RAC: 20 |
... Berkeley is doing the most productive and interesting thing of all with Arecibo. That may be true for possible/potential scientific impact and for public involvement. However, in the game of politics and funding I would guess the influence from s@h is disproportionately small... It isn't that long ago that the NSF called for the closure of Arecibo... To keep going, staff were laid off and even the on-site canteen was closed. So why do bureaucrats require a wake-up call from the rest of the world? Or is it all just a game of politics? Hopefully, Arecibo will now benefit from renewed interest from this latest shake-up. Keep searchin', Martin See new freedom: Mageia Linux Take a look for yourself: Linux Format The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3) |
Jason Safoutin Send message Joined: 8 Sep 05 Posts: 1386 Credit: 200,389 RAC: 0 |
... Berkeley is doing the most productive and interesting thing of all with Arecibo. The NSF NEVER called for the closure for Arecibo. That is a common misconception. A few years ago, they just simply were about to run out of funding for the telescope. I wrote an article about that and the severe budget cuts and funding of the NSF in July 2008 (there was a thread about it here and a front page mention at the time, but I cannot locate that thread): Searching for asteroids, extraterrestrial life a little more rocky: Budget cuts threaten to close Arecibo, world's largest radio telescope The NSF has been severe neglected lately and lost a lot of funding from the government when they made cuts. Even NASA was hit. So its not like they said to hell with Arecibo. At the time: Currently, the NSF funds the operations of Arecibo with just over US$10 million every year. By 2011 they plan to drastically cut that funding to only $4 million a year, nearly 65% less than the current budget. To counter that loss, the United States House of Representatives passed a bill that would authorize NASA to spend at least 2 million dollars of their nearly $21 billion budget to fund portions of Arecibo until 2009. But that still leaves more than half of the loss to be recovered, and if something isn't done soon the facility will be closed by 2011 — or sooner if additional cuts are made. "By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible". Hebrews 11.3 |
Richard Haselgrove Send message Joined: 4 Jul 99 Posts: 14650 Credit: 200,643,578 RAC: 874 |
The NSF NEVER called for the closure for Arecibo. That is a common misconception. A few years ago, they just simply were about to run out of funding for the telescope. I wrote an article about that and the severe budget cuts and funding of the NSF in July 2008 (there was a thread about it here and a front page mention at the time, but I cannot locate that thread): Searching for asteroids, extraterrestrial life a little more rocky: Budget cuts threaten to close Arecibo, world's largest radio telescope Soon no longer to be the world's largest dish, according to New Scientist (UK magazine, 11 June 2011 publishing date). THE largest and most famous radio telescope in the world - the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico - is about to be upstaged. In a remote part of Guizhou province in southern China, construction has begun on a true behemoth of engineering, the Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), an instrument that promises to transform radio astronomy. According to a sidebar in the printed edition (p21), Closer to home, FAST will join the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. It will be able to study 5000 sun-like stars for alien transmissions. "FAST could detect a transmitter like the radar on the Arecibo dish at a distance of more than 1000 light years," says Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute. |
tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
Let us not forget the Square Kilometer Array project: SKA Its data should be processed by a grid called Skynet, based on a software called Nereus developed at Oxford University. But AFAIK, Nereus would run only on Macs and Linux PCs, thereby omitting all Windows users. Is this right? I, Linux user, believe it is not. Tullio |
Michael Watson Send message Joined: 7 Feb 08 Posts: 1384 Credit: 2,098,506 RAC: 5 |
Tullio; To answer your question: 'Is it right'? As a Mac user, I agree, it isn't. Rather a surprising arrangement, too, given that most computers in the world use the Microsoft platform. Michael |
tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
CERN is testing a different method, by creating a VirtualMachine which runs on any computer having a VirtualBox software loaded, which is free. Then its scientific programs, written in a Scientific Linux environment, can be run on any Mac, Windows or Linux PC. Tullio |
Gary Charpentier Send message Joined: 25 Dec 00 Posts: 30648 Credit: 53,134,872 RAC: 32 |
Let us not forget the Square Kilometer Array project: Could be, only one platform to support... |
tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
See my preceding post about CERN. They support Scientific Linux only. Tullio |
Gary Charpentier Send message Joined: 25 Dec 00 Posts: 30648 Credit: 53,134,872 RAC: 32 |
Virtual machines run slow. Porting between various Unix is not hard to do. |
tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
Scientific Linux is running as a guest OS on my SuSE Linux 11.1 and CERN programs do not appear to be slow. But they also run on Window farms and they get many more credits than I do. Tullio |
Gary Charpentier Send message Joined: 25 Dec 00 Posts: 30648 Credit: 53,134,872 RAC: 32 |
But they also run on Window farms and they get many more credits than I do. Really? My experience is that Windows is always slower than Unix. |
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