[madbadgalaxyman (Robert)]

I think that the following (quoted below) is an interesting post by Alex, asking whether or not Gravitational Wave astronomy is really the way forward in astronomy, and asking whether or not the amounts of money spent on LIGO could better be spent on other types of telescopes. To question whether or not the Gold-plated Ultra-Expensive hobbyhorse of a particular Large Group of scientists is worth what it costs in terms of the project's scientific returns, is sometimes to be accused of being anti-science (e.g. when US legislators failed to fund the Superconducting Supercollider (a giant particle accelerator), this accusation was regularly made about them) - but in my view it is actually doing science a service to compare the relative costs of various anticipated scientific projects and also to consider the relative discovery potentials of the various projects that could potentially be funded.

We should firstly bear in mind that LIGO has so far cost some 1.1 billion US dollars.
In comparison, we can note that this sort of money could instead buy:
- a ground-based optical/infrared telescope of 20-30 meters in aperture.
- a Space Telescope to investigate a particular wavelength domain ; e.g. The Herschel Space Observatory cost 1.1 billion Euros, and it has turned Star Formation studies from being a purely theoretical field into an active and very detailed Observational science!
- a number of small orbiting telescopes to investigate previously unexplored parts of the electromagnetic spectrum ; e.g. GALEX (a far-ultraviolet survey of the sky) cost 150 million dollars and it has discovered a great amount.

Incidentally, a similar discussion is ongoing in the field of particle physics;
you may be surprised to learn that there are actually Many (yes, many) well-respected and very-high-profile physicists (in other words, people having the requisite Specialist Knowledge to be able to make highly informed commentary) who feel that the multi-billion-dollar cost of the very biggest particle-colliders is not justifiable in terms of their actual scientific return; but obviously there are Truly Massive swarms of thousands of particle physicists who would love an Even Much Much More Expensive instrument than their current state-of-the art, the Large Hadron Collider;
just consider that up to that point at which the LHC discovered the Higgs Boson, a cool 13 (!!) billion dollars had been spent on the instrument and its operations !!
(( see: this intriguing article on “how much did it actually Cost(!) to discover the Higgs Boson?”…..
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/07/05/how-much-does-it-cost-to-find-a-higgs-boson/#eb982a339480
))

It is quite true, as Alex Says, that there are always bunches of physicists and astrophysicists claiming that their particular proposed multi-billion-dollar instrument will undeniably lead to major discoveries and revolutionize our scientific knowledge.

John Horgan, in Scientific American, makes a similar point:
http://https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/is-the-gravitational-wave-claim-true-and-was-it-worth-the-cost/

Of course, the question of whether or not a particular example of one of these “Most Most XXXXy” mega-science-projects is “worth the money in terms of scientific return” or not….. is a difficult one to answer; very hard for science to answer and very hard for society to deal with, given that even those with expert-level knowledge of the most relevant specialties within science will disagree about what is the best way forward in advancing humankind’s knowledge of the physical world.

Another point I would like to make is;
it is all very well to blow all of the research budget on a very very small number of Truly Gigantic projects, but would it not be better if some of the money was instead spent on ensuring the optimal development of that Marvelous Machine that is undeniably our primary research tool……the human mind. Human society should firstly Find and then Properly Educate a greater number of the very very very smartest people in the world, as there are large numbers of highly intelligent people who could potentially be extremely valuable to science and to society; but they are unable to contribute at a high level because they don't get a really good education.

Originally Posted by xelasnave

I am suspicious.
Those folk involved in the gravity wave "business" are sprouting that gravity waves is/are☺ the new way in astronomy which only means they want a bigger slice of the astronomy budget/pie and this attempt to involve folk I see as no more than seeking support so the road to more funding becomes an easier path.

Lets keep in mind exactly what we have with a gravity wave observation...a very short chirp interpreted by templetes that suggest this or that black hole merged with this or that black hole at so far extraordinary distances to reveal exactly what about the universe I dont know and doubt if anyone can suggest just how these observations take us anywhere.

Further why are gravity waves only described via GR and any attempt to offer a "quantum" approach are fiercely ignored.

Is it perhaps important to understand what is taking place at a particle level and seek an explanation as to why GR works and exactly what is being observed when a gravity wave rings the bell.

(here Alex is speaking of getting amateurs involved in looking for optical counterparts of gravitational waves....)
I think it is a tactic to get more people on side to support their notion that gravity waves are the future of astronomy...well I say lets spend the money on better scopes that product results that require only understandable processing to produce a result.
Alex