Quote:
Originally Posted by Camelopardalis
From what I understand, the award to SA was part of some developing world benefit, the idea being that if SA does something scientifically significant, it encourages its own scientists and those of nearby nations to aim high.
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This is not, however, borne out by the facts contained in the SKA Site Advisory
Committee (SSAC) Report and Recommendation of 16 February 2012,
Indeed, one of the considerations was "Factor 8: Political, Socioeconomic, and
Financial". Since South Africa was deemed to have lower rankings in political
and socioeconomic indicators than Australia & New Zealand
and since the other African partner countries had even lower rankings, the
SSAC vote on that factor was actually 14.5 for Australia/New Zealand
and only 5.5 for South Africa.
When the report was made, the SSAC noted that they considered the SKA
as a single instrument and made no evaluation of splitting it.
In the report, the SSAC stated that there were two critical factors that largely
determined the recommendation in favour of South Africa. Though there
were geographic constraints both in Australia and South Africa, the resulting
array configuration was judged to be significantly better in South Africa.
It achieved higher resolution in the North-South directions and better dynamic
range for short observations (less than four hours).
Secondly, the cost of electrical power strongly favoured the South African proposal.
The SKA is estimated to consume 110MW and the South Africans had an existing
power grid in the site area.
In fact five of the seven Technical and Scientific Factors considered favoured
South Africa. For example, the higher elevations of the Karoo gave less
tropospheric turbulence.
Report here -
http://www.skatelescope.org/wp-conte...SAC.Report.pdf
Other reports here -
http://www.skatelescope.org/the-loca...documentation/
Best Regards
Gary Kopff
Mount Kuring-Gai
Phone 02 9457 9049