Quote:
Originally Posted by mswhin63
It seems that there is a system of funding cuts occurring as Perth Observatory has also ceased funding research too.
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Hi Malcolm,
Keep in mind that these are not directly related in any way.
Perth Observatory belongs to the state of West Australia and is funded by the
West Australian state government.
Rob's project came about from a US congressional directive and was the southern
hemisphere component of that. As I understand it, funding by NASA made its
way to the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) which is run by the University of Arizona and part
of that then made its way to ANU in Canberra to fund the SSS.
Then in October 2011, the CSS cut funding off to the SSS and as I understand it,
ANU picked up the tab for a while hoping the Americans might come good again.
In any case, irrespective of where the pool of grant money came from, ANU would have signed the
SSS pay cheques.
In March 2012, the CSS was reported to be awarded a new USD4.1 million grant to perform upgrades.
See
http://www.space.com/14911-dangerous...a-funding.html
However, one assumes that little or none of that made its way onto ANU.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by The Register, Richard Chirgwin, 10 Jul 2012
Professor Harvey Butcher, head of the ANU’s School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, says there is currently “no clear channel of finance” for the handful of salaries (for the SSS) and relatively inexpensive (a couple of million rather than a couple of billion) investment for a more powerful telescope.
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At a meeting in August 2012 for the
Large Synoptic Survey, Telescope, (LSST)
which is a new 8.4m telescope being built in Chile that will
be able to survey the entire visible sky at multiple wavelengths every week using a
three-billion pixel camera, the CSS team announced that they were in "the initial
stages of collaboration with
Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LGOCT)."
LCOGT operate the two Faulkes Telescopes. Now Faulkes Telescope South is
at Sidings Springs, only a few hundred meters away from the Uppsalla Telescope
that Rob uses. CSS announced that the geographic distribution of LGOCT is "ideal
for NEO follow-ups". Notice the use of the words "follow-ups" rather than
"discoveries". Though what you read about the renewed efforts at CSS are
about "discovery", including new cameras, it is not clear to me whether they
plan to sit in Arizona and use Faulkes South for "discovery".
The bottom line is though the CSS appears to have received additional funding
last year from NASA, after slicing up the pie and giving some new people
some pieces, there didn't look like as if there was a slice left for the original SSS.
I can only speculate on this and obviously Rob would be the best one to talk to for
a clearer picture.
For example, one assumes the CSS would love to get funding for access to LSST
data some time after first light in 2021. A public-private partnership,
part of its stated role is "a survey of the orbits of asteroids as small as 100m that
might impact Earth". When you consider its 3.2-
gigapixel prime focus
digital camera will take a 15-second exposure every 20 seconds, it will be
a formidable instrument for looking for NEO's in southern skies.
It costs hundreds of millions of dollars and the US National Science Foundation
has given it the thumbs up for the next stage, so in a way, when you look at it
on a global scale, funding for NEO searching is actually increasing not decreasing.