STFC have just released their plan based on currently available funding. It doesn’t make pretty reading so let’s start with the good news.
Safe
1. Our membership of ESO, which provides for access to the VLT, VISTA and, in the future, ALMA.
2. Long term planning for the next generation of telescopes, an Extremely Large (optical) Telescope and the Square Kilometer Radio array.
3. The JCMT. I’m surprised at this, and very, very happy.
4. Exomars, the European Mars lander, although participation in future missions is to be reviewed. We will be working with NASA directly on a joint program of robotic exploration of the Moon.
Under threat or being reviewed
1. As reported on this blog earlier this morning, UKIRT.
2. MERLIN, the radio network based on Jodrell Bank which is about to complete an expensive upgrade.
3. The Liverpool Telescope.
4. UK participation in Dark Energy Survey.
5. We’re remaining members of ESA (no-one ever thought otherwise) but the support offered post-launch is going to be cut by 30%. This means fewer scientists to actually reap the benefits of our participation.
6. Anything on the border of astronomy and particle physics, including the Boulby Mine dark matter experiments, CLOVER (the CMB experiment), and the detection of gravitational waves.
Going
1. We already knew about Gemini.
Update As Andrew notes, the plan includes the aim of retaining some access to Gemini North, which appears to be a change from the previous announcement.
2. Confirmed rundown of our commitment to the telescopes on La Palma, primarily the Issac Newton group of telescopes. That’s more northern hemisphere telescopes gone; have we decided we’re only going to look at half the sky?
3. Any ground based studies of the interaction between the Sun and the Earth’s atmosphere
4. High-energy gamma-ray astronomy.
Comments? For purely personal reasons I’m really pleased the JCMT survives. As for the rest, I think a lot will depend on which way the reviewed items swing; UKIRT and MERLIN, among others, have just had expensive new instruments/upgrades and it seems crazy to abandon them now. The post-launch support for ESA is troubling, as this suggests we might be moving to a situation where we build but don’t get the best out of space probes.
Update : According to Stuart (who also has a transcript of the Today interviews), UKIRT, the LT and MERLIN were up for review anyway.
alastair on December 11, 2007
It seems crazy to me that with taxation running at the highest level ever, reportedly 42% of GDP, we’re talking about scaling back on government-funded astronomy and physics research.
I suspect that your argument about the recent upgrades will carry the day for UKIRT and MERLIN. I don’t really see any serious counter to that, and I think the public would be most upset to learn that having just spent millions on upgrades they were being abandoned.
As for what amounts to a further pull-out from ESA, well, the British government has always been less than visionary when it comes to space. That’s why the only recent British exploratory mission was run by a farmer who had to raise funding himself (yes, I know he’s a bit more than just a farmer; my point was that in other countries, it wouldn’t have happened that way). I know we have a long tradition of men in sheds doing things that officialdom won’t support and/or disapproves of, but you would have thought that past history (e.g. the jet engine…) would make officialdom a little less cynical. Perhaps Einstein was right; maybe human stupidity really is infinite. It’s just that a disproportionate amount of it seems to be manifest in our political masters.
Not Even Wrong » Blog Archive » UK Pulls Out Of ILC on December 11, 2007
[...] Update: More here, here and here. These budget cuts seem to be especially problematic for astronomy research, with particle physics not so much affected as the UK retains its commitment to CERN and the LHC. [...]
Hywel on December 15, 2007
Dunno if you heard Radio 4 on Friday night, or exactly what it means, but they said the following: ‘The funding crisis facing British physics has deepened, with news that Europe’s biggest science project, the particle collider at CERN near Geneva, has approved an increase in its annual budget of thirty million pounds. The Science and Technology Facilities Council, which has already announced big cuts in a series of international schemes and research grants, will now have to find even more money to fund CERN. The council is facing an 80 million pound shortfall as a result of the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review.’
Alice Sheppard on December 16, 2007
In other words, if you want to be a scientist, leave the UK. How sickening.
Bob Nichol on January 1, 2008
Chris,
To add to the gloom, you neglected to mention the potential huge cut (upto 25%) to the STFC grant system. These grants fund all of us but especially the young active scientists. So, I am mostly worried that we will soon have a UK scientific community dominated by old farts like me! We can do science without all these telescopes (sorry!) but we can’t do science without people.
I should also note that our american colleagues are also feeling a squeeze. Seems their DoE funding is taking a massive hit as well. This may have implications for dark energy missions planned.
happy new year…….