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发表于 2006-11-10 16:04:56
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http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061106/full/061106-4.html
US astronomers face facility closures
Report calls for cutbacks at key observatories.
美天文学家面临设备关闭
报告要求削减重要天文台
Heidi Ledford
With the release of a long-awaited report, US astronomers now have a hit list of observatories that may have to shut down to save the National Science Foundation (NSF) money in coming years.
随着等待已久的报告发布，美国天文学家得到了一份痛心的名单，为节省国家科学基金（NSF）名单上的许多天文台将在未来几年关闭。
Among those hardest hit were the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico — famed for its role in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence — and the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), a group of ten telescopes scattered across the United States. Both programmes will have to obtain external funding by 2011 to avoid being shut down, the report suggests. It also advises closing the National Solar Observatory's facilities at Kitt Peak on the Tohono O'Odham Reservation in Arizona and Sacramento Peak in Sunspot, New Mexico.
其中最沉重的打击是波多黎各的阿雷西博望远镜——以在搜索外星文明中扮演的角色闻名，和甚长基阵列（VLBA）——散布在美国境内的十座望远镜组合。报告建议它们获取外部资金以避免在2011年被关闭。报告还建议关闭在亚利桑那基特峰和新墨西哥萨科拉曼多峰上的太阳观测设备。
The report comes from a committee tasked with shaving $30 million from the NSF ground-based astronomy budget — about 15% of the total budget for the NSF's Division of Astronomical Sciences. Over the next several months, the division will consider the recommendations, originally set to be released in April but not unveiled until last Friday.
该报告出自一个以从国家科学基金地基天文学预算中削减3千万美元——大约占到国家科学基金天文科学部门总预算的15%——为任务的委员会。在接下来的几个月里部门将考虑该建议，最初数据将在4月发布，但是直到上周5才公之于众。
Roger Blandford, director of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University, California, and chairman of the review committee, said that the cuts would be painful. "All of these telescopes are productive," he says. "All of them are good for another decade or so to do front-ranked science." His committee had to choose possible cuts based on several criteria, including operations cost, workforce training, estimates of scientific importance, and input from the astronomical community.
Future funding
The NSF budget for Arecibo is $12 million per year, $10 million of which comes from the Division of Astronomical Sciences. The committee is recommending that the division cut that funding to $8 million until 2011, at which time it would give up to $4 million to match money from outside contributors. If external funding is not raised, the telescope would close.
NSF 用于阿雷西博的预算每年是一千两百万美元，其中一千万来自天文科学部门。委员会建议该部门将资金削减到8百万美元直到2011年，在此期间所需的外部捐助将上涨到4百万美元。如果外部资金没有增长望远镜将被关闭。
Mark Adams, a spokesman for the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, says that his institute has not yet been told how much money it must raise to keep the VLBA open. Nevertheless, he remains optimistic that additional contributors will step up from the international community of researchers who use the facilities. In particular, Adams points hopefully to the Japanese Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, which is planning to launch a space observatory programme in 2012 that would use ground-based telescopes such as the VLBA.
Mark Adams，国家射电天文台的发言人，表示他的协会还没有被告知要提高多少钱才能维持VLBA运行。不过他对多出来的捐赠会逐步来自使用该设备的国际研究者团体保持乐观。Adams 对日本空间和航天学会报以厚望，因为他们打算在2012年发射一个空间天文台，那会用到像VLBA这样地基的望远镜。
Joseph Burns, vice-provost for physical sciences and engineering at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, which manages Arecibo, says that belt-tightening could bring the telescope's budget down to the $8 million mark. But he thinks that getting more money from Arecibo's international users, as recommended by the review committee, is not likely. Although about 16% of Arecibo's users are foreign, Burns says that they are spread across the globe.
Joseph Burns， 纽约科内尔大学（管理阿雷西博）物理和工程学代理院长 ，表示强制紧缩开支将使望远镜的预算降到8百万，但他认为像审查委员会建议的那样从阿雷西博的国际用户那里获得更多的钱是不太可能的，虽然阿雷西博的使用者中有16%是外国人但他们分散在全球。
"To go to the Swiss and say, 'Give us a million dollars because you have two people who use the facilities' is not realistic," he says.
“跑到瑞士去说：‘给我们一百万美元，因为你们有两个人在用我们的设备。’是不现实的。” |
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发表于 2006-11-6 16:43:48
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