8:46 PM

Disturbing news about cuts to the NSF funding and possible closing of the Arecibo. I encourage you to write your representatives against this:

Dear Colleague,

As you may be aware, the NSF is conducting a Senior Review of its astronomy facilities with the goal of saving $30M per year (out of about $150M per year) by 2011. This is to be reallocated to new programs. This amount of $30M per year is about three times the annual operating budget of NAIC / Arecibo Observatory.

Public input for the Senior Review will be solicited at a series of “town meetings” with NSF representatives. The dates and locations of these meetings are listed below.

As a result of this review, there is a real possibility that the Arecibo Observatory will be closed, or that the astronomy portion of NAIC will Observatory will be closed, or that the astronomy portion of NAIC will be substantially curtailed. We urge you to consider the impact of such an event on your research, and to attend one of the town meetings and / or contact the NSF (email: astsenior-review@nsf.gov) with your opinions and concerns.

Further information is available on the website:

http://www.nsf.gov/mps/ast/ast_senior_review.jsp

The schedule of NSF-AST Senior Review related town meetings is:
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(1) Boston, Massachusetts - 29 September 2005
Boston University

(2) Minneapolis, Minnesota - 7 October 2005
University of Minnesota

(3) Washington, DC - 14 October 2005
AAS, to be held at the Carnegie Institution

(4) Clemson, South Carolina - 15 October 2005
Clemson University

(5) Boulder, Colorado - 24 October 2005
University of Colorado/High Altitude Observatory

(6) Berkeley, California - December 2005, date to be determined
University of California, Berkeley

(7) Washington, DC, AAS Meeting - 8-12 January 2006
Schedule to be determined

Note that the last two meetings will occur after the initial meeting of the Senior Review panel.