Bad News for Arecibo, Good News for Radio Astronomy

I was annoyed to read that the NSF is cutting the budget of the world's largest radio telescope by 25 percent. Radio astronomy has been the most important observational tool for understanding the nature of the universe. The main reason why is the 21 cm line. What's that? That is the wavelength of light emitted by a hydrogen atom, the most abundant element in the universe, as its energized electron goes back down to its equilibrium state. Without the 21 cm line, we would not know the shape of our Milky Way Galaxy, not know that that the universe was expanding, not have measuring sticks of certain periodic stars, not know relative distances, and pretty much not know anything about star formation. The general public always wants those sexy pictures of visual light, but it's the lowly 21 cm radio wave that astronomy was built upon. Defunding Arecibo is a mistake, and will only lead to other countries leading the forefront astronomical observation and research.

But if the government no longer supports scientific research, private industry will take up the slack. Supposedly, government grants are free(er) of ethical baggage, because big, bad corporations just want to make money. But the government money trough is replete with political infighting and conflicts of interests, so I'm not sure how "ethical" an NSF grant really is. Technology companies love the pursuit of basic science, because the journey there, solving engineering problems and developing new tech, just means a new product and revenue stream in the future. Who thought that running a current through metal embedded in silicon would actually lead anywhere? It was a neat lab trick to demonstrate some principles of quantum mechanics, but now that cheap lab trick is used in almost every electronic device around the world. It is always a positive situation to fund basic science research, and it would help people making budget decisions to remember that.