Dr. Kenneth Hicks
“Would America’s astronomy program be great without government funding? This question is apropos since we are starting a new year with a new administration,” writes Dr. Kenneth Hicks, Professor of Physics & Astronomy at Ohio University, in the Columbus Dispatch.
Not so long ago, much of the astronomy research was performed by private individuals or at university facilities. For example, the world’s largest telescope in the 1950s (and many decades thereafter) was the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory, which as funded by a grant of $6 million from the Rockefeller Foundation.
The Hale Telescope was finally surpassed in 1993 by the Keck I telescope, located on top of the highest mountain in Hawaii. It was built with a $70 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation.
However, the Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits Earth but provides stunning views of the universe, was funded by the government at an initial cost of about $1.5 billion. At that price, I would guess that no private individual or foundation would have the means to fund it.
Was it worth the cost? From a scientific perspective, it’s safe to say that without the Hubble, our knowledge of the universe (and our place in it) would be lacking. Certainly, much research has come from ground-based facilities such as the Keck, but there are limitations to what can be achieved when peering at the sky through Earth’s thick atmosphere.
But science isn’t the only benefit of funding astronomy. There are broader perspectives that often go unheralded. One example is the training of students in a high-tech environment.
Read the rest of his column: Astronomy: “Astronomy: The tiny price of government funding for research is worth it.”
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