We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
The Tempest (4.1.168-170)
I hope she doth not sleep long
but turns again to search deep the dark sky.
SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute has placed the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) into hibernation for lack of funds. The arraynamed for Paul Allen of Microsoft who graciously donated the funds to build the 42 dish facility at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory near Mt Lassen in Shasta county California.
In an April 22 letter to donors, SETI Institute CEO Tom Pierson said that last week the array was put into "hibernation," safe but nonfunctioning, because of inadequate government support.MercuryNews
The ATA fell victim to funding cuts as its parent research institution, the Radio Astronomy Lab at the University of California, Berkeley has had both state and federal funds significantly curtailed. As reported in the San Jose Mercury News
This is the responsibility of UC Berkeley's Radio Astronomy Laboratory, but one of the university's major funders, the National Science Foundation, supplied only one-tenth its previous support. Meanwhile, the state of California has also cut funding.
The facility will be manned by a skeleton staff to maintain the equipment, but there will be no new science performed at the site. This is a serious blow to radio astronomy as the array isn't solely tasked with the search for Martians as Sen. Richard Bryan (DINO) from Nevada characterized it in 1994. It is one of the premier radio telescopes available to astronomers.
For myself, I'm as disappointed as many radio astronomers are that the array was put off-line at a time when the Kepler Space Telescope has discovered some 1200 new exoplanets and while the search for intelligence is important, it is, in my humble opinion, a secondary concern even with respect to these newly discovered planets as there is other important data that can be gathered about them.
The worst of it is that it would only take about 1.5 million dollars to keep the facility working.
The SETI Institute has made this plea for donations...
Federal and state funding cutbacks for operations of U.C. Berkeley’s Hat Creek Radio Observatory (HCRO) force hibernation of Allen Telescope Array – In an April 22, 2011 email (PDF) to Allen Telescope Array stakeholder level donors, SETI Institute CEO Tom Pierson described in detail the recent decision by U.C. Berkeley, our partner in the Array, to reduce operations of the Hat Creek Radio Observatory (and thus the Allen Telescope Array) to a hibernation state effective this month. NSF University Radio Observatory funding to Berkeley for HCRO operations has been reduced to approximately one-tenth of its former level and, concurrently, growing State of California budget shortfalls have severely reduced the amount of state funds available for support of the HCRO site.
What next for the ATA? – The SETI Institute is working on numerous efforts to insure the Array comes back on line as soon as possible. Pierson’s email outlines potential work the ATA may be performing for the United States Air Force. Donor support is also needed to restart SETI observations on the Array. For the first time in history, SETI researchers are poised to use the ATA to examine the bounty of smaller planetary systems starting to be revealed by NASA’s Kepler Mission. We are also working with a consortium of big thinkers to develop exciting opportunities for the public to participate in the future of SETI, making the science much less vulnerable to government budget cycles. Watch for these future developments in the realm of our citizen science. In the interim, if you haven’t already done so, check out the early results of these efforts at setiQuest.org and setiQuest Explorer.
Public help is needed – Donate now – Help return the ATA to operations and support the exciting SETI exploration of the Kepler planets over the next two years. You can read about our Kepler Worlds search and donate to the effort here.
More detail – You can read more details about the Allen Telescope Array hibernation and our plans to correct this situation here (PDF).