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Billion-dollar telescopes could end up beyond the reach of US astronomers

Change the funding system and approaches to international partnerships for US-led big science projects, urge Matt Mountain and Adam Cohen.
  1. Matt Mountain

    1. Matt Mountain is president of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Washington DC, USA.

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  2. Adam Cohen

    1. Adam Cohen is president and chief executive of Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI),Washington DC, USA.

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Drawing of the Giant Magellan Telescope design

Blueprint of the Giant Magellan Telescope, a 25-metre-mirror telescope being built in Chile. It is run by an international consortium that includes US universities. Credit: Giant Magellan Telescope/GMTO Corporation

Every ten years, US astronomers set research priorities for the following decade. The latest cycle to pick projects for the 2020s has just started. In July, the US National Academy of Sciences launched the seventh Astronomical Decadal Survey (Astro2020) with a call for proposals for future telescopes and space missions. Over the coming year, these will be collected, assessed and discussed in open meetings. A ranked list of priority projects will be released in 2021. Funding permitting, those at the top will be built over the next decades.

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Nature 560, 427-429 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05985-2

References

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