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ASTRONOMERS across the US are cringing over a proposal to shift
responsibility for funding ground-based telescopes to NASA. 鈥淚 just don鈥檛 see
the point of this,鈥� says Paul Vanden Bout, director of the National Radio
Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Virginia. A panel studying the idea
will report early next month.

The change was suggested in President Bush鈥檚 proposed budget for 2002. Many
astronomers are appalled by the prospect, saying it will only make funding
problems worse, and leave telescopes at the mercy of money-hungry space
projects.

At stake is the future of the radio observatory, the National Optical
Astronomy Observatory and the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center. All are
currently funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The centres run
instruments ranging from the Very Large Array of radio telescopes in Socorro,
New Mexico, and the giant 305-metre radar telescope in a crater near Arecibo,
Puerto Rico, to optical telescopes in Arizona, Hawaii and Chile.

Vanden Bout argues that ground-based astronomy doesn鈥檛 fit NASA鈥檚 penchant
for big, sharply defined projects. 鈥淣ASA is a very mission-driven organisation,鈥�
he says. 鈥淭he NSF is a place where any idea gets a hearing and the ones that
bubble to the top get the money.鈥�

If the move is made, a NASA budget crunch would probably squeeze out
terrestrial projects, says Riccardo Giacconi, president of Associated
Universities, the consortium that runs the radio observatory. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 see NASA
cancelling the Next Generation Space Telescope to put money into a ground-based
observatory,鈥� he says.

The NSF has not, however, been a blissful haven for astronomy. Funding has
been stagnating for decades, says astrophysicist Michael Turner of the
University of Chicago. Twenty years ago the NSF paid for roughly two-thirds of
American astronomy, while NASA paid for a third. Today, the numbers are
reversed, according to a National Research Council report. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think we
should be dumping on NASA,鈥� Turner says. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e not the ones with the
辫谤辞产濒别尘.鈥�

Ed Weiler, head of space science at NASA, says that if it happens, 鈥渨e
certainly would all do our best to ensure that the best interests of science are
served鈥�. While they await the panel鈥檚 report, astronomers are wondering who
suggested the merger with NASA in the first place. 鈥淭his didn鈥檛 come out of the
community that I鈥檓 part of,鈥� says astronomer Martha Haynes of Cornell
University. Turner is equally baffled. 鈥淭his thing has been dusted for
fingerprints and DNA,鈥� he says. 鈥淣o one knows where it came from.鈥�