SECRETIVE decision-making was the “catastrophic error” behind the UK’s current physics funding crisis, according to the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS).
Last December, the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) announced plans to axe a number of astronomy projects, such as the UK’s involvement in the Gemini observatory. Though Gemini astronomers won a stay of execution last week, the RAS the cuts: “The STFC has failed miserably to communicate with the community,” it said.
The RAS statement came on the same day as a proposal by the UK government, the STFC and other partners to build a new space facility at Harwell, Oxfordshire, and a review into sending a British astronaut into space. Andrew Kavanagh, a space scientist at Lancaster University, wants to know where the money will come from: “We know that the STFC is broke. Are we sacrificing important astronomy and space science research for this?”
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