Arecibo Observatory head quits after funding row

Abstract

After four years as director of the Arecibo Observatory, home to the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, he says that he was suddenly out of the loop: contacts at both the US National Science Foundation (NSF), which owns the observatory, and SRI International, the contractor that runs it, stopped returning his e-mails and phone calls. The NSF, which provides two-thirds of the observatory's US$12-million annual budget, is strapped for cash to build and operate new telescopes that are high priorities for the astronomy community, such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope now under construction in Chile.