A Recession of Astronomical Proportions

For decades, the US and EU have led the way in scientific research, contributing the bulk of the money and resources that fuel science research. However, with Asia’s growing economic strength and the global recession, both the US and EU have seen this dominance start to dwindle.

In November, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched a report about the state of worldwide science. The message was clear: the US and EU will not be the heads of scientific research for much longer.

In October 2010, the Coalition Government published the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), detailing the spending cuts that are to be implemented across the public sector. This was the new Government’s stamp on how to tackle the the UK budget deficit. The CSR detailed the cuts that will be felt across the board, from changes to the child benefit to the rearranging of the NHS.

The science community anticipated the inevitable cuts to their funding and marched out in protest. “Science is vital”, they yelled, and it would appear the Government agreed.

The science budget is now ring-fenced. Shielded from the vicious cuts that will affect us all, the science budget is to remain the same, at a rather decent £4.6billion.

The anticipated cuts never came to fruition. Science in the UK had been spared the mighty axe that George Osborne was wielding. Even more surprisingly, the UK had not followed the American tactic. One of the forerunners in scientific research, the US has seen major cutbacks in science. One area that is feeling the pinch in particular is that of astronomical research.

Last year, NASA saw a 6.8% cut in its budget, a huge drop in just one year. In February, President Obama spoke out about one programme in particular, the Constellation Mission, which had been the planned replacement for the 30-year-old space shuttles. President Obama had decided to scrap the replacement, stating that it was “over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation.” This followed the news of the US 2011 Fiscal Year Budget, the US equivalent of the CSR, which saw huge cuts in most departments. However, by October of this year, Obama had had a change of heart. He signed the NASA Authorization Act 2010, which highlighted the agency’s change in ambition.

“We will foster a growing commercial space transportation industry that will allow NASA to focus our efforts on executing direction in the act to start work on a heavy-lift architecture to take astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit and to develop a multipurpose crew vehicle for use with our new space launch systems,” said Charles Bolden, one of the NASA administrators. “Also, we will continue to invest in green aviation and other technologies that make air travel safer and more efficient.”

In other words, fewer manned spacecrafts, a greater focus on more distant solar system objects and a more efficient attitude to space travel. These measures are purely for money saving and human safety reasons. The fewer people there are living in space full-time, such as on the International Space Station, the lower the costs and the risk of loss of life.

British space research has seen similar re-shufflings and re-labellings . In April 2010, the previous Government created the UK Space Agency, a replacement of the British National Space Centre, in a bid to improve coherence in British space policy. Britain’s answer to NASA, the UKSA is still in its infancy. The budget is still decided on a project-by-project basis, and no one is quite sure what its role will be yet. Speaking at the time of the launch, Lord Drayson, the then minister for science and innovation, said that “people in the UK are not aware of just how good Britain is both at space research and in terms of our space industry; [a space agency] is going to make people more aware of that.”

“In practical terms, it’s going to make the decision-making by government in all aspects of space policy much more joined up, better co-ordinated - a single point within government which has responsibility for making sure that we get everything in alignment such that the space research that we do, the space industry that we’re building, fulfils its true potential.”

So Labour’s solution to the global recession was to invest in science and space in order to improve growth. Clearly, the mantra that ‘you have to spend money to make money’ is something the Government is inclined to believe, at least when it comes to science.

The UK Space Agency is one major way the Government plan to improve the UK’s economy, claiming that it increases jobs and boosts our international reputation in a multi-billion dollar industry. Not only that, but a new £40million centre in Harwell, Oxfordshire is being built to house the UKSA and the ESA in the UK. This is the first time there has been a base for the European Space Agency in the UK – before now the UK was the only major contributor without an ESA centre. This is all vital for an industry that is dependent on well-funded and well-organised research. Without coherence and structure, the space industry cannot function.

Astronomy research benefits the UK in many more subtle ways. The research that is pushed along in search of the new and exciting objects in space opens up technologies that are quickly becoming commonplace mobile accessories. Dr Lyndsay Fletcher, from the University of Glasgow conducts research into solar activity and events known as solar flares. These flares from the Sun impact us here on Earth. “All the things we have in the modern world, all of the electronics, and all of the wonderful stuff we have, like GPS. This is the fruits of hundreds of years of blue-skies research by scientists,” said Dr Fletcher. “They weren’t doing it for economic impact and now we’re getting the spin-off.” The Royal Astronomical Society recently published this brochure laying out some of the ways that astronomy research impacts the economy.

However, Dr Fletcher recognises the difficulty in defending something like astronomical research. For those outside of the laboratory, any improvements or changes to their lives are in the long-term or not always immediately attributable to astronomy.

“It is difficult to defend something like astronomy or particle physics but I think to just cut it and say we don’t need it is very dangerous. Because not only do you lose that time but you lose the skilled people and the people are the hardest thing to replace.”

The exciting astronomical discoveries of recent times are testament to the work astronomers are carrying out right now. But, many would argue that more should be done to get these discoveries out into public, for all to see. Without astronomical research in the UK, we run the risk of falling behind and losing the people and resources that are invaluable in such a fast-paced field.

Other Elements articles in which you might be interested:

1. The first step: half a century of manned space flight
2. Eye in the sky
3. International Dark Sky Association declares first dark sky park in the UK