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IPFS News Link • Space Travel and Exploration

What Happens When a Space Observatory Goes Rogue

• Wired.com by Sarah Scoles

There are ancient guard hats, hard hats with outdated logos, decades-old National Radio Astronomy Observatory Fire Department hats, ballcaps long discontinued from the gift shop, and straight-up tinfoil.

Sue Shears, an administrator for the electronics division, wears an auld lang syne-style chapeau. You know: metallic green, gold band. "It's a new year," she says.

And that's kind of true. For the past 60 years, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory has been Green Bank's parent organization. But it recently booted Green Bank out, after a 2012 announcement recommending that the National Science Foundation defund the center by October 1, 2016. "As of this past weekend, we shouldn't be here," says Mike Holstine, Green Bank's business manager. He gestures around his office, where his 1950s observatory security hat sits on a shelf and the view through the window shows telescopes standing in fields. We're still around.


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