Telescope unexpectedly collapsed in November 1988, it was reported in the media as a national disaster for US astronomy. West Virginia’s Senator Byrd demanded that the telescope be replaced. The NSF had other plans, but Byrd was able to include $75M in the 1989 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill, which funded the world’s largest (100-m) fully steerable dish for the Green Bank Telescope, and its chequered story makes another fascinating chapter.
As we approach the end of this book about the genesis of a national big science facility with all the fascinating stories about the many projects it engendered, we again return to the theme of collaboration at an international level with the construction of ALMA and the US involvement in the beginning of the SKA. The book concludes with discussions of closures and divestments, but this is offset by a vision for the Next Generation VLA (ngVLA) which is the US-proposed incarnation of the originally conceived SKA-high.
After 60+ years of progress we still find many lessons that still have not been learned, but this book may go some way to redressing this with its eloquent discussion of what happened in one field, coauthored by one of the experts who has participated directly in many of these developments.
