Ok,
Strange post this one, I know.
For those of you that are unaware of the Radio Telescope at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire, it helped the space race, without the forsight of Professor Lovell and his telesope, the space race would not have happened if it was not for his instrument.
both the Russians' Sputniks' were tracked by the Telescope, (at the time it was the only instrument in the world able to track them)
Further when the Americans started launching their Pioneer Probes, (Pioneer V was the most successful), again the telescope was THE only instrument in the world at the time, not only able to track the satelite, but ALSO to transmit to it, and control its' destination. It was HRH Princess Margaret who pressed the button to initiate the seperation of the Pioneer V from it's Rocket propelled cradle when Pioneer V was ready. Transmitted from Jodrell Bank.
To give you some idea of the sensitivity of this instrument, the Pioneer V only had a 5 Wat transmitter, the Telescope was able to receive its' transmissions when it reached a distance of 23 Million miles from Earth. The onboard 150 Watt transmitter had failed.
The Moon is slightly less than,a ¼ Million miles away.
Now the point of this post, even when Lovell was building his telescope, the Bristish Goverment declined to help support it, indeed all through its' early years it was saddled with a £50K debt, only when Lord Nuffield Contributed £25k with another £25k from his foundation was the debt repaid. At the time, the public were sending donations in, to help clear this debt.
Now in later years, yet again whilst the country squanders billions on lost causes, MP's lining their pockets, the same dilemma hits this place of absolute national importance again, this time a few million each year are required to support the E-Merlin project, basically this makes the telescope 30x more sensitive.
The petition is to help prevent the closure, there are links giving more information
I have enclosed a link to support a petition below:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/RadioAstronomy/ Petition
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle3500905.ece Times On Line article
http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/viscen/ Jodrell Bank
I am unsure if anyone will agree with me, but this was a magnificent achievement, the book is brilliant, if you wish to get a copy the information is, ISBN 0-275-92679-9 "Voice Of The Universe, Building Thge Jodrell Bank Telescope"
Eithen then and now this Governments refuse to support proper scientific achievement, now they are proposing shutting this instrument down..
Kind regards all
Steve
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