Researcher hopes for rethink on telescope project
Scientists remain at loggerheads over whether the Government is making the right call downgrading New Zealand’s involvement in a $3 billion radio telescope that could look back billions of years to the origin of the first stars.
A spokesman for Science Minister Megan Woods said the Government had already decided in April last year that New Zealand should not remain a full member of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope project because of the ‘‘level of public investment required’’.
But Andrew Ensor, director of the High Performance Computing Research Laboratory at Auckland University of Technology, was still hopeful of a rethink.
Woods’ decision had been based on ‘‘mistakes’’ by officials, he said, and he questioned whether it could also undermine the country’s reputation as an reliable partner in any future international science endeavours.
The SKA will comprise thousands of radio dishes in South Africa and Australia that together are being billed as creating the most sensitive radio telescope in the world.
It has been bankrolled by 11 countries including Britain, China, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – which has so far contributed about $5 million, according to Ensor – but not the United States. The SKA’s backers claim it could prove or disprove Einstein’s theory of relativity, shed light on the nature of gravity and possibly even help answer the question of whether there is ‘‘life beyond Earth’’.
But New Zealand’s contributions would need to increase to $23m over 10 years during the construction phase if it remained a full member and not all Kiwi astronomers are enthusiastic.
Auckland University physics department head professor Richard Easther – whose own work has centred on the physics of the very early universe – said New Zealand found itself involved in the SKA project in 2008 ‘‘largely by accident at a point when it looked way better as a science investment than it does now’’.
Woods’ spokesman said the Government was considering whether becoming an ‘‘associate member’’ of the SKA could ‘‘achieve a better balance of costs and benefits’’.
But he said it was in ‘‘a wait and see phase’’ ahead of the ratification of a formal treaty by host countries Britain, South Africa and Australia, likely next year.
Ensor, who is the director of the NZ SKA Alliance, believes scientists’ differing views of the SKA can reflect their particular research interests and whether they happen to include radio astronomy.
But in some regards that debate among astronomers might be regarded as irrelevant, according to a report produced by economic consultancy Sapere for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) in 2016.
New Zealand’s main gain would likely come from helping develop the IT systems and software needed to process the massive amounts of raw data the telescope would produce rather than from the telescope itself.
Ensor believes New Zealand organisations could expect to secure IT contracts that would be worth more than the $23m that the Government would shell out in contributions to the SKA over 10 years should it remain a full member.
A briefing provided to Woods by officials was ‘‘very poorly done’’, ‘‘full of errors’’ and misquoted Sapere’s report, he said. ‘‘The benefits were halved and the costs were inflated. She has been fed something that is not entirely accurate.’’
Woods’ spokesman responded that the ‘‘critical argument’’ had always been that the science case for full membership of the SKA, including the benefits for ICT research in New Zealand, ‘‘does not stack up’’.
‘‘MBIE stands by that advice,’’ he said.