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posted by martyb on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:29AM   Printer-friendly
from the taking-a-closer-look-at-things dept.

China still having trouble staffing up its mega-telescope

China has built a staggeringly large radio telescope in a remote part of the country, and, although it is the largest and most advanced instrument of its kind in the world, the country continues to have a difficult time staffing up the observatory.

Not only has the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, or FAST instrument, still failed to attract a chief scientist, according to the South China Morning Post the facility is also struggling to attract two dozen researchers to work onsite to maintain the instrument and analyze data collected there.

One problem is pay. According to the Post, astronomers interested in joining working there should speak fluent English and expect to work in the remote location on a long-term basis. (The telescope is located in southwest China's mountainous Guizhou Province.) Compensation for the job is meager, at least by Western standards—about 100,000 yuan, or $14,400 annually.

Previously: China Announces Petascale Supercomputer for FAST Radiotelescope
China Builds World's Largest Radiotelescope
China Begins Operating World's Largest Radio Telescope
China Can't Find Anyone Smart Enough to Run its Whizzbang $180M 500 Meter Radio Telescope

Related: Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory Saved From Uncertain Fate


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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:47AM (6 children)

    by Bot (3902) on Tuesday November 06 2018, @09:47AM (#758431) Journal

    > and expect to work in the remote location on a long-term basis

    The chief of the local soccer team did exactly the opposite. Combed for new talent kept it for 1,2 seasons and then resell.
    Result, most profitable team of Serie A 2012-13 and players being motivated to do their best.

    They should look for people who want to build experience there and then get in a better place.

    If you really really need people to stay 20 years there to figure out how to tune the beast, OK, but build your own disco with blackjack and hookers so that the place isn't pure boredom.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Tuesday November 06 2018, @10:01AM (1 child)

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Tuesday November 06 2018, @10:01AM (#758435)

    Remote mountains sounds like paradise to me.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guizhou [wikipedia.org]

    Looks great. If only I could speak Chinese, knew a bit more astrophysics and didn't have a family :-)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @10:04AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @10:04AM (#758437)

      2 out of 3 of your concerns are shared by the foreign scientists they scouted for the chief position.

      Boring or paradise, it seems this thingy will not be staffed.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @10:07AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @10:07AM (#758438)

    Why not have a skeleton crew of researchers work at the site of the telescope, and the rest remotely? They could even cycle them out, 1 month field trips.

    • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday November 06 2018, @10:26AM (2 children)

      by PiMuNu (3823) on Tuesday November 06 2018, @10:26AM (#758439)

      Have you ever tried to operate a research facility like that? I have. It does not work.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @11:06AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @11:06AM (#758450)

        Read the article. Whatever they are doing right now does not work for them.

        Why do they need 24 researchers there for maintenance? Why not 2 or 5, with technicians called in when needed? Why do they anybody there at all for data analysis? There aren't any researchers visiting Hubble for data analysis, but it has produced thousands of papers. Is the telescope generating too much data to move off site? Upgrade the link to the outside world.

        • (Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday November 06 2018, @06:46PM

          by legont (4179) on Tuesday November 06 2018, @06:46PM (#758626)

          Scientists (and even technicians working on real science projects) are not a commodity like coders currently are. Note that I don't believe coders are commodity either, but business did not learn the lesson just yet. Business will learn it at some point and in a very very hard way.

          --
          "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.