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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: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday November 06 2018, @12:33PM (3 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 06 2018, @12:33PM (#758466)

    $14,400 annually

    An old high school buddy of mine got an astronomy degree and ended up using his degree at a retail bookstore. most of his classmates had similar stories, so you might be surprised how many qualified astronomers would jump at $14K. That's also about $10K more than adjuncts working in the field get for teaching. Cool education opportunity, fascinating hobby, terrible vocation.

    Admittedly they want to build an empire of dozens of researchers which means many dozens of support people which means they REALLY are trying to hire some director level manager with a MBA who once looked thru a kids telescope and has extensive experience working mostly unsupervised and alone, they are not trying to hire a 100% astronomer.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @08:24PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06 2018, @08:24PM (#758672)

    You're insane, no one in their right mind would jump at $14k unless relocation is 100% paid for and they have zero student debt. Even then they wouldn't be "jumping" at the opportunity because any non-minimum wage job in the US will likely return more money over several years. Leave friends, family, and country for $14k a year? Only if they REALLY want the astronomy career experience and have zero debt.

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 07 2018, @12:30PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 07 2018, @12:30PM (#758923)

      You're kinda making my point for me, AC. IF the supply is X times greater than the demand, then you don't need everyone to do the economically rational thing, you just need 1 in X people to do something a little extreme.

      Career experience is worth so much in over populated fields that people WILL work for free in internships, so ...

  • (Score: 2) by crafoo on Wednesday November 07 2018, @01:03AM

    by crafoo (6639) on Wednesday November 07 2018, @01:03AM (#758773)

    Multinationals are paying ~40% of USA rates for engineering and skilled technicians in China. I didn't know hard sciences were that bad in comparison.