Difficult Times

Despite the research opportunities opened up by the Gregorian upgrade as discussed in Chap. 12 , after a few short years of relative calm, NAIC entered into an extended period of management and budgetary turbulence. New directors for both NAIC and the Arecibo Observatory were appointed. NASA cut off funding for the planetary radar program. The NSF’s 2006 Senior Review of NSF supported facilities recommended that NAIC’s budget be significantly reduced, resulting in the closure of the Ithaca based instrumentation laboratory. This loss of funding threatened the planetary radar program leading to considerable “push back” from the planetary research community and from Congress although without immediate effect. In 2009 there was some good news, a total of $3M in infrastructure funds was allocated by the Puerto Rican government, and the NSF provided $3.1M under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. At about the same time, NASA restored funding for the planetary radar program at a level of $2M per year. Concurrently, the NSF carried out a competition for the management of the observatory and eventually appointed SRI International as the new management institution. After almost 50 years, Cornell University’s management ended on 30 September 2011.