Are two telescopes in hand...

... worth one under construction? As I mentioned on last week's show, two weeks ago a group of Astronomers went to Capitol Hill to lobby for increased funding for Arecibo, a giant radio dish in Puerto Rico, which is in danger of being closed due to support the construction of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). As one would imagine, among Astronomers this is a very divisive issue. On one hand, people argue that Arecibo and other installations (e.g. the Very Long Baseline Array - VLBA) have already done their best science and should be closed to make room for new facilities. On the other hand, the capabilities of Arecibo and VLBA are not currently replacable, and are still doing good science, and therefore should remain open especially since they are relative inexpensive relative to the cost of new facilitie. Additionally, since the new facilities won't be available for a decade, there will be a painful gap -- especially in training future astronomers to use the new facilities when they come online -- if telescopes are closed now.

The procedure by which these decisions are made is complicated. The relevant funding source is the National Science Foundation, which is funding agency (full disclosure, I am currently being paid by the NSF, and this radio show is a direct result of their financial support), which makes decisions based on the recommendations of panels of Astronomers on what is required to do the best science in the future. There are many more examples of this problem, with the Arecibo & VLBA vs. ALMA debate going on now.

What do you think? Do you think a high-expense / likely high-reward versus a lower expense / possible high-reward but most likely smaller steps is the correct approach for Astronomy? Discuss below...