ERPS Dear Fellow Space Enthusiasts,
As I mentioned in a previous posting, Stanford University is decommissioning an array of 60 foot radio telescopes located off Alpine Road near the University. This site was used for many years for radio astronomy by Stanford University Professor Ronald Bracewell and his research group. It is a serious research facility. An opportunity exists for interested parties to either take over and continue operation of the site or take possession of the radio telescopes for radio astronomy or other uses. My previous posting generated a great deal of interest. Stanford has delayed demolition of the radio telescopes for 10 months to give private parties time to organize and fund continued use of the site or relocation of the telescopes. Please see the message below for full details. If you have a need for radio telescope or simply would like to help out, please contact Bob Lash (see below) directly or myself. Please feel free to forward this information to qualified colleagues. Sincerely, John McGowan Chairman, Northern California Mars Society Northern California Mars Society Web Site: http://chapters.marssociety.org/northca/ NorCal Mars Society Yahoo Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mars-norcal/ John McGowan's Web Site: www.jmcgowan.com John McGowan's E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] John McGowan's Phone: (650) 941-1757 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Lash" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: (recipients deleted) Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2004 11:26 PM Subject: Stanford 8/26 meeting report: Success! Dish demolition deferred !! > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Bob Lash > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2004 11:06 PM > Subject: Stanford 8/26 meeting report: Success! Dish demolition deferred !! > > > Hi all - > > I attended the Stanford dish site disposition meeting today (8/26) and > presented a "Draft Proposal Outline" on behalf of SARA (reviewed in advance > by Jeff Lichtman, SARA Founder & VP). The Society for Amateur Scientists > (SAS) has agreed to collaborate with SARA to support this effort. > > A link to this DRAFT proposal is below: > > http://www.bambi.net/sara/proposal.doc > > I am pleased to report that as a result of this proposal, Stanford's School > of Engineering decided to defer the imminent demolition of the five 60 foot > dishes, and leave the control room standing. They did this to give us a > reasonable amount of time (until June 30th, 2005 -- 10 months) to come up > with a final plan that shows "what is proper to take the site forward with > one or more dishes". > > This final plan is to be "tangible, and have teeth", which I take to mean > that we have enough fundraising work completed (or at least sources in > place) by then to make the plan we propose go, and that this is sufficient > to absolve the School of Engineering of further cost liability. The plan > must also, of course, be acceptable to Stanford University as well as the > School of Engineering. > > A DRAFT timeline and a VERY ROUGH first cut at a cost estimate is at the > link below. The costs and line-items are modeled after the Woodbury/GA Tech > site that involved two abandoned 100 foot AT&T dishes and one caretaker: > > http://www.bambi.net/sara/budget.doc > > Two people have already volunteered to be on-site caretakers. One is even > willing to live on-site in his mobile home! We've got one out-of-state > volunteer with a machine shop. > > As with local museums, science centers, etc., I think our best source of > contributions will come from local "angel" benefactors who want to see an > observatory come into being that brings this exciting branch of astronomy > into the reach of the general public. Even though the site enjoys radio > protection from small nearby hills, the site is in the heart of the San > Francisco Bay Area and easy for the public to get to. > > Stanford will proceed ahead at this time with their contractor in reducing > the vegetation to an acceptable level that will satisfy the University Fire > Marshall (he was in today's meeting too), clean up scrap materials at the > site, and demolish 3 of the 4 buildings (leaving the control room up). > > I'll update you all shortly as the next proposed steps to move forward are > worked out. > > Best wishes, > > Bob Lash > (Past Director, SARA) > _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
