Where Does Astronomy Get Funding?
The answer is fairly simple: From many sources!
Most funding comes from the federal government and from only two agencies, the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautic and Space Administration. However, important funding also comes from the Navy, the Air Force, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Energy.
Other funding comes from private foundations, like the Keck foundation, which funded the construction of two large telescopes on Mauna Kea. Some funding comes from state and local governments. Some funding comes from international partners in large projects the European Space Agency or European Southern Observatory or even directly from other governments, such as Chile, which generously allows astronomers to construct telescopes on its territory.
A comprehensive report appeared in 2000, which was produced by the Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics, a joint committee of the National Research Council's Board on Physics and Astronomy and Space Studies Board.
This report made a number of findings on the funding of astronomy and astrophysics in the United States:
- Since the 1980's a dramatic shift in the support of astronomy research has taken place with NSF supporting about 30% in the 1990s but having supported 60% in the early 1980s.
- This shift in funding could create imbalances that could be detrimental to the health of the field. As an example, funding for theoretical astrophysics has not kept pace with growth in funding for astrophysics overall.
- Although there are more and larger ground-based astronomy facilities, NSF has not increased the funding available to take advantage of these facilities.
- A large portion of the total support for astrophysical research is tied to a few flagship space missions, such as the Hubble Space Telescope or Chandra X-ray Observatory. Failure of these missions (or future equivalents) could negatively impact the field overall due to their support of a large fraction of the astrophysics community.