Astronomers do need a lot of money to build telescopes. The better the telescope, the more expensive it needs to be.
In fact, telescopes are usually so big and expensive that they’re usually owned by governments and shared between astronomers all over the world. There aren’t enough telescopes for everyone to use as much as they would like, so astronomers have to compete against each other to get “telescope time”: basically, the better the science you want to do with the telescope, the more likely you are to get to use it.
Research usually does cost a fair bit of money, which is why we spend a lot of time applying for research funding from the government, and why we were so worried when the government was threatening to cut the budget for research earlier this year!
Researchers often try and reduce the cost of their research by working together with other researchers with similar interests – since splitting the costs of a bigger project makes it more affordable for both groups. But it
Still costs quite a lot money 🙂
Some experiments require high tech equipment like microscopes or big machines that analyse DNA. These machines can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. But, as Bev says researchers try to share these bits of equipment as much as possible to reduce the cost.
But, on the other hand there are some other experiments that don’t cost that much money, in comparison like analysing information from patients with a particular disease. We have to do that with cancer patients sometimes, to see how they are going with their treatments and to see if they do better with one treatment or another for example. That still costs money but all you really need is a person to analyse and collect the information and a computer to do the statistics.
So – cost varies depending on what you are doing but if you compare how many ideas researchers have, to how much money is available, the money always seems to run out first!
Hi vetro66,
Astronomers do need a lot of money to build telescopes. The better the telescope, the more expensive it needs to be.
In fact, telescopes are usually so big and expensive that they’re usually owned by governments and shared between astronomers all over the world. There aren’t enough telescopes for everyone to use as much as they would like, so astronomers have to compete against each other to get “telescope time”: basically, the better the science you want to do with the telescope, the more likely you are to get to use it.
0
Hi vetro666,
Research usually does cost a fair bit of money, which is why we spend a lot of time applying for research funding from the government, and why we were so worried when the government was threatening to cut the budget for research earlier this year!
Researchers often try and reduce the cost of their research by working together with other researchers with similar interests – since splitting the costs of a bigger project makes it more affordable for both groups. But it
Still costs quite a lot money 🙂
Bev
0
Hi vetro66,
Some experiments require high tech equipment like microscopes or big machines that analyse DNA. These machines can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. But, as Bev says researchers try to share these bits of equipment as much as possible to reduce the cost.
But, on the other hand there are some other experiments that don’t cost that much money, in comparison like analysing information from patients with a particular disease. We have to do that with cancer patients sometimes, to see how they are going with their treatments and to see if they do better with one treatment or another for example. That still costs money but all you really need is a person to analyse and collect the information and a computer to do the statistics.
So – cost varies depending on what you are doing but if you compare how many ideas researchers have, to how much money is available, the money always seems to run out first!
0