[Peace-discuss] Adler Planetarium responds to McCain

[Ron Szoke]

My son-in-law, Geza Gyuk, is the head of the astronomy department at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.

The equipment in question is a Zeiss astronomical projector, which is an entirely different order of things from an ordinary overhead projector.  There's a much smaller Zeiss at the center of things in the Staerkel Planetarium at Parkland College.

Geza says the current Adler machine is forty years old & is a model no longer being sold or supported by Zeiss.  They have been able to cannibalize some parts from a decommissioned machine elsewhere, but that can't continue much longer.  Having parts custom-made is enormously expensive.

He says that the Adler is now a national & increasingly international resource on astro & space matters.  But in any case they did NOT receive the requested funding to replace the old machine.

There is every indication that, when the present projector goes defunct, "leadership" in this area will again pass to the Europeans, just as it has in elementary particle physics with the advent of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

-- Ron Szoke