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The search for dark and unpolluted skies moved optical 

 observatory sites away from cities to the tops of high mountains 

 or to desert locations and radio telescopes as far as possible 

 from man-made radio noise background. With these moves the 

 logistical costs of observatory operations has risen sharply. 



Astronomers no longer settle in to live comparatively normal 

 family lives in municipal communities near their observatories 

 and to conduct a relatively leisurely program of observations. 

 Instead, they compete fiercely for a few nights a year at these 

 remote sites. Hardly anyone any longer puts eyeball to 

 eyepiece. Electronic imagers, trackers, and digitized 

 spectrometers record the data and astronomers return quickly to 

 their own institutions to digest their results. The volume of 

 activity has thus expanded enormously and the cost of supporting 

 the larger community and analyzing the flood of data has grown 

 commensurately . As astronomy and astrophysics have moved to the 

 forefront of physical science in this generation, the great 

 surge of scientific accomplishment has given even ground based 

 astronomy a "big science" image, but the image grows far bigger 

 in space based astronomy. 



Until the past decade, the U.S. investment in space 

 astronomy far outstripped the commitment of the rest of the 

 world. Foreign astronomers have participated in all U.S. space 

 astronomy missions but as junior partners in the investment. 



