Huntsville would be a good fit for the proposed National Solar Observatory to study "space weather."
It will be high summer when the city learns if it made the cut.
The University of Alabama in Huntsville is leading a team to bring this nationally acclaimed solar study program to Cummings Research Park.
If chosen, the solar laboratory would bring 70 top scientists and engineers and an annual budget of $20 million to help improve the predictions of space weather.
Such predictions are vital elements for America's defense capabilities and NASA's space exploration activities. Better science could also lead to a broader understanding about solar flares, which can cause power "brownouts" at electrical generation plants, impair satellite communication, endanger air travelers and influence weather on Earth.
Huntsville is a logical choice for the work because of the critical mass of space, climatological and other scientific expertise here. Within just a short radius are UAH, NASA, the sprawling Redstone Arsenal Army base and Cummings Research Park with its nearly 300 aerospace and defense companies.
The laboratory would be located in a new building behind the National Space Science and Technology Center across from the UAH campus.
Competition, however, is fierce.
Others vying for the project include Montana State University, New Mexico State University, a consortium led by the University of California, Berkley, University of Arizona, University of Colorado in Boulder and the University of Southern California.
Proposals are in. Site visits are being made. The final selection is expected in July.
Solicitations for the new solar observatory are being handled by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy under the direction of the National Science Foundation. The NSO wants to relocate its operational headquarters in 2014 and be on a university campus.
Huntsville's UAH-led team includes NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, where astronomy research is already conducted; Redstone Arsenal; Alabama A&M University; Sci-Quest Hands-on Science Museum; the Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville-Madison County; and various high-tech corporate partners.
The project comes on the heels of the January 2010 approval by the National Science Foundation for a $298 million Advanced Technology Solar Telescope now under construction on the island of Maui, Hawaii.
Locating the labs at a site remote from the solar telescope would allow the project's scientists to be clustered with the best computing, engineering, scientific, communications and support expertise.
We'd bet there's no place under the sun that could match Huntsville in those disciplines.
By John Peck for the editorial board. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.org