No, the headline is not accurate. Astronomers “hate” the frequency that Roomba wants to use for it’s border spikes; they are most likely completely indifferent to the lawnmower itself.
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Leela: How’d you get me to do it? Drugs? Hypnosis?
Fry: Nooo! Drugs are for losers. And hypnosis is for losers with big weird eyebrows!
–Futurama (Time Keeps on Skippin)
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Synecdoche.
So if you are an astronomer, you have exclusive rights to certain frequencies that people with lawns are not allowed to use?
Pretty much yes.
You can move a lawnmower to a different frequency with ease, especially when still in a design stage. You cannot move a methanol emission line to another frequency.
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So? Who cares? A mowed lawn increases the value of property and the surrounding property. Those property values have a more direct and positive effect on the lives of people than radio telescopes.
The good of the many and all that crap.
A mowed lawn is nothing in comparison with more knowledge about the Universe. Astronomy has a lot to offer; the space is one big laboratory where experiments run 24/7, we just have to sit back and watch. And then, typically couple decades past the discoveries, get the underlying principles applied in technology. The GPS sats we have now are using relativistic corrections in their math; and the theory of relativity was confirmed by astronomical observations. Knowledge of formation of stars may be useful for nuclear fusion, and who knows what the data from molecular clouds can help with for tomorrow.
And you can move the lawnmowers to some less important frequency anyway, there are enough just nearby. So no loss even for the “property values” and their overinflated importance.
I can put a dollar amount on the cost of a home. You only have vague promises of potential future tech that hasn’t been invented and will not be for many years.
What about astronomers makes them a protected class of citizen? Why should I be forced to change frequencies and not them? Or, why can’t these astronomers move their observatories to places where these robots will not be used?
All the civilization we have today, including the ways to build your home, to make the steel for the parts, to make fuels for transport the materials, all this was merely a set of vague promises yesterday. I for one prefer my vague hopes for tomorrow than the value of your piddly house today.
Ummm… maybe, just maybe… because they can not?
Ummm, because they can not.
It costs way less to use another crystal in a lawnmower’s beacon transmitter (or even just a different PLL setting) than to move whole observatories.
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Only if methane was the only thing we could ‘listen’ to. It would be helpful to everybody if they would realize that there is more in the world than the tiny slice of the spectrum used in methane detection; in comparison to the vast multispectral richness around us these scientists are blinder than newborn mice
I am an idiot but no troll sir. There is a reason iRobot wants to use those frequencies. It’s a valid one too.
Oh what’s the fuss? Clearly consumer convenience products are higher priority than fundamental research. I mean, If me and my neighbors want to spend a hundred bucks or so on robot mowers so we can sit and drink a beer while the bots trim the grass, why should we care that a bunch of uppity “science folk” are complaining about “interference” with their multi-million dollar equipment? What did science ever do for me?
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It’s methanol, you insensitive clod. The hydrogen-deficient variant, too.
Here is a list of some frequencies of interest, in the case you’d like some enlightenment.
Here is something more about molecular radioastronomy, in a fairly easily digestible form.
http://www.haystack.mit.edu/edu/undergrad/materials/molecules.pdf
These lines are often observed together, yielding distribution pattern of the different molecules in the universe.
As shown above, they are well aware of the richness. It’s you who is not.
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Well, I could start with the rich metallurgy beyond a humble beer can… 
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Sorry for being so insensitive towards methane or methanol whichever one it is I insulted. Especially if it suffers from some sort of hydrogen deficiency. It was callous of me.
I don’t really care to read your links. These scientists can either develop tech to cancel out noise from nearby lawnmower, move their antenna to better locations, or use other frequencies. They have several options open to them and since they are aware of the rich spectra of energies from which they can gain knowledge, I see no reason they shouldn’t.
I still want to know what it is about these astronomers that makes them worthy of being a protected class of people with special legal protections I don’t have.
If you want to stay dumb, feel free.
If it only was so easy, if only!
Because they already listen at those frequencies, where the other molecules sing their cosmic songs. They are assembling their lines into a chorus, and without the methanol lines there’d be a gap in the music.
The knowledge they produce. You presumably don’t produce much of it, judging from how eager you are to consume some.
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Playing with misunderstanding and hyperbolic rhetoric aside, it surprises me no one has mentioned what this is really all about.
In the imaginations of some this is about radio telescopes and how a robot will make them stop working. In truth, it’s about so much less than that.
This is about a quiet zone and 2 very specific radio telescopes. We have a massive quiet zone in the US where no one can use any transmitting equipment. That area is known as National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ). The scientists who are upset about these robotic lawn mowers (RLM) have no problem with people using any band at all - except within or too near the NRQZ. This is about section 15.250© footnote US 342 which concerns the use and protection of radio frequencies within the NRQZ. The specific objection is that the proposed protection by iRobot is a warning in the owners manual. The NRAO proposes a geolocation restriction on the locations where it can be used, notching the protected RAS band, or narrowing the frequency used. In other words, they don’t want people to be able to use them within the quiet zone since they aren’t all that quiet.
This is the specific protection these astronomers have with regards to RLM. I was kind of hoping someone would point that out but it seems people here would rather argue what they think they know instead of actually reading the source material.
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Can you put a dollar amount on the design, construction, launch, and maintenance of a orbital radio telescope?
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It was in the original Wired article, except the numbers of the section numbers of the paperworks. For which you deserve a star. 
Which is a very valid objection because the users don’t read the manuals. And if they do, they don’t obey everything that’s written there.
Which is understandable and reasonable. What does a simple lawnmower need so much of a frequency band for, anyway? Does it want to watch HD porn as it cruises the lawn?
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