Naval Observatory unlikely to be repaired anytime soon

Can you learn what happened to the clock at the entrance to the Naval Observatory on Massachusetts Avenue NW? It sat there in presumably broken condition for many weeks and then disappeared altogether. I hope it will be replaced soon.

-- Anita Kurland, Washington

Answer Man is heartened by the affection many people have for public clocks. He lives in a house full of mechanical timepieces and takes comfort in the ticks and the tocks that, heartbeatlike, count the passing minutes.

The red, digital U.S. Naval Observatory clock might not have the classic analog look of the clock that punctuates London's Houses of Parliament (often erroneously referred to as Big Ben, which is actually the name of the clock's 13-ton bell), but it has its fans.

Yes, the clock is broken. Answer Man fears it will not be fixed anytime soon.

The first clock in front of the observatory ran backward, counting down to Jan. 1, 2000. Then it counted down to the real new millennium: Jan. 1, 2001. After that, it told the time. When, a few years ago, elements started burning out on that clock -- leaving digits that looked like characters from the Klingon alphabet -- it was replaced with a nicer clock featuring a two-sided display.

The clock was not tied in to the hydrogen maser master clock maintained by the observatory, but to the nation's Global Positioning System. Unlike Answer Man's Swatch, it was accurate to one-billionth of a second.

To protect the clock from the elements, it was encased in an enclosure. The enclosure, however, was not vented sufficiently, and the buildup of heat during our punishing Washington summers started to fry the clock's workings. It was removed for repair a few months ago.

In the meantime, the observatory ran out of money. Well, not totally out of money. It can perform its main function, which is to gather and disseminate astronomical data and keep track of official time for the Department of Defense. But the repair of the clock is not in the budget. Or, rather, there is no budget. The Defense Department is being funded by a continuing resolution.