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y optical and radio astronomers are over thirty years old and will not be able to handle future needs. In addition, specialized programs for automated data handling tasks across many areas of astronomy and astrophysics must be written. New packages capable of handling large datasets are urgently needed. These are likely to be created and employed within a common-use environment. Flexibility, openness, and platform independence, modularity, and public dissemination are essential to this effort. Focused investment in a series of small-scale initiatives for common tool development and the collection of those tools in a public portal may be the most cost-effective approach, although there are undoubtedly synergies with the pipeline development needed for the large-scale projects. Further, central data archives, in which we have recommended all future major projects participate, could maintain current software versions and provide community access and documentation for general reduction tools. MEDIUM-SCALE ACTIVITIES A major recommendation of this report, directed to both the ground and the space programs, is that more support should be directed towards activities of intermediate scale. In space this refers explicitly to NASA’s Explorer and suborbital programs, which are both recommended for funding increments in Chapter 7. On the ground, the committee endorses the recommendations of several previous advisory groups to NSF that there be mid-scale funding opportunities and recommends in Chapter 7 a new competed program. Medium scale programs and experiments offer excellent return for the investment, and are essential for enabling flexible response to new scientific opportunities, for demonstrating novel techniques and instruments, and for training the experimental scientists, engineers and managers who will execute the major missions and observatories of tomorrow. Technical Workforce Development The designers of missions and telescopes, and those who implement instruments and understand their performance, are central to the astrophysics enterprise. One of the most important elements for technical and schedule risk reduction for any space mission or major ground-based project is a highly experienced team. The current distribution of activities and grants funding provides particular challenges for maintaining a workforce skilled in instrument and project development. While properly funded programs for space and ground facilities often provide significant support for the training of new data analysts, the opportunities for training students in instrumentation have declined precipitously over the past 20 years. Training for the next generation of instrumentalists is most efficient when there is a steady state hierarchy of project sizes, so that people can progress from relatively smaller, simpler and faster projects to responsibilities in larger and more complex activities. Despite existing NASA and NSF funding mechanisms that can support technology training, the data gathered by the survey’s infrastructure study groups shows that less than 5 percent of students recently receiving PhDs from astronomy departments classify themselves into “instrumentation and methods” subfields. If there are to be enough young instrumentalists to spearhead the ambitious new instruments and facilities of the coming decade, more must be done within our graduate astronomy programs to educate and train them. The growth of astrophysics research within physics departments can help. Some of the input received by means of white papers submitted by the community discussed the need for increased emphasis on instrumentation within U.S. astronomy and astrophysics PhD programs. It is important that universities recognize the importance of skilled instrumentalists, and that they continue to provide opportunities for early-career training. Further, the scientific community must value the intellectual contributions of instrumentalists as an integral part of the astrophysics endeavor. PREPUBLICATION COPY—SUBJECT TO FURTHER EDITORIAL CORRECTION 5-14
NASA Explorer and Suborbital Programs The Explorer program develops small and mid-size missions on few year timescales and is a crown jewel of NASA space science. Its tremendous scientific productivity results from the selection and implementation of focused scientific investigations enabling rapid response to new discoveries. For example, amongst the Astrophysics Explorers, the WMAP Medium Scale Explorer (MIDEX) mission capitalized on the discovery made by a previous Explorer, COBE, that the microwave background has measureable fluctuations. Launched just five years after the COBE results were published, WMAP demonstrated that precise information about the early universe is imprinted on these minute fluctuations, leading to the age, geometry and content of the universe; its papers are the among the most highly cited in all of astrophysics. The Swift gamma-ray burst (GRB) MIDEX was launched just seven years after the discovery that GRBs—bright, few second long, high-energy pulses from the cosmos—are accompanied by long-lived afterglows extending down to radio wavelengths. These afterglows enable us to associate GRBs with the birth cries of black holes from across the universe. Swift’s success was rewarded when it was identified as the highest ranked mission in the 2007 senior review—a process that compared its scientific returns to major flagship missions. The GALEX Small Explorer (SMEX) ultraviolet mission is changing our understanding of how stars form and how galaxies evolve over the last 10 billion years of cosmic history, and it is now supporting an active guest investigator program. The WISE MIDEX was recently launched and is successfully conducting an all-sky mid-infrared survey with announced discoveries from asteroids and comets to active galactic nuclei. In addition to these stand-alone experiments, the Explorer program supports Missions of Opportunity (MoO)⎯contributions of instruments or investigations to space programs led by other countries. MoOs provide highly-leveraged mechanisms to broaden the astrophysics program, deploy new technologies, and return significant science for relatively modest investments. In addition, suborbital science experiments can be proposed as MoOs 12 . NASA’s suborbital (balloon and rocket) programs provide for scientific experiments ranging from particle detectors to x-ray, gamma-ray, infrared and microwave instruments. They enable substantive scientific investigations in areas such as CMB and particle astrophysics, fulfill essential needs in technology development, and provide invaluable hands-on training. Notably, key positions in mission development across NASA are occupied by people who received their training through participation in suborbital missions. This population is aging and replacements are few, as shown in Figure 5-8. While NASA maintains a technical workforce within its stably funded centers, the groups in universities that train students to renew NASA’s talent are subject to large variations in funding associated with individual missions. Due to diminishing astrophysics budgets combined with full-cost accounting, the NASA centers are also now competing for the smaller training projects that used to be located across multiple universities. 13 The need to renew the talent pool of experienced instrumentalists in light of the exceptional science opportunities leads to a number of recommendations in this report. In Chapter 7, the committee recommends increased support for the suborbital program. The committee also recommends an augmentation to the Explorer program that will double the number of opportunities for stand-alone missions and vastly increase the number missions of opportunity. Historically, Explorer missions and suborbital experiments include significant instrumentation efforts centered at universities, and their development timescales are suitably short compared to flagship missions so as to match graduate student and postdoctoral terms. 12 Revitalizing NASA’s Suborbital Program: Advancing Science, Driving Innovation, and Developing a Workforce; National Academies Press (2010). Available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.phprecord_id=12862. Accessed May 2010 13 See the 2010 NRC report Capabilities for the Future: An Assessment of NASA Laboratories for Basic Research. Available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.phprecord_id=12903. PREPUBLICATION COPY—SUBJECT TO FURTHER EDITORIAL CORRECTION 5-15
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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fi
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COMMITTEE FOR A DECADAL SURVEY OF A
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Panel on Stars and Stellar Evolutio
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DOUGLAS FINKBEINER, Harvard Univers
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SPACE STUDIES BOARD CHARLES F. KENN
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activities 2 that have emerged from
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In addition to the 27 panel meeting
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Acknowledgment of Reviewers This re
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The Accelerating Universe 2-26 The
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APPENDIXES A Summary of Science Fro
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light up the universe, marking the
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RECOMMENDED PROGRAM Maintaining a b
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TABLE ES.4 Space: Recommended Activ
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Cosmic Dawn: Searching for the Firs
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this imprint would both probe funda
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important outcome will be to open u
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estimated to be on the order of $20
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observatories. For NASA an annual b
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surveys of large fields, enabling s
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RECOMMENDATION: U.S. investors in a
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departments and the community as a
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dominate spending; (2) private-publ
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us was certainly evident during the
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BOX 2-1 Other Worlds Around Other S
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FIGURE 2‐2 The source 3C 75, show
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FIGURE 2‐3 Numerical simulation o
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FIGURE 2‐4 Left panel: Image of t
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FIGURE 2‐6 Top: Schematic of the
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Most stars with masses smaller than
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BOX 2-2 The Origin of Planets After
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send material raining into the cent
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BOX 2-4 Lifecycles in Galaxies One
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Stars Stars are the most observable
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ubiquitous high-energy charged-part
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The Nature of Inflation As describe
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FIGURE 2‐11 Pie chart showing the
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An important clue to the nature of
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Studying the properties of neutron
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FIGURE 2‐14 A possible pathway is
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partners and makes recommendations
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Page 90 and 91: TABLE 3-1 Currently Operating OIR F
Page 92 and 93: 29% 1990 44% US Priv US Fed Other E
Page 94 and 95: CONCLUSION: Complex and high-cost f
Page 96 and 97: Space Observatories The Laser Inter
Page 98 and 99: Physics Division (PHY); the Mathema
Page 101 and 102: 4 Astronomy in Society Astronomy of
Page 103 and 104: FIGURE 4‐2 The dust sculptures of
Page 105 and 106: FIGURE 4‐5 President Obama takes
Page 107 and 108: Astronomy Inspires in the Classroom
Page 109 and 110: teaching the scientific method. The
Page 111 and 112: where the fraction of astronomers h
Page 113 and 114: Percentage of AAS Membership by Fie
Page 115 and 116: 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 PL SO IM AG SF IN S
Page 117 and 118: FIGURE 4‐12 Number (top panel) an
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Page 126 and 127: THEORY Emerging Trends in Theoretic
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Page 130 and 131: TABLE 5‐2 Support for astrophysic
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Page 134 and 135: FIGURE 5‐7 Highly cited HST publi
Page 138 and 139: FIGURE 5‐8 Number of PhDs per yea
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Page 150 and 151: FIGURE 6‐3 NASA mission cost over
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Page 154 and 155: TOWARD FUTURE PROJECTS, MISSIONS, A
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Page 163 and 164: FIGURE 7.1 Survey time line showing
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Page 167 and 168: Box 7.1 Implementing a Cosmic Dawn
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Laboratory Astrophysics As describe
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Recommendations for New Ground-Base
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Program for instrumentation and fac
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excel at high spectral and spatial
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The committee reviewed a technical
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FIGURE 7.10 ACTA would be, like the
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Advanced Technologies and Instrumen
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LISA as soon as possible subject to
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FIGURE 7.14 DOE recommended program
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A Summary of Science Frontiers Pane
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PLANETARY SYSTEMS AND STAR FORMATIO
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A preliminary recommended program w
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certified as independent work perfo
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penalty based on an assessment of s
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The results show excellent correlat
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$12 MILLION TO $40 MILLION RANGE CM
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decadal research strategy with reco
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CFP CHIPSat CIP CGRO CMB CMU CoBRA
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NRC NSB NSF NSF-AGS NSF-ARC NSF-AST
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