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each region of the sky 1000 separate times. The 1000 separate images will be used to make a “cosmic movie” to search for objects that move or whose brightness varies. By adding these images, it will also produce a very deep map of roughly half of the entire sky. LSST will produce a calibrated data set and analysis tools for the astronomy and astrophysics community. It will also facilitate the creation, by researchers outside the project, of additional science products that may be incorporated into the LSST data system. The data will be open access with no proprietary period for U.S. and Chilean astronomers; other non-U.S. partners that join will be expected to contribute to the cost of operations. LSST was conceived as a joint NSF-DOE project, with the latter taking responsibility for the camera. It has benefited from private donations and has acquired international partners. The combined primary-tertiary mirror has been cast. The technical risk of LSST as determined by the survey’s cost and technical evaluation (CATE) process was rated as medium low. The committee did identify additional risk with establishing data management and archiving software environments adequate to achieving the science goals and engaging the astronomical community. The appraised construction cost is $465 million with a time to completion of 112 months. The committee recommends that LSST be started as soon as possible, with, as proposed by the project, two-thirds of the construction costs borne by the NSF through its MREFC line and a quarter by the DOE using Major Item of Equipment (MIE) funds. The estimated operations cost is $42 million per year over its 10-year lifetime, of which roughly $28 million is proposed to be borne by the U.S. agencies—the committee recommends two-thirds of the federal share of operations costs be borne by NSF and one third by DOE. It is recommended that any extended mission should only happen following a successful senior review. By its very nature LSST will stimulate a large number of follow-up studies, especially of a spectroscopic character. The planning and administration of an optimized plan for followup studies within the public-private optical-infrared system could be carried out by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO). The top rank of LSST is a result of its capacity to address so many of the identified science goals and its advanced state of technical readiness. Priority 2 (Large, Ground). Mid-Scale Innovations Program Science and technology are evolving rapidly. Each decade, new discoveries open new opportunities, and scientists and engineers find novel and innovative approaches to designing instruments. While there are regularly competed opportunities on timescales shorter than a decade for moderate-scale missions in space, on the ground there is no program that can compete and select mid-scale projects based on scientific merit and technical readiness as instruments mature and science advances. The committee was impressed by the large number of white-paper submissions for mid-scale ground-based projects that offer compelling science and novel technical approaches but that cannot be evaluated without a proper scientific and technical peer review. The committee recommends, as its second-highest priority, a competed program, based on NASA’s highly successful Explorer model, that would enable moderate-scale projects to be frequently selected through peer review. Like the Explorer program, a mid-scale instrumentation and facility program at NSF—a program that the committee calls the Mid-Scale Innovations Program—would provide first-class science at moderate cost and would address the need to involve and train students in experiment design and instrumentation. The need for such a program is driven by the fact that NSF Astronomy (NSF-AST) does not have a formal mechanism for competing proposals in the price range between the Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) program (less than $4 million) and the MREFC line (greater than $135 million in FY2010). It does accept unsolicited proposals in the mid-scale category, several of which have been funded, but without the head-to-head competitive peer review that ensures that the highest-priority needs are met. The committee therefore recommends the establishment of a competed Mid-Scale Innovations PREPUBLICATION COPY—SUBJECT TO FURTHER EDITORIAL CORRECTION 7-30
Program for instrumentation and facilities in order to capitalize on a large variety of exciting science opportunities over the upcoming decade. The program should issue roughly annual calls for proposals in two categories: (1) conceptual and preliminary design activities and (2) detailed design and construction projects. Important elements of the program include standard peer review and selection criteria with special attention to scientific merit, relevance to community-established strategic goals and roadmaps, project management, and planning for both operations and data archiving funding. A periodic review of ongoing projects with clearly stated procedures for funding continuation or termination is recommended. Co-funding of mid-scale projects from non-NSF sources would be allowed but not required. The Mid-Scale Innovations Program funding line should be established at a level that enables the selection of a minimum of seven such projects spanning a range of scales over the decade—a rate that provides regular opportunities and accomplishes a broad range of science. Of the 29 proposals for ground-based mid-scale projects submitted as white papers to the survey, a subset was considered compelling by the committee. Although it is not appropriate for the committee to rank concepts for a competed line, it lists in Table 7.1 the activities it found compelling. The indicated cost categories are based on submitted descriptions and not on any independent committee review. Appendix D provides additional background information on these projects. Other examples may be found in the PPP reports. Many similar instrument and small-facility concepts will undoubtedly emerge over the decade. It is important that the Mid-Scale Innovations Program maintain a balance between large and small projects. Indeed, such a program in NSF-AST could take on some of the larger Advanced Technologies and Instrumentation (ATI) projects, so that ATI would emphasize advanced technology development together with instrumentation below ~ $2 million. The recommended Mid-Scale Innovations Program is aimed primarily at instrumentation and facilities in order to be consistent with the goals of the program at NSF’s Directorate of Mathematical and Physical Sciences (NSF-MPS) and with the recommendations of the National Science Board (NSB) 19 and NRC reports, but proposals for other types of initiatives in this cost range could be considered for funding if they present an especially compelling scientific case. To support the committee’s recommendation, almost $400 million would be needed in this line over the decade, in addition to the funds needed to complete similar projects already started. The committee recommends funding of this program at a level that builds up to $40 million per year by middecade (additional funds over the decade would fall between $93 million and $200 million). The current level of funding for mid-scale projects in NSF-AST, which occurs on an ad hoc basis, is estimated at roughly $18 million per year, including some design and development work for LSST, GSMT, and SKA. The principal rationale for the committee’s ranking of the Mid-Scale Innovations Program is the compelling number of highly promising projects with costs between the MRI and MREFC boundaries, plus the diversity and timeliness of the science that they could achieve. There are advantages to putting this program at the NSF-MPS level where it would serve all the divisions, and also those to putting it at the NSF-AST level. 19 National Science Board, Science and Engineering Infrastructure for the 21st Century, National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA (2002); National Research Council, Advanced Research Instrumentation and Facilities, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., (2006). PREPUBLICATION COPY—SUBJECT TO FURTHER EDITORIAL CORRECTION 7-31
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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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As astronomy research has blossomed
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are increasingly relevant. The Euro
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TABLE 3-1 Currently Operating OIR F
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29% 1990 44% US Priv US Fed Other E
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CONCLUSION: Complex and high-cost f
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Space Observatories The Laser Inter
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Physics Division (PHY); the Mathema
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4 Astronomy in Society Astronomy of
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FIGURE 4‐2 The dust sculptures of
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FIGURE 4‐5 President Obama takes
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Astronomy Inspires in the Classroom
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teaching the scientific method. The
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where the fraction of astronomers h
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Percentage of AAS Membership by Fie
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0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 PL SO IM AG SF IN S
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FIGURE 4‐12 Number (top panel) an
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Professional training needs to acco
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assistant and associate professor p
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fluctuating level of funding for as
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THEORY Emerging Trends in Theoretic
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Central to the Galaxies across Cosm
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TABLE 5‐2 Support for astrophysic
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would normally be for a five-year p
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FIGURE 5‐7 Highly cited HST publi
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y optical and radio astronomers are
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FIGURE 5‐8 Number of PhDs per yea
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Page 142 and 143: nulling interferometry. The appropr
Page 144 and 145: FIGURE 5‐9 The richness of the su
Page 146 and 147: RECOMMENDATION: NASA and NSF suppor
Page 148 and 149: FIGURE 6‐1. All sky map as observ
Page 150 and 151: FIGURE 6‐3 NASA mission cost over
Page 152 and 153: FIGURE 6‐5 Gemini North with Sout
Page 154 and 155: TOWARD FUTURE PROJECTS, MISSIONS, A
Page 156 and 157: 3. Investment in new and upgraded i
Page 158 and 159: etween several competing elements i
Page 161 and 162: 7 Realizing the Opportunities The p
Page 163 and 164: FIGURE 7.1 Survey time line showing
Page 165 and 166: SCIENCE OBJECTIVES FOR THE DECADE T
Page 167 and 168: Box 7.1 Implementing a Cosmic Dawn
Page 169 and 170: JWST, with its superb mid-infrared
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Page 173 and 174: Box 7.3 Implementing the Physics of
Page 175 and 176: FIGURE 7.2 Multiwavelength images o
Page 177 and 178: Recommendations for New Space Activ
Page 179 and 180: FIGURE 7.4 Science accomplishments
Page 181 and 182: significance of mergers in the buil
Page 183 and 184: independent advice committee review
Page 185 and 186: committee review. It could range be
Page 187 and 188: Laboratory Astrophysics As describe
Page 189: Recommendations for New Ground-Base
Page 193 and 194: excel at high spectral and spatial
Page 195 and 196: The committee reviewed a technical
Page 197 and 198: FIGURE 7.10 ACTA would be, like the
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Page 201 and 202: LISA as soon as possible subject to
Page 203: FIGURE 7.14 DOE recommended program
Page 207 and 208: A Summary of Science Frontiers Pane
Page 209 and 210: PLANETARY SYSTEMS AND STAR FORMATIO
Page 211 and 212: A preliminary recommended program w
Page 213 and 214: certified as independent work perfo
Page 215 and 216: penalty based on an assessment of s
Page 217 and 218: The results show excellent correlat
Page 219 and 220: $12 MILLION TO $40 MILLION RANGE CM
Page 221 and 222: decadal research strategy with reco
Page 223 and 224: CFP CHIPSat CIP CGRO CMB CMU CoBRA
Page 225 and 226: NRC NSB NSF NSF-AGS NSF-ARC NSF-AST
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