Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Assessment of Programs in Solar and Space Physics 1991 (Chapter 1) Assessment of Programs in Solar and Space Physics 1991 1 Introduction The Committee on Solar and Space Physics (CSSP) and the Committee on Solar Terrestrial Research (CSTR) are both responsible for providing scientific advice to U.S. government agencies in the overlapping fields of solar physics, space physics, and solar-terrestrial relations. The CSSP reports to the Space Studies Board (SSB) and the CSTR has a similar relationship to the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (BASC). Starting in October 1990, CSSP and CSTR began to function as a single, federated committee reporting to both the SSB and BASC. This assessment report has been written in response to a request by the SSB for an assessment of the way in which prior recommendations of the National Research Council (NRC) are being implemented by the appropriate federal agencies. The SSB has also requested that the assessment report address the need and time scale for any changes in the existing scientific strategies in the subcommittee's purview. The federated REPORT MENU committee expanded the scope of the study beyond that requested by the SSB to NOTICE MEMBERSHIP include an assessment of responses to NRC reports in solar-terrestrial research FOREWORD that are beyond the traditional space-oriented scope of the SSB but that address SUMMARY the broader interests of CSTR, BASC, and the solar and space physics CHAPTER 1 community. CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3 The scientific purview of the CSSP and CSTR is very broad, ranging from BIBLIOGRAPHY the interior of the Sun, through interplanetary space and planetary ABBREVIATIONS AND magnetospheres to their atmospheres, and out to interstellar space. Much of this ACRONYMS research involves the discipline of plasma physics, but there are also strong APPENDIX A elements of high energy physics, radiative transfer, and aeronomy. For the APPENDIX B purposes of this report, the scientific research is discussed in seven categories: APPENDIX C solar physics, heliospheric physics, cosmic ray physics, magnetospheric physics, upper-atmosphere physics, solar-terrestrial coupling, and comparative planetary studies. Other topics that cut across all the subdisciplines are also discussed. The principal NRC report pertaining to solar and space physics published since 1980 are listed in the bibliography. A list of abbreviations and acronyms follows the bibliography. The users or recipients of the advice given by CSSP and CSTR are diverse; they are listed in Appendix B. file:///C|/SSB_old_web/ssp91ch1.htm (1 of 2) [6/18/2004 2:02:11 PM]
