U.S. Astronomy and Astrophysics Managing an Integrated Program (2001) / Chapter Skim
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1 Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Start of the New Millennium
1 Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Start of the New Millennium
Pages 7-17
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From page 7... ...
These developments stem largely from the availability of new facilities in space and on the ground (and some underground) , rapidly advancing computational capabilities, and an active community of scientists in universities, research institutes, and government and other laboratories in the United States, and in their counterparts across the world.
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From page 8... ...
Similarly, contemporary astronomy and astrophysics cannot be parsed by wavelength, by the location of the observing instruments, or by nationality. For example, Box 1.3 describes some of the science that will be enabled by the complementary nature of three future international facilities the Next Generation Space Telescope, the Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope, and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array that will observe the universe at different wavelengths and from the ground and in
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From page 11... ...
PLANNING FOR FUTURE PROGRESS The astronomy and astrophysics community has a unique 50-year tradition of surveying the status of the field at 10-year intervals and set1For a discussion of such international agreements, see the National Research Council report U.S.-European Collaboration in Space Science (National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1998~. 2The federal funding system for astronomy and astrophysics is discussed briefly in Appendix C
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From page 12... ...
For more details, see Appendix C in the current report and Federal Funding of Astronomical Research (National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 2000~.
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From page 13... ...
Issues Discussed in Recent National Research Council Assessments of the Discipline Federal Funding Study The National Research Council report Federal Funding of Astronomical Research (National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 2000) found that over the last two decades, the balance of research grant support has shifted away from NSF and toward NASA.
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From page 14... ...
Finally, the report observed that much of the support of astronomy and astrophysics is now tied to a few flagship NASA missions, making the research community vulnerable to a catastrophic failure of one of these large missions. Decadal Survey Report The most recent decadal survey prepared under the auspices of the National Research Council is Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium (National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 2001~.
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From page 15... ...
Major Initiatives Next Generation Space Telescoped Giant Segmented Mirror Telescoped Constellation-X Observatory Expanded Very Large Arrayd Large-aperture Synoptic Survey Telescope Terrestrial Planet Findere Single Aperture Far Infrared Observatorye Subtotal for major initiatives Moderate Initiatives Telescope System Instrumentation Program Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescoped Laser Interferometer Space Antennad Advanced Solar Telescoped Square Kilometer Array Technology Development Solar Dynamics Observatory Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomyd Energetic X-ray Imaging Survey Telescope Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System Advanced Radio Interferometry between Space and Earth Frequency Agile Solar Radio telescope South Pole Submillimeter-wave Telescope Subtotal for moderate initiatives Small Initiatives National Virtual Observatory Other small initiatives Subtotal for small initiatives DECADE TOTAL Space Ground Space Ground Ground Space Space Ground Space Space Ground Ground Space Ground Space Ground Space Ground Ground Ground Space Ground Space 1,000 350 800 140 170 200 100 2,760 50 300 250 60 22 300 11 150 35 350 26 50 1,604 60 246 306 4,670 aCost estimates for ground-based capital projects include technology development plus funds for operations, new instrumentation, and facility grants for 5 years. bCost estimates for space-based projects exclude technology development.
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From page 16... ...
NGST is already an international effort, and the two ground-based projects will almost certainly be multinational projects with significant contributions from the private sector. The policy section of the decadal survey report concluded, in addressing organization and management issues raised by the Congress, that the astronomy and astrophysics research enterprise is currently robust and generally healthy.
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From page 17... ...
Moreover, the NSF astronomy grants program is under heavy pressure to fund the analysis of the data obtained at these national ground-based facilities and the private/state observatories. This disconnect between facilities and the funds necessary to operate them differs from the results of NASA's policy of explicitly tying research funding to the successful peer-reviewed proposals for observations from a space mission.
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