NASA's Beyond Einstein Program An Architecture for Implementation (2007) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 9-14
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From page 9... ...
The Standard Model still summarizes nearly everything that has been learned experimentally about elementary particles to date. In the decades after World War II, astronomers got their first indications of an exotic consequence of Einstein's relativity: collapsed stars and galactic cores called black holes -- black because their gravity is so intense that no light can escape from them.
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It suddenly "inflated" in a "big bang." The Inflationary Big Bang Model naturally explains why the universe appears to us so nearly flat and so nearly uniform in all directions. The universe continued to expand after the brief episode of rapid inflation ended; this evolved into the expansion that Edwin Hubble first observed.
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From page 11... ...
The resulting report, Connecting Quarks with the Cosmos, was developed by physicists and astronomers working together. Connecting Quarks with the Cosmos became one of two foundational NRC documents for NASA's Beyond Einstein Program, the other being the NRC decadal survey of astronomy and astrophysics, Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium. The 2001 decadal survey began by laying out the fundamental goal of the field: "to understand how the universe and its constituent galaxies, stars, and planets formed, how they evolved, and what their destiny will be." To achieve this goal, the report said, astronomers must pursue a balanced strategy with several elements: • Survey the universe and its constituents, including galaxies as they evolve through cosmic time, stars and planets as they form out of collapsing interstellar clouds in our galaxy, interstellar and intergalactic gas as it accumulates the elements created in stars and supernovae, and the mysterious dark matter and perhaps dark energy that so strongly influence the large-scale structure and dynamics of the universe.
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From page 12... ...
The purpose of this meeting was to encourage a fair, jointagency process for going forward on a Beyond Einstein mission. National Research Council, 2003, Connecting Quarks with the Cosmos: Eleven Science Questions for the New Century, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., pp.
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From page 13... ...
The committee invited presentations from agency leaders in NASA, DOE, and the European Space Agency, and at least two presentations from each team proposing a mission candidate. Additionally, the committee heard presentations from individual scientific leaders and listened to the broader scientific community in town hall meetings across the United States (see Appendixes C and D)
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From page 14... ...
The committee assessed team organization, project management, technology readiness and difficulty, cost and schedule risks, and technical and cost margins; it also identified special challenges particular to each mission candidate. Chapter 3 can be used as a summary reference for Beyond Einstein mission readiness as of FY 2007.
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