Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 1980's, Volume 1 Report of the Astronomy Survey Committee (1982) / Chapter Skim
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4 APPROVED, CONTINUING, AND PREVIOUSLY RECOMMENDED PROGRAMS
4 APPROVED, CONTINUING, AND PREVIOUSLY RECOMMENDED PROGRAMS
Pages 101-122
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From page 101... ...
The Gamma Ray Observatory; D Level-of-effort observational programs within the National Aeronautics and Space Administration: · The NASA Explorer satellite program, with a substantial augmentation, · Research with balloons, aircraft, and sounding rockets, at enhanced levels of support, and · The Spacelab program, reaffirming NASA'S original strong commitment to research with the Space Shuttle; E
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From page 102... ...
A SPACE TELESCOPE AND THE ASSOCIATED SPACE TELESCOPE SCIENCE INSTITUTE The Astronomy Survey Committee regards Space Telescope (ST)
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From page 103... ...
The surface chemistry of planets and asteroids can also be explored. The Committee strongly approves NASA'S commitment to operate and support ST through an associated but independent Space Telescope Science Institute, which will include international participation.
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From page 104... ...
Since ST should exploit all the benefits of the latest technology, the Astronomy Survey Committee regards timely upgrading as extremely important. Major changes that can currently be foreseen include improvements to the ST spectrographs and the implementation of ST'S potential infrared capability.
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From page 105... ...
will yield results on high-energy processes that will be of fundamental importance to the advance of astrophysics during the coming decade. The 1979 report of the Space Science Board's Committee on Space Astronomy and Astrophysics (CSAA)
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From page 106... ...
~ {Jet 1 D LEVEL-OF-EFFORT OBSERVATIONAL PROGRAMS WITHIN THE NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION NASA has developed three modes for carrying out observational space astronomy within level-of-effort programs: the Explorer program; balloons, aircraft, and sounding rockets; and the Spacelab program.
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From page 107... ...
Its level-ofeffort character has encouraged both frugal management and relatively rapid response to newly perceived scientific opportunities, providing a highly effective mechanism to exploit new observational techniques, to explore newly accessible wavelength intervals, or to study a particular class of objects. Nearly all of the branches of space astronomy have had or will soon have their beginnings in Explorer missions.
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From page 108... ...
will open for study another major region of the electromagnetic spectrum, from 100 to 912 wavelength (from soft x rays to the uv region below the Lyman limit) , a primary objective being the completion of an unbiased, allsky survey of sources of EUV radiation.
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From page 109... ...
The NASA aircraft program-including the U2 aircraft, the Lear let Observatory, and especially the Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO: has achieved scientific results of great importance, including the first observations of far-infrared emission from other galaxies; an important series of infrared observations of our own Galactic center; the study of internal energy sources in Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune; the probing of interstellar molecular clouds and ionized regions in new ways; a primary role in the discovery of rings around Uranus; and studies of water vapor in the atmosphere of Jupiter and of sulfuric acid droplets in the clouds of Venus. The KAO and Lear let Observatory not only continue to serve as test facilities for many of the research instruments and techniques being developed for spacescience applications but also provide the reconnaissance of the field necessary for future major missions.
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From page 110... ...
Spacelab flights will be particularly suitable for those facilities (both large and small) that can gather substantial quantities of data within the relatively short initial flights of the Space Shuttle; the Solar Optical Telescope and Shuttle Infrared Telescope Facility described in Section E below are examples.
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From page 111... ...
The Committee also encourages the development of a Solar Shuttle Facility, composed of several advanced facility-class instruments, to be used in a coordinated group on the Space Shuttle. These instruments will obtain data critical to an understanding of the fundamental plasma processes underlying cyclic activity and transient high-energy phenomena on the Sun and other stars; their development should proceed as part of the ongoing Spacelab program, with the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT)
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From page 112... ...
The Astronomy Survey Committee joins with the Space Science Board's Committee on Space Astronomy And Astrophysics (A Strategy for Space Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 1980's, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., 1979) in recommending this facility as the first major infrared telescope in space.
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From page 113... ...
, NASA has selected SOT as the first major astrophysics facility to be developed within the Spacelab program. Solar observations from the ground and from space have demonstrated that fundamental processes governing solar phenomena occur on size scales smaller than can be resolved by present instruments (several hundred kilometers)
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From page 114... ...
Additional facilities are needed to supplement the data currently being obtained by 37C1 detectors at underground sites, and the use of a neutrino detector employing substantial quantities of gallium presents a particularly attractive opportunity to broaden our knowledge of the solar-neutrino energy spectrum. Detectors employing 7Li and win may also become feasible during the coming decade.
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From page 115... ...
U.S. astronomical research is carried out in a number of different types of organizations, including federal laboratories, the National Astronomy Centers, privately endowed research institutes, private industry, and private and state universities.
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From page 116... ...
NSF'S mission to support U.S. ground-based astronomy finds a particularly effective expression at the universities through the Astronomy Division grants program, which is the primary source of operating funds for many of the nation's major university-operated radio-astronomy observatories and which also provides extensive support for instrumentation at many ground-based optical observatories operated by universities.
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From page 117... ...
For these reasons, the NASA and NSF grants programs will continue to be essential to the health of basic astronomical research at U.S. universities in the coming decade.
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From page 118... ...
The decade of the 1970's saw a major expansion and upgrading of the observational facilities operated by the National Astronomy Centers for the benefit of the astronomical community. During the 1980's, however, the operations budgets of those centers serving as sites for additional new instruments will have to be increased if the potential of these new facilities is to be realized.
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From page 119... ...
I THE 25-METER MILLIMETER-WAVE RADIO TELESCOPE The Astronomy Survey Committee supports the construction of a 25-Meter Millimeter-Wave Radio Telescope as provided in the long-range plan of the Astronomy Division of the National Science Foundation and as had been recommended, in an earlier form, in the Greenstein report (Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 1970's, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., 1972~.
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From page 120... ...
This information-particularly when supplemented by the results of infrared photometry and spectroscopy can provide remarkable insights into the star-formation process itself. The discovery at millimeter wavelengths of more than 50 molecular species in interstellar clouds has generated a new field of astronomical research, astrochemistry, directed toward understanding the formation and chemistry of interstellar molecules and elucidating the role they play in the collapse of interstellar clouds to form stars.
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From page 122... ...
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