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Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey
The Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey is a review of astronomy and astrophysics literature produced approximately every ten years by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States. The report surveys the current state of the field, identifies research priorities, and makes recommendations for the coming decade. The report represents the recommendations of the research community to governmental agencies on how to prioritize scientific funding within astronomy and astrophysics. The editing committee is informed by topical panels and subcommittees, dedicated conferences, and direct community input in the form of white papers summarizing the state of the art in each subdiscipline. The most recent report, Astro2020, was released in 2021.
[...] The seventh report, released to the public at 11am ET on Thursday, November 4, 2021, recommended scientific priorities and investments for the next decade to help achieve the following primary goals: search for habitable exoplanets and extraterrestrial life, study black holes and neutron stars and study the growth and evolution of galaxies.
Astrophysics decadal survey recommends a program of flagship space telescopes
[The] report recommended NASA establish a Great Observatories Mission and Technology Maturation Program that would oversee initial studies of large "flagship" astrophysics missions as well as invest in the technologies needed to enable them.
"The survey committee expects that this process will result in decreased cost and risk and enable more frequent launches of flagship missions, even if it does require significantly more upfront investment prior to a decadal recommendation regarding implementation," the committee concluded in the 600-page report.
Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 2020s. The 589 page report is paywalled.
Also at NPR.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 07 2021, @08:14PM (4 children)
This whole exercise is basically a funding request. And anything that looks like it can justify aan SLS launch has the best chance of getting funding. Because pork.
It would obviously be better to pick one observation platform and build multiple copies, because when you're looking in one direction you're obviously not looking in the other, and you can do iterative improvements to the platform over the lifetime of the project. But that makes too much sense.
They're like kids with ADHD on sugar tots. Rather than pick one path and really study it, then 20 years from now pick another, they seem to suffer from FOMO.
(Score: 1) by kreuzfeld on Sunday November 07 2021, @11:30PM (3 children)
You're right that the Decadal Survey process is designed to drive funding priorities over the next ten years. As for the rest of your comment, it's a curiously simplistic (not to mention cynical and rather insulting) view of the matter. As just one counterexample: although you write that it would 'obviously be better to pick one observation platform and build multiple copies,' that ignores the fact that each observatory has its own unique strengths and weaknesses. Seven Hubbles might be great for optical and ultraviolet science, but it would mean zero capability in the mid-infrared (Spitzer, JWST) and zero high-energy capability (Chandra, Fermi, Nustar).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 08 2021, @12:00AM (2 children)
Cynical? of course. look at the shitshow that is SLS. And of course the really badly managed James Webb project. Supposed to cost half a billion and launch in 2007, it's now at 9 billion (18 x the original budget) and 14 years late. For an expected lifetime of 5 to 10 years.
Poor management. One more "too big to fail" project that screwed over other projects by sucking up funding for 14 extra years. Imagine what research could have been done if it had been cancelled when it hit a billion?
(Score: 4, Informative) by PiMuNu on Monday November 08 2021, @12:25PM (1 child)
It's a fair point. Usually the sort of "buy in bulk" idea you propose is done, but serially. Build one, leverage the R&D to build an improved version for the next, etc The Mars programme, for example, is a bit along those lines. Build a widget, test it, launch it, upgrade to a better model, prototype novel bits of kit, launch it. Loop.
I don't know the physics goals so not sure why James Webb is not an iterative improvement on Hubble but rather a (fairly) different device altogether. Maybe they found that Hubble makes pretty pictures but there isn't much physics in visible spectrum?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 08 2021, @01:23PM
I think it was because they've beat the hell out of the visible spectrum and that there is a trove of new science in the IR, particularly in spectral windows that can't be seen from the ground.
You can still get a lot of very interesting and useful stuff in the visible beyond pretty pictures.