Who pays United States space and space missions — our team looking in empty spaces, looking for celestial answers? Well, we all do that, through taxes, which the government decides how it will distribute through the annual budget.
But how does NASA think of spending the money it has been given – about $ 23 billion in 2021? In its field of space and space science, the agency, as well as astronomers in the US, draws their attention from the Ancient Astronomy and Astronomy Research. Every decade since the 1960’s, hundreds of professional groups, led by a steering committee organized by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, have released these major reports aimed at promoting exploration and exploration for the next decade and beyond. .
This year’s survey — called “Diagnostic Methods in Astronomy and Astrophysics of 2020s”—Was released today. It is simply called “Astro2020”, although it was released in late 2021. It was supposed to happen last year, but the Covid-19 plague brought about a dramatic delay in an already difficult time for about 150 scientists who made its 13 panels. such as cosmology, galaxies, astronomy, particle physics, and the nature of the work. To complete the survey, he compiled about 900 white papers submitted by researchers around the world, and completed hundreds of hours of Zoom sessions.
“It’s much harder to end up at Zoom than face-to-face,” said Rachel Osten, an astronomer at Space Telescope Science Institute, a researcher at Johns Hopkins, and a member of the Astro2020 Steering Committee. “So we had to figure out how to use what we had.”
Those Zoom meetings led to the future of science alone. “Their decision has a profound effect on scientists,” says Paul Goldsmith, director of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Laboratory. Ten-year research often calls for larger and medium-sized missions on some budgets; it also highlights important aspects of scientific research for the next decade, urging researchers to pursue opportunities and work. Services are paid — or not — depending on the content of the study.
The current 500-page report highlights three areas of science: Exploring habitat exoplanets, exploring the origin of the universe, and studying space to understand the evolution of galaxies. In these areas, a number of missions are needed, including the development of large infrared / optical / ultraviolet telescopes, financing for infrared and x-rays, further development of land-based celestial objects, a stable fixed drum “probe ”-Class missions, as well as increased financial growth.
It also promotes change in the way big ideas are used to achieve them, creating a multi-billion dollar program that can guide their ideas from an early age to ensure timely and budgeted delivery. Giving an idea of the evolution of everything, rather than just choosing a high-end project or two, “is a game changer based on a ten-year research process,” says Osten. “They usually choose one project that is successful, and everyone can go home.”
New Big Mission Pistol
Research of the 1960s and 90s laid the foundation for NASA’s “Great Observatories” – the Hubble Space Telescope, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope. Over the years, they have sent us images and seas of knowledge from deep-seated black holes, exoplanets, and more.
These projects, while important, are also known for being late and over budgeting. (For example, see James Webb Space Telescope, which will lead to this collapse after being included in a decade-long study since early 2000.) “Ten years is not the right time to think about major visionary projects,” says Osten. It didn’t take long for you to see the space work from concept to design; thus, it is also impossible to compare their actual value to the original.