Will space-based astronomy give value for money?

摘要

Astronomers and space agencies are planning missions that will not be launched for twenty years. Before that, spacecraft will have opened up more regions of the electromagnetic spectrum to space-based observation. Astronomers' practices will have to adapt to tight budgets if they are to get the best return on investment. INTRODUCING the National Research Council's "decadal" list of priorities for US astronomy and astrophysics in 1991, John Bahcall of the Institute for Advanced Studies added a caveat:"Everyone will be deliriously happy and astonished if we get everything we wanted." Five years later, not only has the plan not unravelled completely, like so many other wish-lists in science, but its agenda for space-based astronomy remains remarkablyon track.