Contributions To The Large Area Telescope

摘要

In their letter "Omissions in glast story" (4 July, p. 37), G. F. Bignami et al. state that "The Large Area Telescope ... was essentially made and paid for by Italy, France, and Sweden" and that "Japan supplied most of the necessary silicon." As the Principal Investigator for the Large Area Telescope (LAT), the primary instrument on the GLAST Observatory (now renamed the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope), I know first-hand the importance of contributions to the LAT from universities, laboratories, and funding agencies in France, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the United States. In fact, the concept for LAT came from the United States, and the United States was the major contributor to its design and construction.