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Bruce Macintosh Profile picture
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4 Nov, 6 tweets, 2 min read
#astro2020 schedule reminder: the report text will be available at 11 AM eastern time, 8 AM pacific time. Followed by a live briefing by the committee chairs at 2 PM eastern / 11 AM pacific. nationalacademies.org/our-work/decad…
Much less excitingly, I'll do an overly-long-summary here on twitter.
I’m going to post several threads covering key points (especially the capital-R Recommendations) in the #astro2020 report from the @nasem. These are going to be long (I’m not good at concise) and remarkably sarcasm-free.
I’m speaking neither for the committee nor (mostly) for myself - my goal is not to express my personal opinions - the goal is to summarize the key points of the detailed and complete report.
I can respond to questions to clarify what various recommendations mean. The report itself is there to explain why we reached these decisions - beyond that, we can’t talk about deliberations, obviously.
(Starting after 8 and after I take the offspring to school)

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More from @bmac_astro

Bruce Macintosh Profile picture
4 Nov
Thread 4: Major NSF/ground recommendations to accomplish the #astro2020 vision:
The first ground recommendation is a US Extremely Large Telescope program with the US taking a share totaling 50% in the Thirty Meter and Giant Magellan Telescopes, targeting 25% of each
Final participation is contingent on a NSF review showing demonstrated viability of the projects, a final site selection for TMT, and a clear governance plan.
Read 13 tweets
Bruce Macintosh Profile picture
4 Nov
Thread 3: Major #astro2020 NASA recommendations.

1. An integrated Great Observatories Mission and Technology Maturation Program. Future missions are big. Before they can formally commence, the technology and mission architecture must be mature.
Mature enough that realistic costs and schedules and feasibility can be assessed. This proposed process ties technology to specific missions and architectures; evolving a mission as technology matures.
The first and highest priority mission is a 6-m (inscribed) IR/O/UV telescope capable of imaging earthlike worlds with broad astrophysics capabilities (especially in the UV) - see this thread
Read 8 tweets
Bruce Macintosh Profile picture
4 Nov
Thread 2: process. The report is work of 145 committee and panel members, plus 21 amazing @theNASEM staff (who I love unconditionally). Working with these people was a privilege.
The input of the community was critical, from the incredibly detailed Flagship mission studies to 867 white papers. Every white paper, every page of every study, was read by one ore more committee and panel members.
Six science panels reviewed the field and identified key questions in their areas. Informed by that, five program panels focused on different techniques (space OIR, etc). Program panels evaluated proposed missions and facilities against these science questions
Read 11 tweets
Bruce Macintosh Profile picture
4 Nov
First, I wanted to highlight with the major NASA recommendation of the Decadal Survey: a 6-m class telescope capable of imaging Earthlike worlds orbiting sunlike stars. @theNASEM #astro2020.
JWST, and the Extremely Large groundbased telescopes, can study potentially habitable planets huddled close to the coolest stars - a critical capability - but a world like our own Earth is beyond the reach of anything but a dedicated space telescope
The work of the whole community, distilled into the @luvoirtelescope and @nasahabex visions, makes it clear that this is possible. Uncertainties that existed in 2010 have been resolved - we know how to build such a telescope. We know how it would operate.
Read 15 tweets
Bruce Macintosh Profile picture
30 Nov 19
This is literally - and I do not use that word lightly - the most insanely wrong climate-change-denial thought I have ever read
Let’s do some Actual Math (tm). The nearest star is about 4.4 light years, or 1.3 parsecs, away. That’s (rounding a little) about 280,000 times further from Earth than the sun.
(Technically it’s a triple star, but one of them is small and the other is megatiny so we will just count the sunlike one, Alpha Centauri A)
Read 19 tweets
Bruce Macintosh Profile picture
14 Nov 19
2019: #proximab wins the #exocup, generating a surge of scientific and popular interest and funding
2023: Thermal imaging cameras determine that the planet is present
2027: ELT spectroscopy confirms that it is habitable
2030: Breakthrough foundation launches lasersail probes
2036: A fleet of femtosatellites sweeps through the Proxima system at 25% of the speed of light, swarming through a system inhabited by a peaceful, advanced civilization
2037: The terrified Proximans plan their revenge.
2045: Proximans lanuch retaliatory Von Neuman Probe
2070: Proximan robot planet-killers began dismantling our solar system
Read 5 tweets

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