NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) 19910023703: Working Papers: Astronomy and Astrophysics Panel Reports

356 Pages·27.3 MB·English

by  NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

_¢I-33017
--THRU--
N91-33031
unclas
0020072

WORKING PAPERS
Astronomy and Astrophysics Panel Reports
ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS SURVEY COMMITTEE
BOARD ON PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY
COMMISSION ON PHYSICAL SCIENCES, MATHEMATICS, AND APPLICATIONS
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS
Washington, D.C. 1991
NOTICE: The project that isthe subject of this report was approved bythe Governing Board of the National
Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the
National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished
scholars engaged inscientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology
and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the chartergranted to it by the Congress in
1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical
matters. Dr. Frank Press is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy
of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and
in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising
the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed
at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of
engineers. Dr. Robert M. White is president of the National Academy of Engineering.
The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the
services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the
health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences
by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify
issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Samuel O. Thier ispresident of the Institute of Medicine.
The National Research Council was established by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate
the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of furthering knowledge and of
advising the federal government. Functioning inaccordance with general policies determined bythe Academy,
the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the
National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and
engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of
Medicine. Dr. Frank Press and Dr. Robert M. White are chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the
National Research Council.
This project was supported by the Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-FG05-89ER40421, the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation under Grant No. AST-
8901685, the Naval Research Laboratory under Contract No. N00173-90-M-9744, and the Smithsonian
Institution under Purchase Order No. SF0022430000.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 90-63608
International Standard Book Number 0-309-04383-2
Cover: Near-infrared image of the Milky Way. A new view of the Milky Way Galaxy obtained on April 17,
1990, by the Diffuse Infrared Background Explorer (DIRBE) on NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer
(COBE) satellite. Courtesy of the COBE Science Working Group and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Additional copies of this document are available from:
National Academy Press
2101 Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20418
$242
Printed in the United States of America
ASTRONOMAYNDASTROPIIYSICS SURVEY COMMITI'EE
JOHN N. BAHCALL, Institute for Advanced Study, Chair _/ _ [ °
CHARLES A. BEICHMAN, Institute for Advanced Study, Executive Secretary .....
CLAUDE CANIZARES, Massachusetts Institute of Technology __ IL__l"_d0 _0 _"
JAMES CRONIN, University of Chicago -- (_Q_ /_ b-_ 7 b{d
DAVID HEESCHEN, National Radio Astronomy Obseivatory _ b0 _( _"-} t_
JAMES HOUCK, Cornell University C. _ _'t _9_
DONALD HUNTEN, University of Arizona _ _ _b'_9-(_'3
CHRISTOPHER F. McKEE, University of California, Berkeley -- C_C.-7 q"7"7 _"7 .
ROBERT NOYES, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics _/._ & _5q_'/¢ i"_"L-/"1
JEREMIAH P. OSTRIKER, Princeton University Observatory _ i9 .'5_"- ,.-,__¢Z 1
WILLIAM PRESS, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics __r ..)_/--" SL_O_J2IL__-)
WALLACE L.W. SARGENT, California Institute of Technology -_ 6 _-_0q 7
BLAIR SAVAGE, University of Wisconsin
ROBERT W. WILSON, AT&T Bell Laboratories
SIDNEY WOLFF, National Optical Astronomy Observatories
National Research Council Staff
Robert L. Riemer, Senior Program Officer
Susan M. Wyatt, Administrative Associate
Board on Physics and Astronomy
William Spindel, Principal Staff Officer (1989)
Sandra Nolte, Administrative Assistant (1989-1990)
Phoebe Wechsler, Administrative Assistant (1989-1990)
Institute for Advanced Study
iii
BOARD ON PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY
FRANK D. DRAKE, University of California, Santa Cruz, Chair
LLOYD ARMSTRONG, Johns Hopkins University
W. DAVID ARNETT, University of Arizona
HOWARD C. BERG, Harvard University
RICHARD S. BERRY, University of Chicago
WILLIAM F. BRINKMAN, AT&T Bell Laboratories
GEORGE W. CLARK, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
HAROLD P. FURTH, Princeton University
MARTHA P. HAYNES, Cornell University
CHARLES F. KENNEL, University of California, Los Angeles
WALTER KOHN, University of California, San Diego
STEVEN E. KOONIN, California Institute of Technology
LEON LEDERMAN, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
VERA RUBIN, Carnegie Institution of Washington
DAVID N. SCHRAMM, University of Chicago
DANIEL TSUI, Princeton University
STEVEN WEINBERG, University of Texas
Donald C. Shapero, Staff Director
Robert L Riemer, Associate Staff Director
Ronald D. Taylor, Program Officer
Susan M. Wyatt, Administrative Associate
Mary Riendeau, Senior Secretary
Anne K. Simmons, Secretary
iv
COMMISSION ON PHYSICAL SCIENCES, MATHEMATICS, AND APPLICATIONS
NORMAN HACKERMAN, Robert A. Welch Foundation, Chairman
PETER J. BICKEL, University of California, Berkeley
GEORGE F. CARRIER, Harvard University
HERBERT D. DOAN, The Dow Chemical Company (retired)
DEAN E. EASTMAN, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
MARYE ANNE FOX, University of Texas
PHILLIP A. GRIFFITHS, Duke University
NEAL F. LANE, Rice University
ROBERT W. LUCKY, AT&T Bell Laboratories
CHRISTOPHER F. McKEE, University of California, Berkeley
RICHARD S. NICHOLSON, American Association for the Advancement of Science
JEREMIAH P. OSTRIKER, Princeton University Observatory
ALAN SCHRIESHEIM, Argonne National Laboratory
ROY F. SCHWlTYERS, Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory
KENNETH G. WILSON, Ohio State University
NORMAN METZGER, Executive Director

Preface
This volume contains the working papers of the panels appointed by the Astronomy and Astrophysics
Survey Committee. These papers were advisory to the survey committee and represent the opinions of the
members of each panel in the context of their individual charges. They have not been edited by the survey
committee, nor have they been edited or reviewed by the National Research Council.
The committee's full survey report iscontained in a separately published document, The Decade of
Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics (National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1991), issued
simultaneously with this volume of the panels' working papers.
Selected by the committee, the chairs of the panels in turn helped the committee to select a broad and
representative group of experts to advise in 15areas of concern. The chairs were responsible, together
with their panel members, for obtaining the views of a wide cross-section of the astronomy and astrophys-
ics community and for preparing a paper on their discussions and findings. A member of the survey
committee served as a vice-chair of each panel. In some cases, the panel chairs selected a core group to
assume primary responsibility for writing the panel's paper; members of such core groups are designated by
an asterisk in the list of panel members that precedes each paper.
The panel chairs presented their papers in oral and written form at the June and July 1990 meetings
of the survey committee and were invited to participate with the committee in the initial attempts to
generate a cohesive set of overall recommendations. The views of the participants were modified by the
discussions that took place between the different advocates and experts. The committee based its final
decisions and recommendations in significant part on the contents of the panel papers and on the discus-
sions with the panel chairs.
Ten panels had charges that reflected specific scientific areas, eight of them based on wavelength
region and two (those of the Planetary Astronomy Panel and Solar Astronomy Panel) on particular
subdisciplines with special needs. The committee asked these ten science panels to identify the most
important scientific goals in their respective areas, to prioritize the new initiatives needed to achieve these
goals, to recommend proposals for technology development, to consider the possibilities for international
collaboration, and to discuss any policy issues relevant to their charge. The Astronomy and Astrophysics
Survey Committee served as an interdisciplinary panel to guarantee that scientific questions that did not fit
conveniently into this organizational structure were handled appropriately on an ad hoc basis.
Four other panels were appointed to explore computing and data processing, policy opportunities, the
benefits of astronomy to the nation, and the status of the profession. The working papers written on the
first three topics were used by the committee as a basis for developing the chapters with corresponding
subject matter (Chapters 5, 7, and 8, respectively) in the survey report. Data from the working paper titled
"Status of the Profession" were used in preparing various chapters and Appendix B of the survey report
and by other panels in preparing their papers. The Science Opportunities Panel, the fifteenth panel
appointed by the committee, prepared a paper that the committee believed should be expanded and
published separately as a popular book accessible to as large an audience as possible. An abbreviated and
adapted version of this panel's paper appears as Chapter 2 of the survey report.
Members of the panels consulted widely with their colleagues to solicit advice and to inform other
members of the astronomical community of the main issues facing the committee. Each panel held an
vii
PRECEDii'._G PAGE BLA;_K NOT FILMED
open meeting at a session of the American Astronomical Society, and most of the panels held sessions at
other professional gatherings, as well as at astronomical centers at different places in the United States.
Each panel discussed with the relevant federal agency personnel the problems and issues of its particular
area. These interactions with agency personnel provided valuable background to the discussions, although
the panels were careful to preserve the independence and confidentiality of the National Research Council
deliberative process.
The Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee believes that the material in the panel papers is
of general interest and may be of special use to students and research scientists in astronomy and
astrophysics, as well as to university and governmental administrators.
John Bahcall
Chair
Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee
viii