1. catdynamics
  2. HEAD impressions

HEAD impressions

By catdynamics on October 11, 2006.

Had fun attending HEAD in San Fran last week.
Came away with some impressions...

GLAST is really on an upswing.
Spacecraft is delivered, launch scheduled, first science meeting planned (before launch?!), and there was a lot of vibe about the prospects.

Suzaku has some interesting results. I was too slow to pick up the CD-ROM of the early data release, ah well, next meeting.

Con-X rescoping concept is formalized. Cuts quite a but of capability, especially at the higher end of the energy range, for relatively modest cost savings. Of course delays and stretching eat cost savings faster than you can make them as always.

Interesting statistic: 4000 distinct investigators have applied for Chandra time, with 2000 successful.
Not all of those will be actual high energy people, but this is a reasonable estimate of the scientific "constituency" for high energy astrophysics.

Roger laid down a serious smackdown on theory - too much phenomenology and model fitting, not enough consideration of basic unifying physical principles. Makes sense, before data, playing with physics was fine. Once there was data, most rapid progress is made through model fitting. Now there is LOTs of data, and it is time to step back and think of the big picture. Good talk.

Tags
astro

More like this

"Before his Throne a Trump is blown"
Thus one and all, thus great and small, the Rich as well as Poor, And those of place, as the most base, do stand the Judge before. They are arraign'd, and there detain'd before Griffin's Judgement seat With trembling fear their Doom to hear, and feel his Anger's heat. with apologies to…
NASA: wiping the slate clean
IXO and LISA are dead and disbanded as NASA missions. We are looking at a very thin pipeline and few new missions for a while, unless there is drastic new direction from above and strong guidance on funding. NASA is a mission oriented agency. This is especially true of Astrophysics. At any given…
NASA: double down on Science
I heard it from a man who, heard it from a man who, heard it from another... ok, it was an e-mail, but it confirmed the strange tale I had been told. NASA is about to do a Mad Max on its Science Missions. Five missions enter, one mission leaves. Literally. NASA has many houses. Within one is the…
Beyond Beyond Einstein
Ok, I read the BEPAC full report, all 201 pages. Interesting stuff, lots to glean from it. First, Con-X community letter on Exploding Galaxies and other Catastrophysics, with some interesting comments from Prof Superwinds. NASA HQ has still not responded to the BEPAC report. Way back when, my…

Slept through Roger's talk, I'm afraid --- was tasting wine the night before over in Berkeley ;) Heard it was very good from lots of people.

In the final session, I was quite impressed with the cosmic ray observatories. I haven't been following them too carefully recently, but it seems I should.

Fun meeting your kids, too --- the littlest munchkin looks like a handful! Keeping up with him seems challenging ....