WFIRST

In which NASA gets presented with two Hubble class wide field space telescopes... Oh my. So some of the mysterious maneuverings at NASA's Astrophysics division can now be better understood. The National Reconnaissance Office was sitting on a couple of spare space telescopes they are willing to transfer to NASA. These are presumably late block Keyhole reconnaissance satellite spares, maybe even the two extras orders a few years ago at the end of the program. So, state of the art as of 10-20 years ago. We are looking at two partial telescopes, with a Hubble size primary mirror, 2.4m, but…

So all good things must come to an end, and the 3000 or so astronomers disperse from SEA-TAC to destinations worldwide. It was a good meeting, though light on major announcements. I have a backlog of press releases that I may or may not get round to picking over. Some nice pretty pics in there. Think I did ok for myself, we'll see how it goes. As we were wrapping up and heading for the last couple of exoplanet sessions, John (no not that John, the other John) pointed out a couple of poignant remnants Wery Silli The large astrophysics missions were doing Silli Band swag: a LISA constellation…