Our Future in Space

Experts at the National Research Council (NRC) yesterday released their report on the future of space exploration and astronomy. The document, which is published once every 10 years, holds some interesting proposals for how humankind should carry on with its studies of the Universe.
 Experts in the international astronomical community have been waiting eagerly for the new document, which indeed proposes a series of bold plans and instruments for space exploration.
 The report is called “New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics,” and it represents one of the main references that are usually cited by governments when deciding on new space plans. 
 The paper looks at the largest projects being proposed in the international scientific community, and analyzes the risks, readiness and costs they entail.

Highlights

Above all, the report indicates two of the projects that the NRC considered to be top priorities.  
The first is the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), an instrument which is currently estimated to cost around $1.6 billion dollars to building
The second one is the LSST (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope), which would take about $465 million to construct, Wired reports.

“The community, both scientific and the American public, has come together around this notion of surveying the Universe in a complete way,” says the director of the LSST, Tony Tyson.

“I don't think there were losers. I think the entire community really won, and won big time,” says Columbia University astrophysicist Michael Shara, quoted by Space.