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NASA Gives Up on LISA

blogs.discovermagazine.com

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Re: NASA Gives Up on LISA

#2

Post by juiceandjuice »

This has been feared for a while in that community. There's quite a bit of animosity towards the JWST for soaking up NASA's budget in recent history, and JWST is trying to do some serious damage control because they're too far along and too big to fail. I saw John Mather (Nobel prize winner) give a talk recently that was basically "Look how far we are, and we're sorry for soaking up the budget."

Re: NASA Gives Up on LISA

#3

Post by ars »

That's too bad. Gravity waves are one of the last unknowns in science that we also know how to study. (Most other unknowns we don't know how to study.)

I've always wondered, we have rich foundations doing all kinds of good - do any of them try to step in and fill budgets of this sort?

Re: NASA Gives Up on LISA

#4

Post by hugh3 »

ars wrote: post #3

That's too bad. Gravity waves are one of the last unknowns in science that we also know how to study. (Most other unknowns we don't know how to study.) I've always wondered, we have rich foundations doing all kinds of good - do any of them try to step in and fill budgets of this sort?

Well, we've still got LIGO carefully looking for gravity waves. So far we haven't detected any. Maybe it'd be a good idea to make one hundred percent sure that they actually exist (or else that they're definitely below the limits of LIGO) before building another expensive instrument.

There's no real hurry. Gravity waves will still be there in twenty years time if we feel like building LISA.

Re: NASA Gives Up on LISA

#5

Post by mturmon »

juiceandjuice wrote: post #2

This has been feared for a while in that community. There's quite a bit of animosity towards the JWST for soaking up NASA's budget in recent history, and JWST is trying to do some serious damage control because they're too far along and too big to fail. I saw John Mather (Nobel prize winner) give a talk recently that was basically "Look how far we are, and we're sorry for soaking up the budget."

More on the JWST overrun:

http://www.spacenews.com/civil/101112-jwst-cost-imperils-pri...

Re: NASA Gives Up on LISA

#6

Post by archgoon »

hugh3 wrote: post #4
ars wrote: post #3

That's too bad. Gravity waves are one of the last unknowns in science that we also know how to study. (Most other unknowns we don't know how to study.) I've always wondered, we have rich foundations doing all kinds of good - do any of them try to step in and fill budgets of this sort?

Well, we've still got LIGO carefully looking for gravity waves. So far we haven't detected any. Maybe it'd be a good idea to make one hundred percent sure that they actually exist (or else that they're definitely below the limits of LIGO) before building another expensive instrument. There's no real hurry. Gravity waves will still be there in twenty years time if we feel like building LISA.

>Maybe it'd be a good idea to make one hundred percent sure that they actually exist (or else that they're definitely below the limits of LIGO) before building another expensive instrument.

Hmm. I'm not too familiar with that research area. Isn't the point of detectors like LIGO is that we don't know how big they are typically?

How do we make one hundred percent sure that gravity waves exist? What do you propose as a way that would convince ourselves that they do (or don't), and how do we estimate their size? Has the research community done this already?

Re: NASA Gives Up on LISA

#10

Post by juiceandjuice »

archgoon wrote: post #6
hugh3 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we've still got LIGO carefully looking for gravity waves. So far we haven't detected any. Maybe it'd be a good idea to make one hundred percent sure that they actually exist (or else that they're definitely below the limits of LIGO) before building another expensive instrument. There's no real hurry. Gravity waves will still be there in twenty years time if we feel like building LISA.

>Maybe it'd be a good idea to make one hundred percent sure that they actually exist (or else that they're definitely below the limits of LIGO) before building another expensive instrument. Hmm. I'm not too familiar with that research area. Isn't the point of detectors like LIGO is that we don't know how big they are typically? How do we make one hundred percent sure that gravity waves exist? What do you propose as a…

experiment -> theory

rinse, repeat.

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