Greater Observatories: Will Applied Astronomy Save the Field? | Martin Elvis (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics – US)

Astronomy is in a Golden Age. Ambitious surveys such as COSMOS are possible only because we have three Great Observatories operating at once – Chandra, Hubble and Spitzer – spanning the electromagnetic spectrum. COSMOS-Legacy illustrates how tightly connected these bands are. But Golden Ages are short, or they wouldn’t be golden. Our Golden Age may end because our telescopes grow exponentially in cost and have reached the point where the next step is unaffordable. In the age of JWST, will we have to wait a decade or more to have complementary X-ray observations? I discuss 3 responses to this looming crisis (other than giving up!). The third response is generational in timescale but offers open-ended growth: the harnessing of space resources. Astronomers can help this era come about by re-starting “Applied Astronomy”. Then we will be able to surpass COSMOS-Legacy.