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First Cosmological Results From MAP

Posted by michael on from the profoundest-act-of-worship dept.

riptalon writes "The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, a NASA Explorer mission has announced the first results based on a year of observations from the L2 Lagrangian point. MAP carries two back-to-back microwave telescopes to study variations in the cosmic microwave background, to much greater accuracy than the COBE satellite. The excruciating details of the results on the age, geometry and composition of the universe can be found in this paper. Executive summary: 13.7 billion years old, flat, 4.4% baryons, 22% dark matter and 73% dark energy."

2 of 291 comments (clear)

  1. correction by zaqattack911 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    13.7 billion years old, flat, 4.4% baryons,
    95% We don't know.

  2. Cheap Science vs. Expensive Pork by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Insightful
    From the launch press release

    "MAP, an Explorer mission, cost about $145 million."

    If I understand correctly...

    Measuring the age of universe, calculating initial proportions of baryonic matter vs. energy, and deriving shape of universe: $145M.

    Shuttle flight to install ISS module: $500M.

    Shuttle flight to watch ants float in zero-G: 7 deaths, $500M for launch, $2.0B for new shuttle.

    Your Congressional District's seat at the trough of Shuttle/ISS pork: "Priceless."

    Now that I've bashed, some constructive criticism - cut NASA in half.

    One half - NAA - I'll call the National Aeronautics Administration. Its job will be pure Aeronautics. Launch vehicles. Rockets. Engines. From pricy Shuttles to half-decent Shuttle-C heavy-lift modifications, to cheap expendables, to funky crewed vehicles like X-33, VentureStar, or DC-X.

    The other half - N(whoops!) let's call it the NSSA - National Space Science Administration - will do science. Build probes. Stick 'em on rockets built by the NAA, or LockMart, Boeing, or Armadillo, and do some frickin' science.

    Under such a scenario, we could have avoided the Shuttle/ISS debacle completely; NAA might have had concerns about losing funding once the last Shuttle was built, and probably would have had a significant incentive to keep asking Congress for funding to build newer, better, cheaper-per-pound launch vehicles.

    Why? Because they'd be under competitive pressure from every other contractor under the sun building launch vehicles to launch NSSA's space probes. Perhaps NSSA would have come to the same mistake NASA did - and decided that we Really Needed a Space Station - but even if that were the case, the design requirements of ISS would have immediately mandated a heavy lift vehicle, wholly unlike the Shuttle.

    In such a scenario, NSSA would have had the choice between building ISS with three FooCorp Big Dumb Booster flights, or 30-40 NAA Shuttle flights.

    Unlike the current NASA monolith, in which both halves exist to feed each other, a separate NSSA would have been loathe to spend its hard-begged budgetbucks to use another government department's (i.e. "NAA's") Shuttle, particularly in the face of cheaper alternatives. (And likewise, NAA, seeing that it had no Shuttle customers, would have been forced to spend its hard-begged budgetbucks building the Shuttle's successor, or find itself on the Congressional chopping block.)