Astronomy and technology
In a session devoted to astronomy as a tool for development and technologies, Laurent Vigroux from the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, France, considered the relation between astronomy and technology. Astronomy, he said, has now become a big science, using big machines, requiring big budgets and a big organisation. And as all big sciences, astronomy has developed complex relationship with the industry for their mutual benefits. Astronomical observatories require many industrial contracts for construction and operations, such as site infrastructure (road, buildings, power supply, …), mechanical structures of telescopes and domes, mirror manufacturing and polishing, and control equipments and software, while some developments require more specialised companies (cryogenic systems, space instrumentation, and high accuracy metrology system). Usually, these activities require a collaborative effort between astronomers and industry or can be performed by industry alone after a first step of technology transfer. On the other hand, for the most challenging parts, for example very low noise electronics or very low temperature experiments, the developments remain inside laboratories with strong technical groups.
Laurent Vigroux showed that the annual budget for European astronomy is about 2 billion euros (half of which allocated to national scientific staff and laboratories) of which a quarter, or 500 million euros, returns to the industry. This is comparable to the price of about two Airbus A-380.
He then gave two examples of how project are managed. For the soon-to-be-launched Herschel/Planck satellite, ESA responsibilities cover the mission, the launch, the flight and the operations, while the industry is responsible for hardware and integration, and astronomical institutes take care of the instruments. For the future European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), the splitting is similar: ESO is in charge of the overall project management, the system design, the integration and operations, the industry is responsible for most of the hardware subsystems (building, mechanical structure, mirrors, dome, …), and the astronomical European institutes deal with the instruments and the adaptive optics.
Vigroux also stated that even if the main justification for astronomy is the increase of humankind knowledge, one should not forget that astronomy has a large return for public life and for industry. He quoted several examples of transfer of new technologies and development of new industrial capabilities.
One example are the imaging scheme and data processing software developed by radio-astronomers for their interferometers which are at the base of all the tomography imaging techniques, in particular in medical imaging. Artificial laser guide star, which have become a common feature on all major optical telescopes, have now application in ophthalmology. Similarly, the drastic requirements of astronomers on CCD detectors, have led to an improvement of the manufacturing process, making it possible to make very small pixels, used nowadays on most numerical cameras.
This is an account of one of the topics presented at the Symposium 260 of the International Astronomical Union, which was held at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. Its theme: The Rôle of Astronomy in Society and Culture. You can read more posts on this symposium.
Tags: society, technology