xiii
The second program – a CMB version – had three successful flights: two in the
north hemisphere covering the northern sky and only one in the south where the
payload was lost in the jungles of Brazil for nearly a year and suffered severe
damage.
A next generation CMB program had multiple flights with first generation, and
then a second generation with more resolution and pixels. So we not only got to
develop the instrumentation, techniques and software, but we also were getting
cutting edge scientific results.
Dr. John M. Grunsfeld
Astronaut and former NASA Chief Scientist
As an undergraduate physics major at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
I was captivated by the study of cosmology, black holes, and neutron stars – the
physics of the universe. After working on a theory project with Professors Ken
Brecher and Philip Morrison it was time to decide on a thesis project. Professor
Morrison advised that if I wanted to be a theorist, I should do an experiment in
order to understand the issues with making a real measurement and how crucial
experimental physics is to unravelling the mysteries of the universe. I joined a
group at MIT that was building a small experiment for a high-altitude balloon to
observe a highly magnetic neutron star orbiting an ordinary star, called an X-ray
pulsar. This sounded exciting, but at the time I had no idea how it would change
my life. My job was to prepare the sensitive detectors at the heart of the little
Foreword