Science - USA (2020-01-17)

sciencemag.org SCIENCE

PHOTO: LSST PROJECT/NSF/AURA

NEWS | IN BRIEF

week into such collaborations by scientists

at any research institution receiving state

funding, making Florida the first state

to raise the same type of questions that

federal research agencies have been asking

their grantees. Moffitt officials say the fired

scientists had secretly accepted money for

participating in Chinese talent recruitment

programs. Although Moffitt says it found

no evidence that the collaborations led to

the illicit transfer of intellectual property,

state Representative Chris Sprowls (R),

who is leading the probe, worries “the

intent is clearly there.”

U.S. eyes nixing climate analysis

REGULATION | Under a major change to

environmental policy proposed last week

by the Trump administration, U.S. federal

agencies reviewing proposed pipelines

and other large construction projects

would not have to consider their impact

on climate. The National Environmental

Policy Act (NEPA), enacted in 1970,

requires officials to evaluate the potential

environmental damage, such as water

pollution or harm to endangered species,

from activities that require government

permits. In 2016, then-President Barack

Obama’s administration added climate

change to the list of impacts, includ-

ing the effects on climate of emissions

stemming from development of oil, gas,

and coal reserves. The policy change is

intended to speed up the NEPA reviews

and limit them to 2 years. Public com-

ments are due by 10 March.

ASTRONOMY

A telescope with three names

A

U.S.-funded telescope in Chile that will scan the entire sky every 3 days for

sudden changes has experienced a sudden change of its own—acquiring three

new names. The $1.4 billion Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), as it has

been known since the National Science Foundation (NSF) approved it in 2012,

is to begin operations in 2022. Such facilities are often renamed on completion,

and NSF polled the project team for ideas. Many wanted to name it after Vera Rubin,

the pioneering astronomer who first identified the effects of dark matter and who

died in 2016. Some wanted to retain the name LSST. Then, Congress passed a law last

month naming it the Vera Rubin Survey Telescope, but NSF also wanted to mark the

$20 million that philanthropist Charles Simonyi gave the project early on to start work

on its unique 8.4-meter, wide-viewing mirror. So—take a deep breath—the project’s

initial 10-year mapping mission is now called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time,

and it will be carried out by the Charles Simonyi Survey Telescope at the NSF Vera C.

Rubin Observatory. The announcement, made last week at the annual meeting of the

American Astronomical Society in Honolulu, marks the first time a national observa-

tory has been named after a woman.

SCIENCEMAG.ORG/NEWS

Read more news from Science online.

THREE QS

Science boosts sci-fi

The fourth season of The Expanse, a
hard-boiled TV space drama known for
its real-world space physics, debuted
last month. Executive Producer Naren
Shankar chatted with Science about
using his doctorate in applied physics
and electrical engineering to help
get the science right. (A longer version
of this interview is available at
https://scim.ag/TheExpanse.)

Q: What did your science education
bring to your TV work?
A: One of the most valuable things I
took away from school is peer review.
You write a paper, sit down with your
colleagues, and then you pare it down.
That is really the process of writing a
script. I did a lot of science f ction in the
early stage of my career, and then cop
and crime shows. CSI—I ran that show
for many years. It had a lot of scientif c
method in it. The idea of the logical
path to do a criminal investigation,
evaluating evidence.

Q: What’s realistic about the physics
of spacecraft in the show?
A: The fact that you don’t have weight
unless your ship is accelerating, the
fact that communication in space is not
instantaneous. We use that for drama.
At the end of one episode, missiles
are heading of to hit Mars. In the very
next episode, people on Earth are
realizing that [the missiles struck], like,
25 minutes ago. You see conservation
of momentum, conservation of angular
momentum: all the things that would
actually occur in space. You don’t see
control surfaces and aerodynamic f ight,
because they’re all moving in a vacuum.
You see realistic objects changing
orientation with thrusters. Personally,
I’m quite tired of seeing spaceships f y
around like f ghter planes in the Pacif c
in World War II.

Q: Does the show’s realistic science
fire up the physicist in you?
A: It’s actually one of the things that
attracted me to the project. It embraced
all of the things that most science
f ction shows run away from. It requires
appreciation of the reality of what’s going
on. And so it’s a fairly high bar, I think.
But it’s certainly not inaccessible.

232 17 JANUARY 2020 • VOL 367 ISSUE 6475

A massive assembly will hold the telescope’s 8.4-meter-wide mirror.

Published by AAAS