Almost 20 years after I first wrote about the United Nations and European Space Agency workshops on space science (Physics Today, July 1996, page 90), I feel obliged to provide an update on the continuing initiative, which seems to be unique and is raising interesting and uncommon questions. The United Nations Basic Space Science Initiative (BSSI) is a long-term effort to develop astronomy and space science through regional and international cooperation, particularly in developing nations. In addition to the UN and ESA, NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency have also cosponsored workshops.
The idea for the BSSI was first discussed in 1986 in New York. Among the participants in that discussion were I. I. Rabi and Dorothy Michelson Livingston.
From 1991 to 2004, the workshops on basic space science addressed the status of astronomy in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. As a result of those workshops and with leadership from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, telescope facilities were inaugurated in 7 developing nations and planetariums were established in 20, with equipment donated by Japan.
Beginning in 2005, workshops focused on preparations for and follow-ups to the International Heliophysical Year 2007. The IHY’s legacy includes the current operation of 16 instrument arrays, with more than 1000 instruments recording data on solar–terrestrial interactions that range from coronal mass ejections to variations of the total electron content in the ionosphere. Organizations in Armenia, Brazil, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Switzerland, and the US are providing instruments to the host institutions.
Starting in 2010 the workshops have addressed the International Space Weather Initiative (http://iswi-secretariat.org). Attendees reviewed the scientific results from the instrument arrays and discussed ways and means to continue space-weather research and education.
A full BSSI report, presented to UN member states in June 2013, is available at http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/pdf/limited/l/AC105_2013_CRP11E.pdf.
Peter Gruss, former president of the Max Planck Society, recently noted that “each new field [of research] must be sustainable for 20 to 25 years.” He also wrote, “How good research is in any given country is dependent on the talent of its researchers and the genius of the best of them.” The initiative is now 25 years old, involves all nations, and has enjoyed the freedom and the mandate to address particularly innovative topics.
The BSSI is now preparing to reevaluate the research results of the whole initiative. I invite readers of Physics Today to send me their ideas for specific criteria for such a reevaluation process.
