A canister, containing AMS being loaded onto the space shuttle Endeavour. Photo from NASA.
I had a plan for this first post, but unfortunately, like so much in life, it didn’t work out quite as I hoped. The plan went like this: On April 19th the space shuttle Endeavour was set to launch from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. Having recently relocated to Louisiana from the UK, I found myself within “easy” travelling distance of a launch for the first time ever. So like any good, space-obsessed 26-year-old, I immediately set plans in action to journey across the US and set up camp on the beach to watch this once-in–a-lifetime event.
Endeavour was set to transport the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer 2 (AMS-02) to the International Space Station. AMS is a nifty little particle physics detector (little in the context of LHC-style detectors) designed to study the content of cosmic rays for evidence of dark matter and anti-helium. This provided the perfect tie–in between a trip to see the big rockets and my day-to-day work on ATLAS.
Even more so as I spent my PhD years helping design search strategies for neutralinos. Which are the hypothesised partner particles to the Standard Model gauge bosons, the force-carrying particles, proposed by a particularly popular extension to the Standard Model, Supersymmetry. And they represent a prime dark matter candidate.
Unfortunately though, this plan came crashing down when NASA postponed the launch date of the shuttle by 10 days, putting it right in the middle of a conference I’m scheduled to attend and hence scuppering both my travel and blog plans.
This set me thinking about delays and how delays to big experiments have a defining role in so many careers. The biggest and most public delay of recent years was the postponing of the LHC physics programme following the quenching incident of ’08. I was present at CERN at the time and remember well the sense of disappointment that surrounded this. Of course, it was quickly replaced with a cheery optimism as everyone settled in for another year with our treasured simulations and the always-relished chance to polish our respective code bases. I was lucky enough to be studying at a UK university at the time, so I was able to continue my studies — and complete the vast bulk of my thesis — using only these simulations and very little real data.
A lot of my US contemporaries were not so lucky. They needed data in order to be able to graduate. This led to a lost generation of students who had to either switch experiments or ride out the new LHC schedule and wait for the data. A lot of these students are still around today, all putting the finishing touches to their theses, and generally being massively over qualified for the post-doctoral positions they are only now applying for.
All of which goes to show that planning your life around science doesn’t always turn out the way you expected.
Ack, sorry to hear about the bad luck with the delay. (At least it’s still going up!) Also: welcome to the blog! -Flip
Could be worse. I flew down from Washington to see it last week (29th April launch date). It was my 9th attempt to try and see a shuttle launch. And it ended in failure.