The ALMA Telescope: The Story of a Science Mega-Project

ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, situated high in the Chilean desert, is the largest ground-based telescope on Earth. This is an insiders' account of how this complex mega-project came to fruition from authors with intimate knowledge of its past and present. The separate roots of ALMA in the United States, Europe, and Japan are traced to their merger into an international partnership involving more than 20 countries. The book relates the search for a suitable telescope site, challenges encountered in organization, funding, and construction, and lessons learned along the way. It closes with a review of the most significant results from ALMA, now one of the most productive telescopes in the world. Written for a broad spectrum of readers, including astronomers, engineers, project managers, science historians, government officials, and the general public, the eBook edition is available to download as an Open Access publication on Cambridge Core.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Anneila Sargent; Preface; 1. Interstellar Carbon Monoxide; 2. What Now?; 3. The Millimeter Array; 4. Searching for a Site; 5. Foreign Affairs; 6. Organizing ALMA; 7. Contentious Matters; 8. Funding ALMA; 9. Construction and Inauguration; 10. Promises Fulfilled; Appendix A. Radioastronomy; Appendix B. Millimeter/Submillimeter Telescopes; Appendix C. Lessons Learned; Bibliography; Glossary; Index.

About the Author :
Paul A. Vanden Bout is a Senior Scientist, Emeritus, at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), where he served as director from 1985 to 2002. He was the first director of ALMA and served as the head of the North American ALMA Science Center (NAASC), where he organized the Center in its early years. His career has been almost entirely spent in millimeter astronomy, including pioneering the Millimeter Wave Observatory at the University of Texas' McDonald Observatory. He has participated in the entire US history of events that led to ALMA, and much of that in Europe, Japan, and Chile. Robert L. Dickman is a Scientist, Emeritus, at NRAO. His entire career has been spent in radio and millimeter wavelength astronomy. He was head of the NSF Division of Astronomical Sciences' Radio Astronomy Unit, managing the process of approval for funding the MMA, ALMA's precursor, and then ALMA itself. As a US Embassy Fellow in Santiago, Chile, he advanced the negotiation to secure the right to build and operate ALMA. After he left NSF, he held senior positions at the NRAO, first in New Mexico and then in Charlottesville, Virginia. Adele L. Plunkett is an Associate Scientist at NRAO, working in the North American ALMA Science Center. As a Fulbright Fellow in Chile in 2012, she contributed to the Commissioning and Science Verification team at ALMA, and in the years that followed as an ESO Fellow she has spent numerous shifts as Astronomer on Duty at ALMA. She is fluent in Spanish, and previously studied Japanese, leading to a serendipitous synergy with the ALMA project.

Review :
'ALMA took over thirty years to gestate, during which a great many committees, working groups, boards, and similar organizational bodies came and went. … the authors were present officially at, or not far removed from, the action during much of the period in question, thereby endowing the book with the status of a reference manual as well as a finely-interrelated collection of facts and figures. … The story is charmingly illustrated with cameos involving key players … It will make interesting reading for the inquisitive public and for astronomers not directly involved, while primarily offering a fine set of reminiscences for the many who were so involved. It is a remarkable product of industrious archival research, and deserves a place on both science and departmental bookshelves.' Elizabeth Griffin, The Observatory