NTB: Okay, those are the advantages. Obviously a Boeing 747 is a moving platform and anyone who has flown knows that even on a smooth flight there is a certain amount of vibration and turbulence. Won’t that affect the images being collected by the telescope?

Austin: Actually, no. The telescope has a well-developed vibration isolation system and inertial stabilization system. [Thanks to its] predecessor, Kuiper, the US/German SOFIA team has actually gotten a lot of experience on telescopes and aircraft. Essentially what you’ll see is the telescope appearing to move while you’re in flight, but in fact the telescope will be very stable and I think our pointing accuracy will be within a couple of arc-seconds.

The telescope will be very stable when pointed at an object. The aircraft is essentially moving about the telescope, and we really think that, whether it’s up to moderate turbulence, we think that we really won’t have those kinds of problems.

NTB: You mentioned the Kuiper, which went into service in 1974 and was retired in 1995. How does the SOFIA compare to its predecessor?

Austin: Well, I, of course, wasn’t involved in the Kuiper. That was something, I believe, on the order of a meter [in diameter] telescope. Our primary mirror is actually 2.7 meters, but we really use the 2.5 meter inner diameter of that mirror, so our telescope is a lot larger. SOFIA,with its larger telescope, offers much improved sensitivity and resolution than Kuiper. We’ve added improved accommodations and systems for EPO staff and visiting educators onboard. Like the Kuiper, we’ll conduct deployments to the southern hemisphere – probably New Zealand – and we’ll make short deployments throughout the world in order to access any target.

NTB: Was the Kuiper an infrared system?

Austin: Yes. But both the telescope and the instrumentation were certainly old technology. One of the other fabulous things about SOFIA, frankly, is that entire aspect of educating the public, showcasing the very interesting and actually important scientific aspects of NASA’s mission. I mean, that’s why we do what we do.

SOFIA has accommodations to bring not only the science team, which includes people that are part of the program, but guest observers as well, people who propose and are awarded observing time on the observatory. We’ve also got a significant component that’s really focused on educating the educators themselves in the K-12 range, so we’ll eventually be bringing on educators, having them look over the shoulders and participate, if you will, as kind of an observer, but going through the training, flying on some of the missions and getting the chance to look over the investigators’ shoulders. They’ll look at the data, see how astronomy is done, and actually get an education from the science team about why we’re looking at particular objects, what kind of information we’re getting, and what those results mean in terms of understanding star formation and things.

NTB: Can journalists get their names on that list?

Austin: That’s a good question. I actually don’t know, but it sounds like a good idea.