IEEE Spectrum November, 2015 - 4

BacK StorY_
editor in chief

Susan Hassler, s.hassler@ieee.org
executive editor

Glenn Zorpette, g.zorpette@ieee.org
editorial director, digital

Harry Goldstein, h.goldstein@ieee.org
managing editor

Elizabeth A. Bretz, e.bretz@ieee.org
senior art director

Mark Montgomery, m.montgomery@ieee.org
senior editors

Stephen Cass (Resources), cass.s@ieee.org
Erico Guizzo (Digital), e.guizzo@ieee.org
Jean Kumagai, j.kumagai@ieee.org
Samuel K. Moore (News), s.k.moore@ieee.org
Tekla S. Perry, t.perry@ieee.org
Philip E. Ross, p.ross@ieee.org
David Schneider, d.a.schneider@ieee.org
Brandon Palacio, b.palacio@ieee.org
Randi Klett, randi.klett@ieee.org
associate art director Erik Vrielink, e.vrielink@ieee.org
deputy art director

photography director

Planetary Pursuits

senior associate editors

Rachel Courtland, r.courtland@ieee.org
Eliza Strickland, e.strickland@ieee.org
associate editor

Celia Gorman (Multimedia), celia.gorman@ieee.org
assistant editor Willie D. Jones, w.jones@ieee.org
senior copy editor Joseph N. Levine, j.levine@ieee.org
copy editor Michele Kogon, m.kogon@ieee.org
editorial researcher Alan Gardner, a.gardner@ieee.org

he hubble space telescope's long-awaited successor,

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST) is set to launch in
just three years. The 6.5-metric-ton scope will be able to pick
up infrared emissions from some of the universe's earliest
stars and galaxies. And, perhaps most alluring, it could help
us study other worlds in our Milky Way that might be capable
of supporting life, as astronomers Alberto Conti and Mark
Clampin explain in this issue.
Conti [above], who began working on JWST at the Space Telescope
Science Institute in Baltimore, now works for the telescope's main
contractor, Northrop Grumman Corp. In both positions, he's made
education and outreach a priority. In 2013, he was part of a team that
organized three days of outreach for the South by Southwest conference
in Austin, Texas. The JWST event featured more than 60 talks, a 6-meterwide science visualization screen provided by Microsoft, and the
opportunity to Skype with engineers in the telescope's clean room at
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Rising above it all was a full-scale model of JWST, a telescope that
boasts a sunshield nearly as big as a tennis court. Even though the
model weighed more than 5 metric tons, Conti says, "it had to be
bolted to the ground for wind." All told, some 15,000 people attended
the event. "I usually work a lot, but that was a lot of work," he says. "I
didn't sleep for those three days. It was crazy."
Conti, pictured here at the end of a JWST social-media event at
NASA Goddard, says he's not above goofing off a bit, if it helps get the
word out. "I feel like we have a responsibility to let the general public
know that these [kinds of ] missions have a tremendous value for
humankind," he says. "I think we should do as much as we can. So if
being silly helps, I'll be silly every day." n

administrative assistant

Ramona L. Foster, r.foster@ieee.org
interns Kristen Clark (Video); Qinrui Hua (Photo)
contributing editors

Evan Ackerman, Mark Anderson, John Blau, Robert N.
Charette, Peter Fairley, Tam Harbert, Mark Harris, David
Kushner, Robert W. Lucky, Paul McFedries, Prachi Patel,
Richard Stevenson, Lawrence Ulrich, Paul Wallich
Peter Tuohy
Roy Carubia
senior electronic layout specialist Bonnie Nani
director, periodicals production services
editorial & Web production manager

Shannan Brown
Jacqueline L. Parker
multimedia production specialist Michael Spector
product manager, digital

Web production coordinator

editorial advisory board

Susan Hassler, Chair; Gerard A. Alphonse, Jason Cong*,
Sudhir Dixit, Limor Fried, Robert Hebner, Joseph J. Helble,
Chenming Hu*, Grant Jacoby, Norberto Lerendegui, John P.
Lewis, Steve Mann, Jacob Østergaard, Umit Ozguner, Thrasos
Pappas, John Rogers, Jonathan Rothberg, Umar Saif, Takao
Someya, Jeffrey M. Voas, Kazuo Yano, Larry Zhang*, Yu Zheng,
Kun Zhou, Edward Zyszkowski
* Chinese-language edition
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum November, 2015