lications/open-skies), we asked, “What was the best thing you did during your years as Director, the thing that had the biggest impact?” Heeschen responded, “I think it’s the establishment of the concept of the national observatory and the free use of the telescopes by people … [T]hat I think was a really good thing that came out of it, and it’s something which is persisting, you know, till this day. Everybody uses everybody else’s telescopes in one way or another.”
In his definitive book, Cosmic Noise (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), Woodruff T. Sullivan III documented the explosive growth of radio astronomy from Jansky’s unexpected discovery to the exciting postwar programs in Australia, in the UK, and, to a lesser extent, in the USA. Sullivan’s book ends in 1953, 20 years after Jansky’s discovery. The first discussions leading to the establishment of a national radio astronomy facility started in the early 1950s, and began the evolution of astronomy to a user-based, hands-off, big-science culture. In Open Skies, we have tried to pick up where Sullivan left off, describing the tumultuous circumstances leading to the creation of the NRAO, the difficult years which almost led to the closing of the observatory before it really got started, the later construction of the VLA, the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), and the Green Bank Telescope (GBT), along with the pioneering explorations into millimeter wavelength astronomy. It was a period which saw an unprecedented series of astronomical discoveries, mostly made possible by the explosive growth in radio astronomy techniques during the latter half of the twentieth century.
In planning the organization of Open Skies, we opted against a strictly chronological story, but instead deal with each major area of NRAO’s contributions, arranged in separate chapters in approximate time sequence with each chapter organized in roughly—but not completely—chronological order. As background for those readers not familiar with the extensive literature on the early development of radio astronomy, we have included two introductory chapters about events which led to the start of discussions about establishing a national radio astronomy facility. A more detailed account of the people and activities during the early years in Green Bank is given in But It Was Fun, ed. J. Lockman et al. (Green Bank: NRAO). We have included a listing of Abbreviations and Acronyms, which includes abbreviations used in the text and in endnote citations (Appendix A) as well as a Timeline (Appendix B) at the end of the book.
Two of the authors of Open Skies, Ellen Bouton and Ken Kellermann, have had a long association with NRAO. Bouton began work in the NRAO library in 1975; in 1983, she became the NRAO Librarian and since 2003 has been the NRAO Archivist. Kellermann joined the NRAO scientific staff in 1965. He was involved in most of the activities described in Open Skies since that time, especially the development of VLBI and planning for the VLBA, and from 1995 to 2003 was the NRAO Chief Scientist. Sierra Brandt brought her background in the history of astronomy to the NRAO/AUI Archives between 2011 and 2013 and has been a consultant since.
