Attendance:

Notes by: Karl

• Report Mechanics
  • Current version posted on main wiki
  • Public repository: alive and kicking. Solution for updates found.
  • Science section is updated frequently. Engineering section of Nov. 1 is available. Updated engineering section will become public (again) on Dec. 20. No more closures.
  • Dec. 20 deadline for input of new material
• Report
  • Currently ~90 authors/endorsers
  • Executive Committee Listing
  • Reviewer comments - any questions?
  • Executive summary (Bennett comments + Bock Comments)
    • Strauss - include *how* we get the science in the ES?
      • pro - more concrete; con - need to introduce new terms

Concerning the Executive Summary, I think that it is too detailed and is missing some really big picture motivation and description - especially for those not into CMB details.

I think you need to get across that there is a lot that we have learned about cosmology - largely from the CMB - but much that we still do not understand (dark matter, dark energy, inflation, etc.). There are now growing tensions between cosmology data sets. As our only probe of the early universe, future precision studies are essential for all of these problems, as well as for new questions that will arise in the intervening years.

You give lots of justifications for PICO, but the number of justifications will not carry the day as well as one or two really compelling stories - told in the most general terms: what's dark energy? what's dark matter? how did the universe begin? is GR right? (These are clearly understood to be important questions and I doubt that any exoplanet mission, for example, will answer them. That's why PICO is needed.)

Similarly, I think that your case for space in terms of multipole moments is too detailed and debatable. Instead, I think you should appeal to the generic advantages of a well-designed space mission in obtaining conditions that the ground can never match: (no atmosphere/weather, precision full sky coverage linking a wide range of angular scales, thermal stability, solar shielding, low magnetic fields, no ground pick-up, etc.).