Over the next 10 years, the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in Lead will expand the former Homestake Gold Mine to create the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF). The endeavor will require workers to remove over 870,000 tons of rock and erect a 70,000-ton neutrino detector. Once installed, the four-stories-high detector will receive a beam of neutrinos powered by DUNE, the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, from Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, 800 miles through the Earth.
Christopher Mossey, Fermilab Deputy Director for the LBNF, is overseeing the project expansion. Mossey joins Cara Hetland on SDPB Radio’s Innovation, broadcasting live from SURF’s 4850 Level on Friday, July 13 at noon (11am MT) in conjunction with Neutrino Day X, the 10th annual science festival in Lead, SD. Learn how a venture of this scale is undertaken by hundreds of international and local scientists, technicians and workers.
A retired and decorated rear admiral with the United States Navy, Mossey has over three decades of experience leading the design and construction of environmental and facility programs for the Department of the Navy.
Also joining Innovation will be Ariel Waldman, who’ll deliver her keynote at Neutrino Day X on Saturday, July 14th at 4pm, at the Homestake Opera House. Waldman sits on the council for NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts, which “nurtures radical, science-fiction-inspired ideas that could transform future space missions.” Waldman co-authored the congressionally-requested National Academy of Sciences report on the future of human spaceflight and authored What’s It Like in Space?: Stories from Astronauts Who’ve Been There.
For more information, see SanfordLab.org/NeutrinoDayX and on social media at #NeutrinoDayX