I am most grateful to Andr ́ e Heck for his invitation to write a foreword to OSA Volume 4 – I will use this valued opportunity to emphasise those topics in
Research and publications in the field of Astronomy have undergone dramatic changes in the last half-century. While activities just slowed down during World War
When I wasa child, growing up in South America,I often went camping in the wild and hence had direct access to the wondrous Southern sky; the Southern Cross was
Astronomy isthemostancientsciencehumanshavepracticedonEarth. Itisascienceofextremesandoflargenumbers:extremesoftime–fromthe big bang to in?nity –, of distan
OPSA volumes will be conceived in the line of the successful earlier series "Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy (OSA)" http://astro.u-strasbg.fr/~heck/os