After-dinner speech: the path of LISA to become ‘L3’

Abstract

We describe the state of fundamental-physics experiments in space in the mid 1980s on both sides of the Atlantic, and then follow the development of this field within ESA’s Scientific Programme. The special case of LISA — a fundamental physics experiment in space also supported by astronomers, and now, following the ground-based detection of gravitational waves, the means to extend the observable spectrum of such waves towards lower frequencies and long-lasting signals — is then followed in its rise to become the ‘Large Project L3’ of ESA.