I've just spent a tough but enjoyable hour three layers deep in articles on the science. Again, I'll mention Smoot's book, 'Wrinkles in time'. As a page turner, it beats Geoffrey Archer.
Back to this link.
. . . powerful,” Kovac told me.
This is a man who has devoted his professional life to South Pole astronomy, making 24 trips there, each as arduous as you can imagine (fly to New Zealand, then to the McMurdo station on the Antarctica coast, then to the South Pole). In his early 20s, he overwintered at the South Pole, spending 14 months straight at the bottom of the world. In the early 1990s, South Pole astronomer was a much more rugged affair with primitive equipment and a lot of exposure to the elements. He showed me a photograph in which, dressed almost like an astronaut, he’s climbing onto a telescope with a giant tank of liquid helium on his back. This kind of astronomy requires very cold instruments, which is why he has spent two decades lugging liquid helium to the South Pole. As he puts it, the South Pole just isn’t cold enough by itself.
It’s safe to say that if Kovac and his colleagues can’t detect the signal of cosmic inflation, it won’t be for lack of trying.
Just lots and lots of gutsy people doing science these days.