The Chandra X-Ray Observatory: The Past, the Present, and the Future

The Chandra X-ray Observatory had its origins in a 1963 proposal led by Riccardo Giacconi that called for a 1-meter diameter, 1-arcsecond class X-Ray telescope for studying the Universe. We will briefly discuss the history of the mission, the development of the hardware, its testing, and the launch on 1999, July 23. The majority of the talk will be an admittedly eclectic review of some of the most exciting scientific highlights. These include the detection and identification of the first source seen with Chandra - an unusual Seyfert 1 we nicknamed Leon X-1, the detailed study of the Crab Nebula and its pulsar, and spectacular images of other supernova remnants including the recent 1-Million second exposure on Cas A. We also will summarize some of the major Chandra findings for normal and active galaxies and we will illustrate the breadth of science enabled by Chandra observations of clusters of galaxies. We will close with a brief look towards the future of the field.