During the past year, AURA submitted two proposals to the NSF. One proposal was to renew the cooperative agreement under which we operate NOAO facilities for the NSF. The second was to renew the facilities at NOAO by replacing some of the existing telescopes with new ones that would offer better performance, lower cost operation, and/or be more suitable for supporting observations with larger telescopes and spacecraft. We have now received the referees' reports on these two proposals, and we would like to share with you the recommendations from the consensus report of the panel that met in Tucson last summer to discuss the proposals themselves and the reports of the sub-panels that visited each of the sites. In future newsletters, we will give our reactions to these recommendations and keep you informed about progress in responding to them. We will also provide more detailed summaries of the comments of the sub-panels concerning their assessments of the three operating observatories---NSO, KPNO, and CTIO---as well as the reactions of the directors and users committees to those assessments.
To quote from the report:
"It is the panel's unanimous recommendation that the Cooperative Agreement between NSF and AURA to manage NOAO be renewed. AURA's performance in the previous cooperative agreement and the plan outlined here merit this trust. CTIO, KPNO, and NSO are first-rate research facilities. NOAO provides telescopes, instruments, observing assistance, and data analysis tools (such as IRAF) that lead to important contributions to scientific understanding through the published literature. The National Observatories are based on an appealing vision embedding fairness and opportunity in a vigorous scientific enterprise. We endorse that idea.
"Despite a difficult financial climate, in the past seven years NOAO has created the Gemini Project, NSF's premier project in night-time astronomy; the WIYN telescope, which sets new standards of technical excellence and demonstrates a new approach to cooperation with universities; and the GONG project, a far-flung collaboration probing the structure of the sun through its oscillations. These are examples of ambitious and beautifully executed scientific instruments that will lead to deeply intriguing scientific results. [Elsewhere in their remarks, the panel comments, `These achievements have been possible, despite a long series of losses in real support, only through careful management and painful choices. NOAO has been stretched as thin as it will go without ripping....'] NOAO has developed new technology for astronomical instrumentation including IR arrays, CCD mosaics, and an automated fiber-fed spectrograph that are powerful new tools for exploration. The demand for these instruments by a large stream of visitors is evidence that NOAO is making good on its promise to be the place where the nation's astronomers can go to carry out their ideas at the edge of understanding, independent of their institution's resources."
The report of the panel also contains recommendations to the NSF and AURA for improving service to the astronomical community:
An improved policy for allowing for currency fluctuations in international operations would lead to smoother and more effective operation at CTIO.
The panel notes that NSF has announced its intention to recompete the cooperative agreement in four years but has not yet established the process for doing so, expresses strong concern about the morale issues that are already apparent among NOAO staff, and suggests that such a competition should occur at such a time and in such a way as to be least disruptive to the observatories.
The panel also notes that large programs like NOAO "are quite different from single-investigator research projects....The need for funds for infrastructure, for safety and environmental improvements, and for ongoing maintenance of the scientific and support facilities must be recognized....NSF could help NOAO by making every effort to maintain a reasonable consistency in funding."
"The new formulation of the AURA Board of Directors has potential benefits if the Board has the right size, the right composition for its tasks, and formulates a clear path of fiducial responsibility.....AURA has taken on an expanding range of activities, which, up to this point, have provided helpful points of contact between NOAO and STScI and between NSF and NASA. There is risk that the variety of activities might soon become so broad that the Board could not give adequate attention to this Cooperative Agreement."
After noting the positive contributions of the corporate office in working as a partner with the NSF and helping to advance astronomy in many ways, including fostering collaborations between STScI and NOAO in public outreach, the panel recommends that the corporate office provide more active guidance to NOAO in resolving such long standing issues as the relationship of NSO to NOAO, deferred maintenance, especially at NSO/SP, and the situation with respect to the failed search for a KPNO Director.
The committee comments that the current situation, in which the NOAO Director is effectively the KPNO Director, "creates the impression that not all components of NOAO have equal access to the NOAO Director. At the same time, unlike CTIO and NSO and USGPO, KPNO does not have an independent advocate. A resolution of the KPNO Director anomaly needs a better-articulated statement of the role, resources, and responsibilities of the KPNO Director."
The committee also believes that "the role of NSO within NOAO remains an area of difficulty. The present `hands-off' approach [by the NOAO Director] neither integrates NSO into the rest of the observatory nor removes all the sources of friction. An external review of the field, and of NSO's role within the field, by the NRC would be timely and could lead to new arrangements for NSO."
"NOAO has chosen to maintain a vigorous instrumentation program capable of producing complex instruments of high quality. Hydra, Phoenix, and the Mosaic imager all are state-of-the-art instruments. As part of this program, NOAO has developed strength in real-time software for instrument control and data delivery, and has provided IRAF data reduction tools that are widely used throughout the international astronomical community, especially among the Gemini partners. Within NOAO, the combined instrumentation program seems to be functioning well, reducing tension between CTIO and the North. Because the ETS headcount includes both maintenance staff for the KPNO and Tucson facilities and the technical development staff, it appears to be very large. This, however, does not reflect the actual size of the instrumentation effort, which does not appear to be overstaffed. Even so, cooperation with capable groups in the university community is desirable and should continue to be cultivated during this cooperative agreement."
"After a complex sequence of events, the institutional arrangements for US participation in the Gemini international project have been sorted out, with NOAO playing an important role. The US Gemini Project Office is now functioning well, providing good representation of US interests within the project and developing contact with the US astronomical community. During the period of this cooperative agreement, the project office will grow in importance as Gemini moves from construction toward operation."
With respect to the proposal to renew the facilities operated by NOAO, the panel made the following remarks:
"The panel endorses NOAO's vision for the institution in the next decade: a vibrant solar program with the SOLIS suite of instruments in place and a nighttime set of well-instrumented modern telescopes in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. This NOAO proposal provides a path to achieving this vision which, with the Gemini Project, will give U.S. astronomers access to outstanding facilities for forefront science. The proposal is in accord with the recommendations of the McCray panel, which stated, (p.23) `After the direct support of the Gemini telescopes, the second priority of NOAO must be the support of moderate (2- to 4-meter-class) telescopes with the best possible capabilities. NOAO needs a variety of such telescopes to (1) support the Gemini scientific programs and instrument development, (2) provide other unique national capabilities, and (3) support the scientific programs of the best researchers and students throughout the nation.'
"The separate components of this proposal are in different states of readiness for implementation. SOLIS is ready to go, and should have its schedule set by the coming solar maximum in 2001, which requires prompt action. SOAR is technically well-defined and awaits the outcome of unfinished negotiations for financing and division of user time. The 2.4 meter telescope proposals are, however, in an earlier state of development and are still rapidly evolving toward a clear scientific and technical concept."
In their remarks to us, NSF staff indicated that approval had not been sought for any of these projects from the National Science Board because a clear path for funding had not been identified. They did indicate that continued effort would be made to find funds for SOLIS. It now appears likely that SOAR can go ahead with funds already identified (see articles elsewhere in this Newsletter), albeit with a correspondingly smaller share of observing time for the NOAO user community than was anticipated in the proposal. We are continuing to work to develop community consensus concerning the science requirements for the 2.4-m telescopes. One key role for these telescopes, as described in the proposal, is wide-field imaging, in both the optical and infrared, in support of Gemini observations. The US Gemini Program will sponsor a workshop, probably in the spring of 1997, to identify Gemini support requirements independent of the NOAO proposal for 2.4-m telescopes. This workshop will probably be followed by an international meeting of the Gemini partners to assess requirements for Gemini support. Any re-submission of a proposal for additional nighttime telescopes at NOAO would be made only after this community assessment is completed.
The review panel was composed of very distinguished scientists, many with considerable experience in the management of complex facilities. Their advice to all of us engaged in the enterprise of operating national observatories---NOAO, AURA, and the NSF---provides a road map for strengthening the programs that we offer to the user community.
Goetz K. Oertel, Sidney C. Wolff