It has hardly escaped anyone's attention that the millennium is fast approaching, and this seems a particularly good time to initiate the planning for groundbased astronomy in the next century. NOAO has just completed a long range plan for both solar and nighttime astronomy that lays out a vision for the next 25 years or so, and describes what we must do in the next five years to make progress toward our ambitious long term goals. The complete plan is available through the NOAO home page (http://www.noao.edu); the key points are summarized here.
The report of the previous Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee, chaired by John Bahcall, was entitled, "The Decade of Discovery," and surely the 1990s have lived up to that prediction. The rate of discovery has exceeded anything we might have imagined when the report was written. Now that we have discovered a whole host of new types of objects and phenomena--—whole new worlds, so to speak--the next step is to begin systematic exploration. We can imagine asking--—and answering--—the most fundamental of questions. When did galaxies form and how did they evolve over the lifetime of the universe? Where is all the matter, both bright and dark, in a given volume of space? What is the complete inventory of earth-crossing asteroids large enough to do major damage if they were to impact the Earth? We now know more planets outside our own solar system than within it, but what are the characteristics of those solar systems--—is our own typical or unique? How do changes in the magnetic fine structure on the Sun control such global characteristics as activity, irradiance levels, and atmospheric heating?
Even as our questions have become more complex, technologies have advanced to make truly ambitious programs feasible. It is possible to build a facility that would map all of the dark matter in a cone to z = 1 through weak lensing. This same facility could detect all the Earth-crossing asteroids with diameters greater than 300 meters. It is possible to build a facility that could obtain 500,000 spectra to characterize the evolution of galaxies (star formation rates, metallicities, and morphological changes) as a function of mass, redshift, and environment with sufficient statistical weight for each combination of parameters to be meaningful--—and to do it in short enough time that other problems could be addressed as well. It is possible with adaptive optics to break the 0.1" barrier on the Sun and obtain polarization measurements on the scale of the photon mean-free path and pressure scale height in the solar atmosphere. Designs for a 3º field imaging telescope have been worked out by Roger Angel and his collaborators, and NOAO staff are exploring the options for efficient spectroscopic surveying over wide fields and for high angular resolution solar observations.
Discussion has also begun on the feasibility of building much larger aperture telescopes for OIR astronomy on the ground. Referred to in Europe as OWL (Overwhelmingly Large Telescope) and in the US as MAXAT (Maximum Aperture Telescope), the goal for these telescopes is 50-m to 100-m aperture with diffraction-limited imaging. The capabilities of such an instrument would be astounding. At 100-m it would be possible to observe Cepheids to a distance 100 times beyond that of Virgo, study supernovae to z = 10, and image white dwarfs in Andromeda. Building such a facility will, however, require substantial technology development and construction of some kind of intermediate aperture facility to prove the new technologies.
On the solar side, the requirement is for large aperture combined with adaptive optics. In this case, large means 3-4 m, which is required to obtain polarization measures at high angular resolution in times short relative to the characteristic time scales for variations on the surface of the Sun. The smaller the physical scale, the more rapid the variations, and so even in the case of the Sun there is a scarcity of photons!
NOAO has developed road maps for the development of new facilities for both solar and nighttime astronomy. GONG will operate over a solar cycle to correlate changes in interior structure with activity levels. SOLIS will provide data on magnetic fields, velocity flows, flares, and other forms of activity, and will also measure the Sun as a star for comparison with observations of solar-type stars. The Advanced Solar Telescope (AST) will provide high angular resolution observations of magnetic fine structure.
The key elements of the nighttime program are wide-field 6.5-m to 8.4-m telescopes for imaging and spectroscopy of large numbers of objects, coupled with the capability for data pipelining, archiving, and data mining; development of technology followed by construction of an intermediate (!) aperture telescope of perhaps as much as 25-m; the development of adaptive optics; and finally construction of MAXAT. NOAO has been working with staff at Steward Observatory, the University of Texas, Lowell Observatory, the international Gemini staff, and others to determine how we might marshal the talents and resources within the community to realize these ambitious plans. If we are to continue our voyage of discovery and exploration of the universe around us, we should aspire to nothing less.
As I indicated in the last Newsletter, the budget for this year was up relative to last year but by less than the funding required for the new project that we are committed to—--construction of SOLIS. The net consequence was a significant decrease in the size of the staff in Arizona and New Mexico. In my view, we can no longer maintain the current level of program activities. If we also wish to move forward with plans like the ones outlined above, we must re-examine ongoing programs and operations, define what in-house support will be required to advance the initiatives included in the long range plan, and wherever possible identify alternate funding sources. It is with these goals in mind that we have undertaken an assessment of program priorities within NOAO; that exercise is in progress, and we will report to you on it when we have defined possible options. In this newsletter, we outline why this re-examination is required.
In the latest round of reductions, 14 people were laid off, transferred to temporary soft money contracts, or elected retirement. The average years of service of those laid off was 8.7 years, with the longest being 24 years 11 months. Six additional open positions were deleted, and KPNO will eliminate another six positions over the next year as they become vacant. In all, this represents slightly more than 10 percent of the positions in Arizona and New Mexico (CTIO was unaffected by this reduction in force; they made a major reduction several years ago in return for a commitment by the rest of NOAO to maintain the purchasing power of their budget until FY 2000.) The directors of NSO and KPNO have described the impacts of these layoffs, and I summarize their statements here.
NSO: The staff reductions of 3 and other budget cuts at NSO will result in reduced support for telescope maintenance and projects; reduced support for new initiatives, particularly electronics support at NSO/SP; elimination of support for placing new data in the solar digital library; delay of deployment of the high resolution GONG cameras by at least one year.
KPNO: Of the 10 positions eliminated by KPNO, 4 are from the scientific staff, including elimination of the KPNO post-doc program; electronics maintenance is no longer available on the mountain after 8 PM; the full-time presence of an operator at the 2.1-m will be phased out; and the 0.9-m is now available for use only with the Mosaic imager.
Substantial additional cuts were made in engineering staff, with the consequence that no new NOAO instruments can be started for at least a year, thereby delaying the delivery of the next major new instrument (either a wide-field IR imager or a wide-field optical spectrograph) until at least 2003. Additional cuts were made in support functions, including administrative staff, public outreach, and facilities maintenance.
These are, unfortunately, only the latest in a long series of cuts that began in 1984. In the 16 fiscal years since 1984, the nighttime staff in Arizona has been reduced in all but two years. The total staffing for all nighttime programs in Tucson has dropped from 200 in 1984, when KPNO was essentially the only component of the program, to 125 today, and we have added, within that decreased budget, support for CTIO instrumentation, the US Gemini Project Office, and operations of WIYN. Staffing for operations at NSO/KP and NSO/SP has dropped over that same period of time from 66 to 56, and the NSO scientific staff has decreased by 25 percent since 1984. The total solar staff, however, has increased to 86 in order to accommodate GONG and SOLIS.
KPNO cannot continue to operate five telescopes at the same level of reliability and user support that has traditionally been available, nor does it seem likely that NSO can continue to operate two sites indefinitely with its current staff. And we have the additional goal of trying to make progress toward an AST and large nighttime telescopes. The steps proposed by the directors to accommodate this year's reductions amount to temporary bandaids, which is the only option we have when cuts are imposed after the start of a fiscal year. We need a long term approach to budgeting and planning that provides a sustainable balance between current services and future investment, and it is for that reason that we are undertaking a re-assessment of the entire NOAO program.
Sidney C. Wolff