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Budgets, the OIR Panel Report, and Priorities (1Mar95)
(from Director's Office, NOAO Newsletter No. 41, 1 March 1995)

There have been two major events since the last newsletter that will have a
major impact on the long range future of NOAO.  The first is the publication
of the report of the NRC Panel on Ground-Based Optical and Infrared
Astronomy.  The second is the determination of the budget for NOAO for
the fiscal year 1995.

The report on Ground-Based Astronomy was commissioned by the NSF and
carried out by a committee established by the National Research Council.
The purpose of  the report was "to suggest and evaluate alternative strategies
designed to optimize progress in the field, taking into account the funding
available from various federal and nonfederal sources....[and to] give advice
for strategies and priorities within optical/IR astronomy in the light of the
expectation that the NSF resources available for these programs will be
severely constrained in the coming decade."  The committee was specifically
asked to evaluate "the mission of the NOAO and define its optimal role
relative to that of other government facilities and optical/infrared university
observatories and research departments."  In its final report, the panel did not
consider the solar facilities operated by NOAO but rather only the nighttime
program.

One unusual feature of this report was that the committee was required to
take into account the "expectation that the NSF resources available for these
programs will be severely constrained in the coming decade."  A specific
concern of the committee was how to provide for the operating costs of the
Gemini telescopes in this decade of budget constraint.

AURA is in the process of developing its response to the OIR panel report.
Here, I would like to summarize the key recommendations and indicate my
own reaction to them.

In recommending overall priorities for the field, the panel considered three
funding levels.  In the no growth (constant level of effort) scenario, the
committee recommends that NOAO absorb within its current budget the full
$8M cost to the US of operating and providing instruments for the Gemini
telescopes.  Since the NOAO budget for nighttime astronomy is currently
between $19M and $20M, transfer of $8M to this new program would
reduce support for current operations by about 40 percent.  (At the present
time, it is NOAO's intention that the solar program not be reduced in order
to support Gemini.)

In this scenario, the panel recommends the following priorities for NOAO:

1)       Gemini operations
2)       Continued operations at CTIO
3)       Operations of WIYN
4)       Continued operations of the 4-m telescope at
         KPNO
5)       Other unique instrumentation development at
         Tucson
6)       All other NOAO operations

In general terms, I agree with the priorities with two exceptions.  I
personally give higher priority to the operation of the WIYN and 4-m
telescopes at KPNO than to the smaller telescopes at CTIO.  I also believe
that we must have identified the resources either to buy or build state of the
art instrumentation for whatever telescopes we do operate.

The panel considered two other funding scenarios.  The "modest growth"
scenario assumes that by 2003, when Gemini operations are fully on line, the
NSF will be able to augment its annual budget for OIR astronomy by $10M.
Of this sum, $5.5M would be provided to the international Gemini project to
support operations.  (The other $2.5M for Gemini activities would come
from the existing NOAO budget.)  The remaining $4.5M would be used to
augment the NSF budget for facility instruments at the independent
observatories.  In return for this funding, the panel recommends that the
independent observatories provide some observing time, allocated through a
national TAC, to the community.

I strongly support this concept of open access in return for NSF support of
facility class instruments.  In order to realize the full advantage of the new
generation telescopes now in operation or under construction - Keck,
Magellan 1 and 2, the Large Binocular Telescope, the MMT upgrade, etc. -
it is critical that they be equipped with the best possible instrumentation.
The cost of a single instrument for one of these large telescopes is likely to
be in the range $3-5M; the current NSF budget for instrumentation is
inadequate to support instrumentation of this scale.  Private investment in
excess of $300M has made these telescopes possible.  An increment in
federal support to realize their full scientific potential is unquestionably a
good investment.

Only half of US observational astronomers have access by virtue of their
institutional affiliation to the new telescopes being built by the independent
observatories, and yet the independent observatories will own about eighty
percent of the aperture available to the US community.  Therefore, some
provision for access to these new facilities by the community as a whole in
return for instrumentation support is an approach that will benefit the entire
community.  I have been working with Peter Strittmatter, who chairs the
Council of Directors of Independent American Observatories (CDIAO), to
understand how to implement a program of open access in a way that serves
the community while not placing excessive support burdens on the
independent observatories.  Based on our discussions to date, I am optimistic
that such a program can be implemented.

In the intermediate case of "minimal growth," the panel recommends that
first priority go to providing the $5.5M for operation of Gemini and that any
augmentation above this level be used to provide facility class instruments
for the independent observatories.

The OIR panel made a number of other recommendations that will be helpful
in shaping the future of NOAO.  The report endorses the concept of
merit-based open access to telescopes and emphasizes the negative impact on
the NOAO user community of further reductions in support; it endorses the
idea of replacing existing (and aging) telescopes with new ones with
apertures in the range 2- to 4-m; it also endorses a strong role for NOAO in
managing access to, and interaction with, the international Gemini project on
behalf of the US community.

While the OIR panel report provides an excellent blueprint for the evolution
of ground-based astronomy in the era of 8-m class telescopes, the actual
future of the field depends on the priority given to it within the NSF.
Budgets have been tight for a decade and are likely to remain so.  For
example, from FY 1987, when I became director of NOAO, to FY 1994, the
US operations of NOAO (that is, everything except CTIO and GONG) have
been level-dollar funded.  Inflation as measured by the consumer price index
over that period of time amounted to 29 percent.  So we have found ways to
provide more sophisticated instrumentation (Hydra, COB, SQIID), much
better detectors for both the IR and optical, improved telescope performance,
particularly at CTIO, and 40 percent access to the WIYN while cutting costs
by nearly 30 percent.

FY 1995 began on 1 October 1994.  In early November, we were informed
that even though the budget for research and related activities in the NSF as
a whole had increased by over 5 percent, essentially all of that money was
earmarked for research in strategic areas.  The budget for astronomy was
likely to be down by about 4 percent.  For NOAO, the budget we finally
received was $1M less than last year.  At the same time the peso was
re-valued upwards, increasing our costs in Chile by $350,000 per year
overnight.  We were therefore facing, allowing for inflation, about an 8
percent real cut for a fiscal year that was one-quarter completed.  Such an
abrupt cut would have necessitated a variety of short term and very
disruptive decisions, including delay of the GONG deployment by one year,
cancellation of the solar-stellar program, etc.

Fortunately, the NSF became aware of these problems and has provided
significant budget relief - but with a restriction.  In January, the NSF
decided to provide $2M in addition to the budget that we were given in
December. These funds are, however, not to be used for operations but rather
to make investments that will allow us to lower our operating costs
permanently. Some of the funds will be used to maintain the original deployment
schedule for GONG; the one year delay would have cost the overall project an
additional $1.7M.  Other funds will be used to make the transition to a
smaller program in a more ordered way.  We will, for example, continue the
solar-stellar observations for at least an additional six months while we
determine whether there are other and more cost effective ways to carry out
the program (see the article by Jacques Beckers in this Newsletter).  We will
also cover the cost increase in Chile that has resulted from the change in the
peso/dollar exchange rate.  The remainder of the increment is being held in
reserve while the divisions prepare proposals for how to spend the funds in a
way that would permanently lower their operating budgets.  The proposals
are to be completed by June 1 and will be discussed with the users'
committees, AURA, and the NSF before major commitments are made.

In order to hold the base budget at the level recommended by the NSF, we
have reduced staff by 27, with 23 of the reductions being made in Arizona, 2
at Sunspot, and 2 in Chile. The reductions in Arizona come at a particularly
painful time, since the Tucson program is now taking on additional
responsibilities for the support of the US interactions with Gemini, building
major instruments for CTIO, and operating WIYN.

In the talk of budget reductions, we perhaps forget to emphasize enough our
continuing commitment to provide observing opportunities to the user
community.  We really do believe in our mission, and the staff is dedicated
to using our resources to maximize the scientific return to the community.
However, the OIR panel report emphasizes the choices that must be made
even given that goal.  The panel itself concludes that NOAO should not
attempt to serve the maximum number of astronomers that its facilities will
bear nor should we attempt to satisfy all the diverse observing requirements
of the nation's astronomers.  The report suggests, in fact, that in order to
ensure that astronomers who win time at NOAO are using the best facilities
in the world we are likely to have to decrease the number of hands-on users.

I agree with the assessment of the panel in the sense that I do not believe
that we can continue to operate as many facilities as we have in the past, in
the style in which we have operated them, at the lower budget levels we
must now project.  This assessment is confirmed by consideration of
operations at other observatories.  During the past year, several studies have
been carried out that permit a direct comparison of NOAO's operating
budget with those of several international and university observatories.
Those comparisons show that our costs per telescope or per area of glass are
comparable to, or in some cases lower than, US university observatories and
at the bottom end of the range of international observatories.

I suggest that we must look at fundamentally new ways of obtaining
observations.  Some of the possibilities are suggested in the OIR panel
report.  Others we have been considering internally.  Some of these ideas
have been incorporated into the operating plans for next fall as described by
the directors of KPNO, CTIO, and NSO in this newsletter.  Specifically, I
believe we must consider some or all of the following:

1)   The OIR panel endorses the concept of replacing aging telescopes.  We
are currently evaluating whether it would make sense to replace the existing
small telescopes at CTIO and/or KPNO with a single 2.5-m telescope for
wide-field imaging.  The payback period in terms of lower maintenance costs
could be as little as five years.  In order to decide whether or not to do this,
we need to examine the science that could be done with the new telescope in
comparison with what is now done with the small telescopes, what the costs
of construction would be, and what savings in maintenance could be
achieved.

In assessing the issue of replacing the small telescopes, I believe we must
focus on the characteristics that make them special - scientific capabilities,
possibility of relatively large amounts of observing time to support surveys,
the possibility of undertaking relatively high risk programs - and endeavor to
maintain those characteristics with whatever mix of telescopes we offer in
the future.

2)   Is it possible to achieve the same data throughput on a smaller number
of telescopes by using new modes of observing?  Models by Todd Boroson
show that queue observing is in principle significantly more efficient than the
current scheduling approach of having the observer present for relatively
short runs.

3)   Should we change the way we schedule telescopes to ensure completion
of high priority programs?  That is, should we give observers the option of
defining a completed program (number of objects, exposure times, etc.) and
then once the program is accepted use flexible scheduling in the form of
service, queue, and/or remote observing to guarantee that the data are
actually obtained?

4)  Can we rely on the community to supplement NOAO's own resources for
building instruments, training observers (see the article by the Kitt Peak
Director in this Newsletter), supporting service observing, etc?

5)  Can we develop stronger partnerships with the independent observatories
that would permit trading of telescope time, limited open access as
recommended by the OIR panel, and sharing of development costs for
certain types of instruments, detectors, etc?

6)   Can we achieve cost savings through commonality of infrastructure
between Gemini, CTIO, and KPNO?  In the short run, converting existing
software and hardware to a common standard is likely to cost money but in
the long run may reduce maintenance.

An issue that is becoming of increasing concern to me is how in times of
uncertain budgets and downsizing we maintain the continuity of access to a
given observing capability to ensure that scientific programs, once initiated,
can actually be completed.  In the case of Kitt Peak, Caty Pilachowski
evaluated all ongoing programs to ensure that they could be completed
before the retirements of instruments and telescopes occurred.  We will make
every effort at all sites to ensure completion of ongoing programs - although
it may be a little difficult to deal with studies of 20-year stellar activity
cycles!

We live in times of great change, and NOAO must change, too.  We need
your help to ensure that the changes that we make support the science that
you wish to do.  Please do contact me (swolff@noao.edu) with advice and
comments on the points raised above or with any other suggestions about
how we might do a better job in times of constrained budgets.  We are
especially interested in scientific and strategic advice.  Any changes in the
program will have cost implications, but we can easily cost various models
of  a changed NOAO; what is important is to get the models right.

Of special interest would be suggestions about what mix of telescopes and
observing capabilities should be offered by NSO, CTIO, and KPNO; what
your comments are about the priorities in the OIR panel report; how KPNO
should evolve given the higher priority placed on Gemini and CTIO by the
OIR panel and the greater number of independent observatories in the
northern hemisphere; how you would react to the extensive use of queue and
service observing on at least some telescopes and how you believe such a
program might best be carried out in order to maintain data quality; how you
believe a program of access to the independent observatories might be
successfully implemented; and how you believe the user community might
contribute most effectively to the NOAO program.

Sidney Wolff

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