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NSO Users' Committee Meets (1Sep93)
(from NSO, NOAO Newsletter No. 35, 1 September 1993)

The NSO Users' Committee held a two-hour telephone conference on 18
March and a meeting in Palo Alto on 12 July, just before the AAS/SPD
meeting. The following committee members participated: David Rust
(chair), John Leibacher (NSO Director), Drake Deming, Ernie Hildner,
Steve Kahler (representing Rita Sagalyn), Bruce Lites, Robin (Tuck)
Stebbins, Dick White, Steve Keil and Ray Smartt. Dick Fisher and Steve
Saar were absent.  Seth Tuttle and Kenneth Schatten represented the NSF
at the meetings.

A major topic was the budget, which is being cut by 6% in FY 1993. This
is equivalent to about 10% after inflation. It is a real cut, and it
means that three NSO people will be shifted to project funding, and
another position that will be opening will not be refilled.
Approximately 20% of the effort at Sacramento Peak is now devoted to
specific, separately-funded projects. Because of the GONG project, an
even higher percentage is project specific at Kitt Peak.

The projects, e.g., RISE, GONG, SWATH, were all considered valuable,
but the committee was concerned about the implications for NSO users of
increased emphasis on project-oriented funding.  Should NSO staff be
shifted to project support as a way to respond to broad budget cuts?
Projects do bring in new resources and therefore generally strengthen
the observatory. But, the paradigm wherein the national center develops
and operates flagship facilities for research driven by the user
community seems to be eroding.

Jeff Kuhn will lead NSO's RISE program. RISE is part of NSF's effort to
answer national needs for better understanding of global change. Modest
funding for RISE is in the NSF budget for 1994. The committee is
strongly supportive of the NSO's participation in RISE.

Of all the programs reviewed, the committee was most concerned about
the adaptive optics (AO) effort. The scale of this program seemed short
of what is needed to produce a user-friendly system in the Vacuum Tower
Telescope. Now it appears that 1994 NSF funding may lead to an AO
facility on a par with users' needs.

Bruce Lites emphasized how important AO at the VTT is to the Advanced
Stokes Polarimeter, which is now working well and achieving
polarization sensitivity of better than 0.1%. In fact, any user of the
VTT would be anxious to improve their observations with AO. The
committee notes that if only the aberration in the VTT entrance window
could be corrected, the images would be much improved. This would
require only a relatively slow- moving active corrector, or maybe even
just a fixed wavefront corrector lens.

Additional budget pressure on NSO looms because the Air Force may
reduce their support substantially.  When the Air Force funding crisis
hit last year, many members of the Users' Committee and of the solar
community leapt to the AF and NSO's defense. The committee is very
concerned about the situation and stands ready to help however they
can. Overall, the picture for the rest of 1993 and for 1994 is for flat
funding, at best, and for a severe shock to the base program and AF
programs, at worst. It was clear to the committee that NSO Director
Leibacher has minimized the damage and has even weathered the storm so
far by encouraging new, separately-funded projects. The committee is
sympathetic with this approach, but it is also concerned about erosion
of the base funding.

The committee was happy to hear that two new instruments at Sacramento
Peak (SP) are now open to users via application to the TAC. They are
the JHU/APL Solar Vector Magnetograph at the Hilltop Dome and the HAO
Advanced Stokes Polarimeter at the VTT. In both cases, the NSO staff
has been trained in operating the instrument and in reducing the data,
but in general, users will be expected to come to SP and obtain their
own observations.

Lites reported on the status of the Large Earth-based Solar Telescope
(LEST). Unfortunately, NSF turned down the US proposal to participate
in LEST, and the German reunification costs have put a hold on all new
scientific projects until December 1994. The German government gave 300
K DM to keep the LEST team together, but the LEST council has decided
to turn down the burners under the engineering effort until they get a
positive decision by the German government to go full ahead.
Construction of LEST could start quickly on word of adequate funding.
The Users' Committee regrets the delay in LEST, and recognizes that it
makes completion of an AO system all the more important for NSO.

The committee discussed the "Better Mc" which is an upgrade of the
McMath-Pierce to a cooled aluminum mirror, to facilitate infrared
observations.  The current plan differs from the Big Mc in that the
mirror will be 1.5-m instead of 4-m. Some committee members felt that
NSO was wise to start with the smaller mirror, in order to demonstrate
the new technology. But others expressed concern that the resources to
be devoted to the 1.5-m project might be taken from projects of more
interest to the users. The committee would like to review the program
at its next meeting to understand it, and how it fits into the overall
NSO program, in more detail.

The committee heard a report on a new joint project with the
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, called SWATH (Space Weather And
Terrestrial Hazards). SP would help design and build a coronagraph for
flight in two years on an SDIO satellite. The satellite would also
carry a soft X-ray telescope provided by SAO. The committee hopes that
the data from the telescopes will be available to NSO users, but it is
concerned about the extent of SP's commitment to build space-qualified
hardware.  We understand that the Smithsonian group, which is
experienced with space qualification, will provide substantial help on
this aspect of the SWATH program.

The committee commends the 18-year solar spectral variability program
at Kitt Peak, directed by Dick White and Bill Livingston. According to
them, the program has now served its purpose, and the K-line program at
the KPVT and the ESF, and the UARS data, will supplant it. They are to
be congratulated on the program's success.

At the meeting in Palo Alto, the committee had a wide-ranging
discussion about the mission of the NSO and the priorities for it
during the present trying times. It was suggested that a new paradigm
for NSO may be needed, the present one being that, above all else, the
observatories should continue to offer solar beams to visitors and to
outside instrument-building teams. A problem with the existing plan is
that the observatory risks offering users outdated or too-specialized
equipment. A case can be made, for example, that the CCD cameras are at
least ten years behind the times and that the beam at the VTT is
seriously affected by the known astigmatism in the entrance window.
Necessary modernizations and repairs have been postponed too long.

While the activities of the partners and initiatives, such as GONG,
have kept the level of activity at the NSO near the level of past
decades, they have also basically changed the character of the
institution.  Large instrument development projects can no longer be
undertaken, carried through quickly, and made available to all comers.
Examples of such large projects are the Fourier Transform Spectrometer
at KP and the Diode Array at SP.

A particular concern is that, in the present climate, young NSO staff
members will not have a chance to try their hand at developing new
instruments. If they want to start something in these times, they must
seek outside support, either with partners or from mission-oriented
agencies. It is possible that `curiosity-driven' science and instrument
development by NSO staffers is the true casualty of the funding cuts.

All agreed that NSO must continue to be the flagship solar observatory
for the nation. Without the solar facilities at SP and KP, most US
solar physicists would have nowhere to observe, and many others would
lack vital data to analyze. With the decline of the US space program,
NSO's facilities may be more in demand than ever, so the NSO must find
a way to carry out its mission, even with flat or declining base
budgets.

David Rust (The Johns Hopkins U. Applied Physics Laboratory)

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