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Restructuring (1Sep95)
(from Director's Office, NOAO Newsletter No. 43, September 1995)

Astronomers have watched with concern the reassessment currently under
way in Washington of priorities for the federal budget in general, and
for basic research in particular.  Major changes in the level of
support for space science appear inevitable, and the impacts of these
changes will affect the entire field of astronomy.  Support for the
major recommendation of the Bahcall report seems more remote than
ever.  To quote from the report, "The committee's highest priority for
ground-based research is to strengthen the research infrastructure at
universities and at the national observatories.

   o The committee recommends that the National Science Foundation
     increase the operations and maintenance budgets of the national
     observatories to an adequate and stable fraction of their capital
     cost, thereby repairing the damage caused by a decade of deferred
     maintenance.

   o The committee recommends an increase in the individual grants
     program in astronomy at the NSF to permit young researchers to take
     advantage of the new opportunities for discovery, utilize
     appropriately the large amounts of new data, and to enhance support
     for theoretical astrophysics."

At the same time as the US appears likely to make major reductions in
its support of basic astronomical research, we face growing competition
from abroad.  The spending outside the US for both
construction and operations of ground-based astronomical facilities
now substantially exceeds our own.  The challenge for our community is
to maintain scientific vitality while coping with declining levels of
support.

The irony is that in the case of NOAO we now know how to improve
scientific quality while lowering operating costs.  The WIYN telescope,
which has just recently begun scientific operation, has a median seeing
between 0.7" and 0.8", which is significantly better than any other
telescope currently operated by NOAO and clearly represents the state
of the art for telescopes of this aperture.  Because the WIYN was
designed for easy maintenance, offers only two basic instruments (an
imager and a fiber spectrograph), and has minimal instrument changes,
we believe its operations costs will be about half that of the current
Mayall 4-m telescope.  While no equivalent demonstration project has
been completed at NSO, it is certain that improved performance is
possible for solar telescopes as well.  We are currently exploring
designs that would replace the infrared capability of the McMath-Pierce
Telescope and the high resolution capability of the Vacuum Tower
Telescope with a single new facility.

As business has already learned, however, restructuring in order to
reduce operating costs requires an initial investment.  The OIR panel,
which was chaired by Dick McCray, recognized this fact in its report,
which states:

"The WIYN experience has shown that Kitt Peak can deliver excellent
seeing, and KPNO should strive to support programs that take advantage
of this capability to provide scientific capabilities complementary to
observations by Gemini North.  Toward this end, it may be wise for
KPNO to close its smaller telescopes, such as the 2.1-meter, the
1.3-meter, and the 0.9-meter telescopes, especially if they can be
replaced by a modern 2-m class telescope.  If in fact the operations
costs of WIYN are as low as they have been estimated to be, it would
be sensible to consider replacing the existing 4-meter telescope by a
twin of WIYN."

NOAO is currently exploring restructuring options.  We have defined
three initiatives that are of particular interest.  The first is
replacing the smaller telescopes at both CTIO and KPNO with a modern
2.4-m telescope that would be used primarily for optical imaging.  The
second is building a new facility that would replace the telescopes now
used for synoptic monitoring of the Sun with a single new telescope.
This telescope would be equipped with CCDs, rather than the
photographic film now in use for many synoptic observations, and the
data taking and archiving would be automated.  The third is a
significant investment in the construction of the 4-m SOAR telescope,
which would be built on Cerro Pachon in partnership with Brazil and the
University of North Carolina.  We are in the process of evaluating the
payback period for each of the projects.  Early estimates indicate
that, for each 2.4-m telescope and for the synoptic solar telescope, we
would recover the construction costs through lowered operating costs in
only 5 to 7 years.  Any business would regard this as a very good
investment indeed!  The McCray committee itself found even longer
payback periods attractive.  Their report states, "Replication of the
WIYN telescope is estimated to cost approximately $12M and would pay
for itself, in terms of reduced maintenance cost relative to the
current 4-meter telescopes on KPNO and CTIO, in less than 20 years."

In the case of the SOAR project, NOAO's current obligation is to
provide operating funds.  If we were able instead to contribute to the
capital cost then we could lower our long term obligations for
operations.

NOAO's operating budget is going down.  The question is whether we
will merely close facilities or whether we will have an opportunity to
replace them.  The answer to this question will determine whether or
not we retain the ideal of operating facilities that offer open
access, based on competitive review, to the best scientific programs.
Many of us are old enough to remember the alternative---a time when
astronomy was the province of a privileged few---and do not believe
that a reversion to that system would serve the field well.

Fortunately, the NSF itself understands the issues NOAO is facing and
this year provided $2M as an initial step toward restructuring NOAO.
We have used some funds to cover costs of downsizing the staff and to
deploy GONG one year earlier than would otherwise have been possible,
thereby lowering the total project costs.  We believe that the
remaining funds, coupled with a contribution from existing engineering
resources, would bring us close to achieving either one 2.4-m
telescope or the solar synoptic facility.  We are currently preparing
detailed descriptions of all three initiatives for review by our user
community, AURA, and the NSF.

There appear to be several misunderstandings in the community about
the $2M increment provided this year by the NSF.  First, the funds are
not to be used for NOAO operations---only for investment.  The planning
guidelines we have been given by the NSF call for essentially level
dollar funding for the next five years.  If we allow for likely rates
of inflation in the US and Chile, this guideline corresponds to an
effective reduction of 20 percent in operations, added to the 30
percent that has already occurred over the last decade.  Second, it is
my understanding that this $2M came from funds within the NSF (not
within the astronomy division) designated for special opportunities;
it is highly unlikely that the funds would have been made available to
other components of the astronomy program.

I recognize that the stress in the grants program is also great.  Both
national centers and grants are essential components of a vital
program of research in astronomy.  According to statistics developed
by the OIR panel, 71 percent of the NSF grant-funded projects in OIR
astronomy made use of facilities at the national observatories.  In
fact, I view the national centers as a kind of grants program---a
program that grants observing time to several hundred research
projects each year.  The relationship between the NSF-funded grants
and the centers-supported allocations of observing time is a symbiotic
one.  Neither program can succeed without the other.

The McCray report made three major recommendations concerning future
investments in OIR astronomy:  Gemini operations should be funded
through an increment to the astronomy budget; NOAO should be
restructured for more cost effective operation; and instrumentation
for the major new telescopes being built at the independent
observatories should be funded through an increment to the astronomy
budget in return for open access for the community.  The first
recommendation has been implemented by the NSF, and the first step
toward the second has been taken.  AURA and NOAO are committed to
achieving the third recommendation and are doing everything we can to
make the strongest possible case for this initiative at the NSF.  In
this very difficult funding climate, astronomers will succeed in
making a compelling case for their priorities only if we work together
to achieve the entire set of recommendations of the OIR panel.
Divisiveness will not serve us well.

We are in the midst of an unprecedented investment in ground-based
astronomy.  Over the next decade the US, through federal, state, and
private funding, will invest at least $400M in major new telescopes.
Those telescopes will require state of the art instrumentation in
order to achieve their full potential, and astronomers will require
support for acquiring, analyzing, and interpreting the qualitatively
new types of data that will become available.  We must unite to
develop the best case we possibly can for making the necessary
investments.

Sidney C. Wolff

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