NSF/AST Additional Material

AAAC

Jim Ulvestad

December 1, 2012

Divestment issues “Divestment,” in the parlance of the Portfolio Review, implies

removal of a telescope from the NSF AST budget. This encompasses many options, all of which are likely to reduce or eliminate open-access astronomy research time1. Divest to another operator, possibly with another mission

2. Develop funding partnership, possibly with mix of missions

3. Mothball

4. Close/deconstruct

Timescale for divestment decisions advertised as late 2013, to enable savings by time of FY 2017

Consideration of interagency partnerships follows various mixes of options 1 and 2 above Strategy: interagency discussions about options/needs. If the other

agency has interest, explore range of possible partnership models. Within agencies, determine how choices will be made among options.

212/01/2012

OIR System Definition Long-term directions inferred from Portfolio Review Report

LSST should be at heart of OIR system OIR system should center on >4m telescopes, with 4m

telescopes being used primarily as supporting capabilities or survey capabilities

This leads to many questions What does the post-2021 system look like, as a whole? How do you make a transition to that system, and make the transition

while continuing to deliver science capabilities along the way? What are the opportunities to motivate private telescope operators to

participate in an integrated system? How much of the system is defined top-down vs. on a more ad-hoc

bottom-up basis? How is the system coordinated and managed? How do Gemini and NOAO change over the next decade?

312/01/2012

Moving Toward the OIR System Community self-organizing in workshops and other venues to

determine best methods of doing LSST science NSF and DOE discussing how DOE mission goals might be

achieved using telescopes in the NSF part of the system Given “Rocky-III” report, DOE has an idea of where the gaps are

in their integrated program Need community-led assessment of what we really want the

system to look like post-2020 to deliver DOE mission science and NSF investigator science Which telescopes, instruments, and observing methods best

deliver the overall science capabilities and return?

412/01/2012