Responses to the Forum for a National Dialogue on a Thirty Meter Telescope

Name:	William S. Smith
Comments:	I am providing for the purpose of this Dialogue, a recent exchange of correspondence between a group of concerned community members and me. Their letter to me is followed by my response. Letter from concerned community members, 6/18/2003 (PDF) Response to the community members, 6/23/2003 (PDF) Letter to Dr. Michael Turner and Dr. Wayne Van Citters, 11/26/2003 (PDF) Email response from Dr. Michael Turner
Name:	Andrea Ghez
Comments:	I fully support AURA's plans to submit a proposal to the NSF to support technology developments critical to enabling the Thirty-Meter Telescope, as part of the federal component of the CELT-AURA partnership to advance TMT to Preliminary Design. The decadal survey ranked the GSMT as the number one priority and it is clear that such a telescope would have to come out of a private-public partnership. AURA's action represent an important step for the public involvement in a GSMT program.
Name:	James Graham
Comments:	A giant segmented mirror telescope (GSMT) for optical/infrared wavelengths was identified as a national priority in the Taylor & McKee decadal report. NOAO/AURA needs to act vigorously to ensure that the US astronomical community plays a key role in the design and development of this facility and benefits from the research opportunities which will accrue. AURA's New Initiatives Office has taken a first important step with its GSMT study, "Enabling a Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope for the Astronomical Community". Together with the Caltech/UC CELT report, "Conceptual Design for a Thirty Meter Telescope", the stage has been set for the phase of detailed design. In the closing years of this decade (the era of ALMA and JWST) optical and infrared astronomers will be severely limited by the angular resolution and sensitivity offered by the current generation of 8- and 10-meter telescopes. The development of GSMT is urgent! Segmented mirror technology, pioneered by Caltech and the University of California for the Keck telescopes, is the only one that is scalable to a 30-m aperture. I therefore argue that it is necessary that NOAO/AURA partner with the Caltech/UC CELT project to benefit from nearly 25 years of relevant engineering experience.
Name:	Robert Millis
Comments:	I am writing in response to your email of July 2 regarding AURA's plan to form a partnership with the CELT consortium. The purpose of this partnership, as I understand it, is to allow NSF funds to flow through AURA and, presumably, NOAO, in support of technology development essential to the eventual construction of a 30-meter-class telescope. NOAO staff would work closely with their California CELT colleagues to find solutions to the technical problems that must be surmounted for such a telescope to be built. I am fully in support of this planned action by AURA for the following reasons: * One of AURA's most important roles is to represent the interests of the U.S. astronomical community. And, by the community, I mean the entire community of active astronomers, not simply those who are affiliated with institutions that are themselves seeking to build a telescope of this magnitude. * AURA, in working to foster steady progress towards GSMT, is doing exactly what it proposed to do in the most recent recompetition of the NOAO contract. That proposal was peer reviewed and selected over other competing proposals. In my judgement, AURA and NOAO, are following a completely appropriate path in seeking to partner with CELT. Should NSF disagree, the Foundation can make its wishes known during the review of the proposal AURA is preparing to submit. * AURA's course of action in connection with GSMT, seems to me quite analogous to the path it has taken toward fostering LSST. Aside from one institution seeking to promote a competing concept, the community appears to have endorsed NOAO and AURA's approach to LSST. * Finally, I believe it is vitally important for the US National Observatory to have a leading role in GSMT. In my opinion, the continued relevance and, in fact, the long-term survival of NOAO may depend on this outcome. I believe that a healthy, well equipped national observatory is important to the future of U.S. astronomy. It is certainly important to assuring that talented astronomers can gain access to world-class facilities solely on the basis of the quality of their ideas, not their institutional affiliation. I hope that these thoughts will be of some use to you.
Name:	Alex Filippenko
Comments:	There is no doubt in my mind that NOAO/AURA should join with the UC/Caltech CELT project to design and build a 30-m giant segmented mirror telescope (GSMT). Together, UC and Caltech have tremendous experience with segmented telescopes, the only viable kind of telescope for a 30-m project. Such a telescope was identified by the McKee/Taylor Decadal Survey as the top priority for ground-based optical/IR astronomy in the coming decade, and NOAO/AURA should not lose this opportunity to join two institutions (UC, Caltech) that have already joined in a dynamic partnership. Without the support of NOAO/AURA, the 30-m telescope might become only a private facility, not open to most US-based astronomers. Even worse, without NOAO/AURA, UC and Caltech might not have enough support to complete the project, and European astronomers might take the lead in developing a similar instrument (they are already working hard, as you know). It is imperative for US astronomy to remain competitive, and to benefit from the remarkable discoveries that will surely be made with a 30-m ground-based optical/IR telescope. I urge you to join with Caltech and UC, as soon as possible, on this great project.
Name:	Karl Glazebrook
Comments:	1) I am uncomfortable with this private-public partnership. What is the advantage of aligning with CELT given they have no funding either? 2) I am worried that AURA will be in the position of just paying bills for this telescope and have no strategic control over design and development 3) I think it is premature to commit to CELT, given there are other options such as an international partnership (following Gemini) or other U.S. private institutions (e.g. Carnegie)
Name:	Hyron Spinrad
Comments:	I write this quick note to express the positive impression of at least one senior observer in the likely partnership of NOAO with the existing UC/CIT CELT project. To me a 30-m optical/IR segmented mirror telescope is too big and too expensive to be carried to completion by the two original institutions. Moreover you serve a slightly different community, and one which should have the future capabilities outlined in the Taylor/McKee report. There is no doubt that with the space/IR and ground-based mm instruments of later on in this decade, large optical and high resolution IR telescopes will certainly play a vital research role. Thus the development of the GSMT with a collecting area ten fold larger than a Keck is pretty critical to our science and also to the continued success of AURA. Please join CELT in the planning stages.....
Name:	C. A. Christian
Comments:	In general, I am favoring the public/private partnership especially since both sides appear to agree and have a vested interest in making the partnership work. This is a wise strategy since it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the astronomical community to get enough investment for two Large Telescopes in a similar time frame. The goals and motivations articulated in the Status Prospects document are good and well-intentioned. That document clarifies that AURA intends to be the vehicle, on behalf of the NSF, to promote competition in developing the necessary constituent technologies for a telescoped. As AURA is enthusiastically behind this initiative, it would be great to see symmetric enthusiasm from the CELT community. In general, AURA has a better reputation for representing the community than the institutions and individuals involved in CELT, so some nervousness on the part of the scientific community will continue. This can be avoided with some more concrete assurances from AURA and CELT about this joyful union. Agreements in the future: What is the implication that in 3 years AURA will decide whether to continue the relationship on the construction and operation phase of the telescope? Does this mean that use of the telescope could revert to private use? It would be good to clarify if the public investment through NSF would permit public use in the operational phase no matter what, thereby insuring that observatory is a national resource. Scientific Justification: Regarding investing in a large-scale facility – I think our community does need to bold for the future. I understand the need to be politic and estimate what science will be done with such an observatory. However, I would wager that for almost every major facility ever built, the most noteworthy science accomplishments were unanticipated at the proposal phase. In the GMST SWG document, for example, the results of WMAP are quoted. These results and the other work on the acceleration of the universe have re-directed the tenor of some astrophysics research in a very short time. The large facility contemplated must be available to support research directions we might not anticipate today. My last comment regards AURA. When the SWG was formed, I would guess it was focused on ground-based astronomy and an NOAO initiative. Now that this has escalated to an AURA partnership, AURA would be well advised to leverage all the core expertise across all its centers. All enthusiastic and talented staff can contribute to strengthening AURA’s part of the partnership. The philosophy of AURA is to represent the community and provide support to breakthrough science, accordingly drawing upon all its resources (including HST and JWST experience/expertise) into this Large Telescope effort add value.
Name:	Jay A. Frogel
Comments:	My very brief reaction is that this is a very good thing for NOAO and for astronomy in the US. For as long as I have been associated with NOAO/CTIO/KPNO (about 30 years) there has always been the sense that in spite of the facilities being the premier ones available for the US astronomical community as a whole, they were never the best (read "biggest"). Several times I heard directly from people whose job it was to lend direction to the National Observatories that it would be inappropriate to build a facility that was bigger than what was at Caltech. And these thoughts were NOT from people at Caltech. SO it represents a true paradigm shift for the California people to agree to work with the National Observatory in constructing a giant optical/IR telescope. The fact that J. Mould is the director of NOAO has had to have been an important element in arriving at this juncture. It is a win-win situation - all US astronomers will now benefit directly from the talent available in California as will the California astronomers benefit from what NOAO has to offer. I also think that the latter group of astronomers will benefit in more subtle ways by having to collaborate in a project with somewhat different pressures, demands, and priorities then they have had to deal with in the past.
Name:	Johnathan Lunine
Comments:	Comment Letter (PDF, 16KB)