Many Endorse System Roadmap Committee Statement on Implementation of NSF Portfolio Review Report

Nearly a thousand community members have endorsed the statement issued by the Ground-based OIR System Roadmap Committee (SRC) on the NSF/AST Portfolio Review Committee (PRC) report. The statement, published in the last issue of Currents, describes the profound adverse impact on ground-based astronomy and the OIR System if the PRC recommendations are implemented as described in their report. As the PRC report is advisory to NSF/AST, the next critical step is the development of the NSF plan to implement the PRC report. The SRC statement makes several recommendations regarding the implementation.

The strong endorsement of the SRC statement is broadly based. Endorsers represent all demographics of the astronomical community: from undergraduates to senior astronomers, located at small colleges to large universities, observatories, and national laboratories, those with and without institutional access to observing facilities, and who study topics from the solar system to the edge of the known Universe. The vast majority of endorsers are US-based.

The broad base of support for the SRC statement demonstrates that the statement represents the views of the broad community.

In endorsing the SRC statement, the broad community calls on NSF to:

• Maintain the health of the profession by recognizing the critical need for instrumentation development and open access to observing resources.
• Preserve opportunity by developing a feasible transition plan for Kitt Peak, that (1) enables uninterrupted operation of tenant facilities, (2) allows NSF-funded facilities to transition smoothly to a new funding model that includes a larger fraction of non-NSF sources, and (3) preserves open access to the Mayall, fully or partially. BigBOSS on the Mayall is an opportunity to share Mayall costs with other partners while carrying out highly compelling NWNH science. Modest NSF funding for Mayall operations before and during the survey would enable community use of the BigBOSS instrument and access to BigBOSS Survey data, a highly leveraged approach that would deliver a tremendous resource to the community.
• Preserve and coordinate investment in instrumentation by maintaining NSF investment in instrumentation and creating a funding process that promotes coherent strategy for instrumentation development across the OIR System.
• Be flexible by empowering NOAO and the community to find creative ways to maximize the scientific return from NSF investment in facilities, and by removing implementation restrictions that hinder the achievement of that goal.
• Engage AURA to respond flexibly to the PRC recommendations to maximize the scientific efficiency of NSF funds, while preserving options for more optimistic budget scenarios for as long as possible. This flexibility should include the exploration of cross-facility (NOAO, Gemini, LSST) optimization of supporting infrastructure(s).

We invite the community to discuss these results at the NSF and NOAO Town Halls at the January AAS meeting. The petition website remains open for those wishing to add their voice.

Related Links:

• The System Roadmap Committee Statement
• List of Endorsers
• System Roadmap Committee’s Petition Website
• Online Community Forum for Comments and Questions
• Previous Currents Article Describing the Statement and Petition
• System Roadmap Committee Website