Toward Public-Private GSMT Partnerships

The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) projects have recently released letters reiterating their interest in federal participation in the construction and operations phases of their observatories. These letters and the associated responses from AURA are available online.

As the designated national Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope (GSMT ) program manager, AURA/NOAO welcomes this continued interest and looks forward to further discussions with the projects, the National Science Foundation, and the open access community. Significant access for the community at large remains one of our highest priority goals, as first articulated in the last Decadal Survey.

Active involvement by the community is now needed on GSMT topics such as: planning and executing science programs; specifying and constructing instrumentation; modes of operation; time allocation; integration into and coordination with the full system of US astronomical facilities; and the processing, archiving, and public distribution of data products. These topics will be discussed at the upcoming meeting "Science with Giant Telescopes: Public Participation in TMT and GMT" (15-18 June 2008 in Chicago). There is still time to register for this meeting. Other opportunities to participate in such discussions will be announced in future issues of Currents and the NOAO Newsletter.