Hiya. I thought I'd share some of my impressions as a fledling theorist on astronomy in the US. As you can see by my email address, I am not presently IN the US -- this is due to what I see as a horrible situation for postdocs stateside. The short terms of US positions makes one constantly have to look for the next job -- not a good working environment. Also, most postdoc positions are tied to specific projects so that the chance to do independent research (needed to establish a career in the first place) is next to impossible. So I took a long post here where I could do mostly my own work.

Yes, there are fellowships. But the ones at specific universities are not truly in 'any field of astronomy' -- rather the applicant must be willing to work on projects the department is already working on. So again independent developement is hard. This seems somewhat less true of NRC Fellowships though (but going from a Lab back to academia seems to have prejudicial difficulties).

Finally, as a theorist I find the level of funding for theory research absolutely horrifying. For example, I am not eligible for a Hubble or Chandra Fellowship unless I *directly* tie my work to ongoing observations. Observers have no such reciprocal obligation. It strikes me that the well-motivated urge to disseminate astronomical research to the public has led to a huge imbalance in funding between observation and theory. Our taking of data has overrun our understanding of it. Although the stream of beautiful images fires the imagination of the public, it does not lead to any *understanding*. I think the FFAR report mentions this.

Oh, as for merging NSF A&A with NASA -- I say definitely no. It is always good to have 'competing' independent funding avenues. And since NASA ties funding to its missions, NSF tends to have a broader coverage that should be maintained.

Dr. Rob Coker (theoretical astrophysicist, fencer, expatriate)