From: Peter A. Gilman

My background:

PhD in atmospheric scienes from MIT 1966; specialized mainly in solar magnetohydrodynamic theory for past 30+ years. Currently a Senior Scientist, High Altitude Observatory, NCAR, and head of solar interior and variability section. Past Associate Director of NCAR and Director of HAO. Currently Chair of the Solar Observatory Council(SOC), AURA's programmatic oversight committee for the National Solar Observatory (also therefore a voting member of the AURA Board, as of 1 July, 2001). Member of scientific advisory committees for GONG(Global Oscillations Network Group) and SOLIS (Synoptic Optical Long-term Investigation of the Sun) of NSO. Past member of various NASA advisory groups, and NRC committees, including most recently the Education and Public Policy panel of the AASC, whose report was one of the stimuli for the creation of the COMRAA.

What follows is a personal perspective of someone working on solar research problems, motivated both by their astrophysical and their geophysical relevance.

Preamble: The study of the sun is unique in Astronomy, because of its relevance to the geosciences as well as to understanding stars and astrophysical processes generally. Funding and organization in government sponsors should (and I believe currently does) recognize the value of understanding the sun in different scientific arenas.

Responses to the questions COMRAA is considering:

1. Current organizational effectiveness: While not perfect, from a solar perspective the current organizational structure works rather well. I see no problem that warrants a radical change. Within NSF, funding for solar from both AST and ATM appropriately reflects the multiple arenas of interest. From my perspective, coordination between AST and ATM is good. They are joining forces to fund the design phase of the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) which will benefit all solar interests. AST funded the development of the GONG instruments, and ATM has contributed significantly to support of exploitation of GONG data. At the Center level, NSO(funded by AST) and HAO(funded by ATM) work together very well. Multiple instrument developments have been done together, and for others, what one Center has done on the 'proof of concept,' the other has carried through full development to community use.

The most expensive solar instrument development projects have always been done by NASA. ATST will be the largest ground-based development effort ever, but its cost is I think no more than one instrument(MDI) on the SOHO satellite. NSF management of previous solar instrumental developments (GONG being the largest at about $20-25M) has been effective. NSF is well aware of the need for good project management of ATST, and has an excellent (NASA experienced) program head (Dan Weedman) responsible for it. For our part the SOC that I chair is acutely aware of the necessity for effective project management, and we have two members who are also very 'NASA project experienced'. We intend to ensure, along with the NSO Director, Steve Keil, that ATST project management is sound.

2. Advantages and disadvantages of transfer to NASA.

I cannot see any clear advantages. The change itself is bound to be disruptive and confusing, and that is a serious disadvantage. Coordination between ground based and space observations I think is good now, so little would be gained. Also, the close ties to geosciences through ATM would surely be disrupted. Long-term funding from NSF for NSO and HAO I feel has been very beneficial to the science, allowing uninterrupted focus on important developments and problems that take many years to complete (see written testimony by Timothy Killeen, NCAR Director), sometimes resulting in observatories that have effective lifetimes of tens of years--this has never been the mode of operations for NASA, nor need it be. For grants and projects, having two principal funding sources, with somewhat different purposes, is a strength.

Also, please be aware that the development and operation of the ATST will transform NSO in dramatic ways--most or all of the old facilities will be shut down or spun off to other organizations, and the whole Observatory may move to a new site. This will be challenging to complete even with continuous funding from one agency. Switching to another in the middle of this process would in my opinion add complication without visible benefit. For solar, it is just unnecessary.

3.Other options.

Certainly NSF's ability to manage large projects in night time astronomy (and probably areas of geosciences too) could be enhanced by the addition of in-house project management expertise that has appropriate authority. It ought to be possible to do this without massive transfers to NASA. Whenever NSF agrees to take on a big project (and they SHOULD, when basic science merits it) they must plan to 'spin up' the appropriately staffed project office within the Agency, just as the contractor (such as AURA) has to do. They should not assume that the oversight can simply be assigned to an available program head who usually deals with grants or ongoing Center oversight.

A cross-cutting issue at NSF that affects Astronomy:

Like many sciences, particularly environmental sciences, Astronomy research is increasingly done through analysis of massive amouts of observational data, as well as output from numerical models. As such, Astronomy is increasingly reliant on information technology (hardware, software, data-base management, network transfer,etc), which is expensive, and a relatively new cost to the science. NSF has been receiving substantial new monies for use in this area, but control of it has been largely by the CISE Directorate and the computer sciences community, who think they know best what the scientific disciplines need--research on new methods to handle data,etc. Not enough of this money is being made available to the fundamental disciplines to do the science, and too many of the computational research projects will never have an benefial impact on basic science such as Astronomy. This is a serious structural problem within the NSF which must be dealt with if all the sciences are to be able to handle their data effectively with out having to 'canabilize' themselves to do it. Led by NSO, with the participation of several solar groups, including HAO, the solar comminity proposed the Virtual Solar Observatory (VSO) to NSF to handle its data, and has been turned down. Astronomy has proposed the National Virtual Observatory (NVO) which is still pending (it should be funded, but I am not optimistic, given the structural problem outlined above). This is certainly not a reason to move Astronomy from NSF to NASA, but it is a reason for NSF to change its priorities to benefit all the basic sciences, Astronomy included.

A final philosophical point:

NSF is charged with supporting the broadest range of basic fundamental science, and Astronomy is among the most basic, venerable, and still most exciting, areas of science. It makes little philosophical sense for NSF to have a major 'blank' in its research portfolio in this or any other area. It is the only Agency with such a broad scientific charge, not torqued by a detailed 'mission'. That is precious, of enormous benefit to the progress of science in the past and in the future, including at the boundaries of traditional disciplines. I am sure reasons could be advanced to place other parts of NSF in other agences. Let's not set a tempting but ominous precedent by starting with Astronomy!