Europe's Quest for the Universe - Laboratoires de Recherche

36 Europe’s quest for the Universe
remaining telescopes, we find that the average cost of one clear night at these
telescopes amounts to some 13 k€.
In political circles sometimes the complaint has been made that astronomers
are good at inaugurating new telescopes, but not at closing old facilities.
In fact, when a telescope is to be closed down, it will be said by many
astronomers that there is still much useful work that can be done with it.
However, this misses the point. The real issues are the cost-to-benefit ratio
becoming too high and could the funds needed to operate an older telescope
be used more advantageously on newer instruments. From Table II, 1 it is
seen that ESO’s record in this respect is rather favorable. From 15 telescopes
at La Silla only 5 are still operating, and that number is likely to further
diminish. The average lifetime of the 10 obsolete telescopes has been 25 years.
ESO Operations in Chile and in Europe
Coming to ESO, I found one other aspect that needed radical change,
the operations in Chile. Here there was an astronomical-technical establishment
in Santiago far too separated from its raison d’être, the observatory
at La Silla. Productivity in the agreeable colonial atmosphere of Santiago was
not very high, and in any case it was not ESO’s role to finance an astronomical
center there. There was also too large an administrative establishment
that found unnecessary roles for itself. So I decided to move almost everyone
to La Silla: astronomers, engineers, technicians and much of the administration,
leaving only a small office in Santiago. This necessitated the
construction of more working and living space on the mountain and the transportation
of the staff members living in Santiago or La Serena to La Silla and
back at a reasonable frequency.
Here the solution involved the airstrip that had been constructed for
emergency purposes at Pelícano, in the plain below La Silla. The astronomers
in Santiago, who feared the end of their cozy existence, had arranged for one
of their friends who owned an airplane to fly me to La Silla so that I could
see how easy it would be to stay in Santiago and to pay visits to La Silla when
needed. Ironically, this provided the solution in the opposite direction: everything
could be moved to La Silla, and the required Santiago-based staff
would work at La Silla on a schedule of eight consecutive days of work,
followed by six days of rest at home, the transfer being made by air. After
some initial grumbling most of the staff rapidly got used to the scheme and
many found the six days vacation every two weeks a positive benefit. Thanks
to the efforts of Peter de Jonge who managed the difficult transition phase
very well, it took less than a year for the new setup to be fully implemented.
The whole arrangement contributed much to the efficient functioning of
La Silla, also by a much more effective interaction between engineers and
astronomers. The administration now was closer to the users of its services,