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As astronomy research has blossomed in recent decades, the complexity has grown proportionately, as has the expense of the facilities necessary to explore the universe. The launch of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) marked the entry of astronomy into large-scale transformative scientific facilities. A salient feature of the HST and other large space facilities in this class such as Chandra, Fermi, Herschel, Kepler, Planck, Spitzer, XMM-Newton is that many are collaborative with other nations. The same is true of recent large ground-based astronomy and astrophysics facilities such as the NSF-funded Gemini telescopes, LIGO, and IceCube, and the NSF/DOE astrophysics projects Dark Energy Survey (DES), Auger, and VERITAS. The forthcoming flagships of the 2001 decadal survey report Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium, JWST in space and ALMA on the ground, are also international partnerships. Perhaps the most telling measure of the growing influence of globalization in astronomy projects is the fact that nearly all of this report’s ranked recommended projects have opportunities for contributions⎯often substantial⎯by foreign partners. Managing International Collaboration Thanks to the growth of astronomy across the globe and the emergence of international partnerships on all scales—from individual scientific collaborations to major multi-national projects and sharing of major datasets—science agendas around the globe are converging. At the same time, the growth in the costs and complexity of new telescopes and instruments is pressing the need for expanded international cooperation at all stages from conceiving and building to using these precious instruments. These pressures are most evident in ground-based facilities. The advantages of such partnerships are manifest: cooperation can reduce unnecessary duplication of facilities and effort, marshals the best technological expertise globally, provides international merit-based use of the facilities, and makes it possible to construct facilities that otherwise would be out of the financial reach of any one nation or region. Traditional international partnerships, in which two or more national partners collaborate in the construction, operation, and management of a facility, also carry with them inherent disadvantages and overheads. The involvement of multiple organizations inevitably increases the complexity of decision making and management, which translates into a significant overhead in project costs. If government agencies are involved, either as direct partners or as managing agencies for one or more partners, the increase in bureaucratic requirements and the delays in decision making can be even more severe. The presence of additional approval layers can hinder the ability of a project to respond to changes in performance and cost that often occur during the development of a facility. Legal requirements such as the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) can add significant delays and costs. Finally, international commitments can make it much more difficult to terminate or descope projects but can also smooth out funding profiles if partners are able to contribute at different times or rates. Overall, the implied financial stability of government agency involvement can be a double-edged sword. An alternative approach to partnership is to coordinate access across a suite of facilities. In this model, individual parties build or operate an instrument or facility but access and/or data rights are shared with partner communities. A more limited form of partnership is the sharing of archival data from a facility, even in cases where observing time is restricted. Other arrangements may prove to be just as effective. For example, access to both the northern and southern skies is essential for many areas of astronomy; a partnership could take the form of time swaps on solely owned telescopes in the two hemispheres. Likewise, one international partner might have a unique facility (e.g. the proposed Large Synoptic Survey Telescope), and access to its observing time or data could be traded for access to other unique facilities (e.g., VLT or E-ELT). The key advantage of such arrangements is that they foster meritbased scientific exploitation of the facilities, while minimizing the cost and administrative overheads that are inherent in a fully shared and managed project. The principle of open skies is compatible with the guiding principle of maximizing future scientific progress. In an increasingly international arena, flexibility will be a key to optimizing the science return from U.S. investments in new facilities. PREPUBLICATION COPY—SUBJECT TO FURTHER EDITORIAL CORRECTION 3-4
A prerequisite for a successful partnership is that all parties view the arrangements as being fair and equitable, at least when considered across the sum of shared facilities. For example, under the NSF’s “open skies” policy, access to the U.S. national centimeter-wavelength telescopes (EVLA, GBT, VLBA and Arecibo), which are the premier facilities in the world at these wavelengths, is allocated without regard to nationality. As a result, overseas investigators make substantial use of those facilities, accounting for typically one-third (for the NRAO telescopes; less for Arecibo) of the allocated observing time. At present, it can be said that U.S. researchers have enjoyed open access to many, though not all, premier international facilities. In addition, private U.S. telescopes do not, as a matter of course, allow open access to the full U.S. community let alone foreign astronomers. However, the astronomical community does get access to ground-based optical and infrared facilities through the Telescope System Instrument Program scheme. Such imbalances are likely to arise, and when they do, it is incumbent on the agencies and observatory directors to take corrective action. For example, when the fraction of foreign users of a U.S. facility becomes very large, then this can be taken as a sign that the science from that facility is less aligned with U.S. national priorities or that the balance between support of U.S. facilities and the U.S. user community has gotten out of line. Likewise, if a serious asymmetry develops between U.S. and foreign facilities then this is the time to propose reciprocal arrangements that will preserve the principle of open skies. There are two caveats to this approach. The first is that care must be taken to address the needs of scientists from countries whose ability to participate in the construction and support of expensive international facilities is limited. The second is that when a new facility first comes on line, it is reasonable to allow those astronomers who have contributed significantly to the construction of the telescope and instruments priority access for a limited period. For “open skies” and similar arrangements to work, they need to be seen to be symmetrical and fair in terms of scientific opportunity and cost recovery over the long run and averaged over many facilities. An important goal for the U.S. agencies is to place appropriate value on reciprocity arrangements in providing access to foreign astronomical facilities and datasets for U.S. researchers. To encourage reciprocal arrangements for broad merit-based access to telescopes world-wide, the observing rights and the survey data access, e.g. during validation periods, could be restricted for U.S.-funded facilities to scientists at U.S. institutions, any foreign partners, and other parties with such reciprocity agreements. In any restriction of access to U.S. facilities, care must be taken to address the needs of scientists from countries whose ability to participate in the construction and support of expensive international facilities is limited. RECOMMENDATION: U.S. investors in astronomy and astrophysics, both public and private, should consider a wide range of approaches to realize participation in international projects and to provide access for the U.S. astronomy and astrophysics community to a larger suite of facilities than can be supported within the United States. The long-term goal should be to maximize the scientific output from major astronomical facilities throughout the world, a goal that is best achieved through opening access to all astronomers. These could include not only shared construction and operation costs but also strategic timesharing and data-sharing agreements. International partnership should be regarded as an element of a broader strategy to coordinate construction and support of and access to astronomical facilities worldwide and to build scientific capability around the world. The end goal should be to maximize the scientific return from these facilities through global parity of access to the best telescopes, based on scientific merit. International Strategic Planning Beyond the arena of science coordination and shared access to individual facilities, greater international consciousness and coordination in the planning of the future astronomical agenda as a whole PREPUBLICATION COPY—SUBJECT TO FURTHER EDITORIAL CORRECTION 3-5
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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fi
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COMMITTEE FOR A DECADAL SURVEY OF A
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Panel on Stars and Stellar Evolutio
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DOUGLAS FINKBEINER, Harvard Univers
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SPACE STUDIES BOARD CHARLES F. KENN
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activities 2 that have emerged from
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In addition to the 27 panel meeting
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Acknowledgment of Reviewers This re
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The Accelerating Universe 2-26 The
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APPENDIXES A Summary of Science Fro
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light up the universe, marking the
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RECOMMENDED PROGRAM Maintaining a b
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TABLE ES.4 Space: Recommended Activ
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Cosmic Dawn: Searching for the Firs
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this imprint would both probe funda
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Page 60 and 61: FIGURE 2‐6 Top: Schematic of the
Page 62 and 63: Most stars with masses smaller than
Page 64 and 65: BOX 2-2 The Origin of Planets After
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Page 126 and 127: THEORY Emerging Trends in Theoretic
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y optical and radio astronomers are
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FIGURE 5‐8 Number of PhDs per yea
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ated by the Program Prioritization
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nulling interferometry. The appropr
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FIGURE 5‐9 The richness of the su
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RECOMMENDATION: NASA and NSF suppor
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FIGURE 6‐1. All sky map as observ
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FIGURE 6‐3 NASA mission cost over
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FIGURE 6‐5 Gemini North with Sout
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TOWARD FUTURE PROJECTS, MISSIONS, A
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3. Investment in new and upgraded i
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etween several competing elements i
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7 Realizing the Opportunities The p
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FIGURE 7.1 Survey time line showing
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SCIENCE OBJECTIVES FOR THE DECADE T
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Box 7.1 Implementing a Cosmic Dawn
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JWST, with its superb mid-infrared
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optical imaging of brighter galaxie
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Box 7.3 Implementing the Physics of
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FIGURE 7.2 Multiwavelength images o
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Recommendations for New Space Activ
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FIGURE 7.4 Science accomplishments
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significance of mergers in the buil
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independent advice committee review
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committee review. It could range be
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Laboratory Astrophysics As describe
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Recommendations for New Ground-Base
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Program for instrumentation and fac
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excel at high spectral and spatial
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The committee reviewed a technical
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FIGURE 7.10 ACTA would be, like the
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Advanced Technologies and Instrumen
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LISA as soon as possible subject to
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FIGURE 7.14 DOE recommended program
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A Summary of Science Frontiers Pane
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PLANETARY SYSTEMS AND STAR FORMATIO
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A preliminary recommended program w
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certified as independent work perfo
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penalty based on an assessment of s
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The results show excellent correlat
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$12 MILLION TO $40 MILLION RANGE CM
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decadal research strategy with reco
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CFP CHIPSat CIP CGRO CMB CMU CoBRA
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NRC NSB NSF NSF-AGS NSF-ARC NSF-AST
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