Agenda for meeting Tuesday, 24 Jul 2001 at 4pm EDT.
Date: 24 Jul 2001
Time: 4:00 pm EDT (2:00 pm Socorro, 1:00 pm Tucson)
Phone: (434)296-7082 (CV SoundStation Premier Conference phone).
Past minutes, etc on MMA Imaging and Calibration Division Page
Minutes
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News from my point of view.
First...good news about the Senate budget report; here is the committee language on ALMA:
The Committee recommends an appropriation of $1O8,832,000 for major research equipment. This amount is $12, 498, 000 less than the fiscal Year 2001 appropriation and $12,500,000 above the budget request.
The Committee has provided $15,900,000 for the Large Hadron Collider $24 400 00 for the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation, $55,000,000 for Terascale Computing Systems and $12,500,000 for initial construction of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope.
The Committee supports initiation of construction of the ALMA radio telescope and has provided the necessary resources to start construction. ALMA has conducted thorough design and development, established management systems for proper technical and organizational support and entered into international cooperative agreements. ALMA is also listed as one of the highest priority projects in ground based astronomy. Nevertheless, due to problems raised by the Inspector General in a recent audit report on another large scale project, the Committee directs NSF to withhold the expenditure of the ALMA funds until it has been able to adequately assure the Committee that NSF has established management and financial controls so that capital construction expenditures are derived solely from the major research equipment appropriation account. The Committee directs the Foundation to include details of its management and financial controls at the earliest opportunity but no later than the fiscal year 2002 operating plan submission.
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SSR Meeting Minutes last week. Myers' Off-line analysis requirements were discussed in some detail. They will be updated by S. Myers.
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Please read Mark's figurefull version of his memo.
Michiel's examples of a protostellar disk buried in a core include: HCO+ 1-0 , HCO+ 4-3 and C18O 1-0 fits images. One of the science cases involves bright cores in extended weak halos such as these.
A protodraft of Al's summary of the ACA documents is available.
The ACA Tiger Team telecon was 20 Aug 1415UT. Minutes are available.
It has been proposed that when ALMA reaches completion ~2010, the SMA might be moved to Chajnantor to serve as the ACA (which would, in this case, not be built).
We could enumerate the problems this would entail from different optics concepts (SMA operates two bands simultaneously) and on. But we should anticipate discussions about this. Political problems are for others to decide. Operational problems we could list. But scientific problems should be our priority--if any ACA will improve ALMA's capabilities can the SMA fill the bill.
Some Specs, from Mark Gurwell: 8 x 6m antennas partners: Smithsonian plus Taiwan surface 13 microns measured on one at least, and apparently stable pointing 1" but not quite there yet secondary 350mm; feed legs not off edge of antenna may not be easy to accommodate freqs below 2mm.
The money providers will see this as a free ACA and there will be tremendous pressure to use it for that. We need to determine if it is what ALMA needs and to bolster that case scientifically.
I feel that since the subject has been broached we should include this in the range of ACA options that the tiger team will simulate. I asked Gurwell to consider talking about this at the ASAC meeting in Santiago, should Ewine-Geoff-Yasuo feel it is appropriate.
Several comments have been received. The SMA cost estimates exceed those for the ACA, which has twice the collecting area. The pointing specification is poorer than that for ALMA or the ACA. The receiver room is large but we are unsure whether ALMA receivers could be accommodated. Everything about the SMA is very non-ALMA standard, of course. It accommodates, for example, dual frequency operation. We must assume that all receivers and optics would need replacement.
This was also discusse at the ACA meeting; see minutes. I think this should probably be carried along in ACA simulations as a strawman.
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Travel
Oh, always
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