Minutes of ANASAC telecon on 2005-February-18
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Attending: A. Baker, A. Blain, R. Crutcher, D. Emerson, X. Fan,
J. Glenn, M. Gurwell, P. Ho, D. Hollenbach, D. Jaffee, D. Johnstone,
L. Mundy, P. van den Bout, C. Wilson, J. Williams, A. Wootten, M. Yun (chair)

1. Rotation of the ANASAC.

 -- Terms of six ANASAC members (Hollenbach, Jaffe, Rodriguez, Sanders,
        Plambeck and Myers) came to an end as of this telecon.  Several
	new members joined the ANASAC (Ho, Brogan, Baker, Bally, Wright,
	and Williams).  Many thanks to the departing members, and
	welcome to the new members!

2. Project News

 -- T. Beasley is heading the ALMA rebaseline effort, and he will
	present various rebaselining options at the ASAC meeting in
	Garching.  Various IPTs have submitted their budget
	and risk analysis.  Several options were mentioned.
	Dick Crutcher suggests to maintain at least minimum
	capacity for polarization measurements, at least in one
	band (345 GHz).  He later sent around a short memo, which
	was forwarded to the ASAC.

 -- Further testing of the prototype antennae is going on at the
	ATF, including out-of-focus holography on astronomical sources.

 -- Pan-ALMA meeting for all ALMA partner countries in Spain is in
	the early stage of planning.  October 2006 is the proposed date,
	but it potentially conflicts with several major events such
	as the NRAO 50 Year anniversary celebration.

3. ANASAC input to ASAC charges

 -- ASAC is asked to consider and to make recommendations to the Board
	on rescoping options, in terms of ALMA's scientific capability.
	ASAC is taking a three pronged approach:

	1) by asking 'can The Level 1 science goals be met should
	    the number of antennas change?'

	2) by reviewing DRSP and determining the impact of fewer antennas;

	3) by asking the configuration group to examine the
	   modified configurations for the smaller number of antennas
	   and the imaging performance of those modified configurations.

 -- There are several key science projects NSF remembers from previous
	documents, such as detecting MW at z=3, mapping a P-P disk
	in Taurus, HST-like resolution and DR, etc.  Some of these
	projects may become challenging with some of these rebaselining
	options.

 -- Lee Mundy adds that ASAC has not seen the rebaselining specifics yet
        and that ASAC is not terribly optimistic.

 -- Suggestions made by various ANASAC members include:

	* Preserve polarization capability for at least one band.
	  It turns out there are additional demands on the hardware
	  if this were to be implemented.

	* Relax antenna specs to reduce antenna costs.  This
	  might not save that much money since the designs and
	  bids are already in.

	* Take the SMA antennas for the ACA and use that money for
	  additional 12-m telescopes.

    These and other suggestions face serious political and technical
	challenges.  If the situation is truly dire, then perhaps
	some of these difficult options should be revisited to
	accomplish the key scientific goals of ALMA.

 -- ASAC final report is at the end of the 1st week of March.
	ASAC members will consult the ANASAC members before the
	final report is submitted.


4. Other Matters

 -- ANASAC face-to-face meeting is suggested at the submm science
	conference in Cambridge this June.  Next telecon is nominally
	 29 April 2005.