ALMA North American Science Advisory Committee Telecon
Phone Meeting 2007, March 9
This page available at
https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/ALMA/09Mar07Minutes.
- Call date: 2007-03-09 19:00 UT (Friday)
- Call time 14:00 EST or 19:00 UT
- Duration: 1 hr
- USA Number: 1-866-675-5385
- Outside USA Number: +1 517 444 6916
- Passcode: 8445333#
- Leaders: Chris Carilli, Jon Williams
Attendance
ANASAC Members (
Attendees in RED):
- Andrew Baker (Rutgers) (2008)
- John Bally (U. Colorado) (2008)
- Andrew Blain (Caltech) (2007)
- Todd Clancy (SSI) (2009)
- Xiaohui Fan (U. Az.) (2007)
- Terry Herter (Cornell) (2009)
- Paul Ho (CfA, Harvard) (2008)
- Kelsey Johnson (UVa) (2009)
- Doug Johnstone (HIA/DAO, Victoria) (2007)
- Lee Mundy (U. Md) (2007)
- Gorden Stacey (Cornell) (2009)
- Jaqueline van Gorkom (Columbia) (2007)
- Alycia Weinberger (DTM) (2009)
- Jonathan Williams, Chair (U. Hawaii) (2008)
- Christine Wilson (McMaster U.) (2007)
- Mel Wright (UC Berkeley) (2008)
(
Bold = Member of ASAC)
NRAO:
- J. Hibbard
- A. Wootten
- Carilli
- Brogan
Agenda
1) Old Business (Carilli)
Minutes of 26 Jan 2007 meeting. Approved
Action items from last time:
- ACTION: Future science meetings
- WHO: All
- Due: June 07
- Done:
- ACTION: Doug should contact Mark Adams about Canadian Brochure
- WHO: Doug Johnstone
- Due: June 07
- Done:
- ACTION: Send DRSP II to ANASAC for NA input
- WHO: ASAC members
- Due: May 07
- Done:
- ACTION: Does ASAC/ANASAC want Splatalog presentation
- WHO: Blain
- Due: May 07
- Done:
- ACTION: Review membership
- WHO: Carilli
- Due: April 07
- Done:
- ACTION: Get further input on NSF reaction to Grants
- WHO: Carilli
- Due: April 07
- Done:
Report from Carilli. Lots of project news.
Big news -- first fringes. see: http://www.nrao.edu/pr/2007/almafringes/
The ANASAC sends Kudos to the team at the ATF. This is a major project
milestone. OSF now has a roof. Mark Holdaway has left NRAO. He will be missed.
CASA testing is in full swing in Socorro, with an international team testing
the alpha version for a week. Reports thus far are positive.
3) Update on ASAC (Mundy)
ASAC Web Pagehttps://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaSac
New charges - see supplemental material
Report by Blain. The new charges were reviewed. The face to face is in May in tokyo.
Concern was expressed about the tight CSV schedule and staffing. The DRSP II will be
finalized and distributed for comment. Input on large/special/time comsuming projects
is important to drive the process and planning.
4) ALMA Ops, NAASC proposal reviews (Carilli/Hibbard)
See supplemental material
NSF panel Chair Jean-Rene Roy -- Gemini Observatory South director
AOP international review panel Chair -- Pierre Cox - IRAM director
Carilli reported on review. Panels were very positive, and emphasized the
importance of full science support. A major message that came out was the
important need for adequate support early in the project, to ensure that
expectations are met (as well as expectation management) -- watch what is
promised, but what is promised should be delivered. Some other concerns were:
archive and archive research, international communications, staffing ramp-up,
and M&R asssumptions. Grants were discussed, but possible programmatic difficulties.
5) ALMA Workshops (Brogan)
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/disk07/
planning proceeds very positively. abstracts are now closed, and
there are plenty of very good ones to fill the program. they are
even thinking of expanding from 2.5 to 3 full days.
6) Next Telecon
- Date of next phone meeting will be on: April 27, 2007
Supplemental Material
Announcement from AUI and NRAO Director's Office on ALMA ops plan review
"On another topic, we just successfully completed two ALMA operations
reviews. One was an international review of the ALMA Operations Plan;
the other was an NSF review of our proposal for conducting North
American ALMA Operations and for the
NAASC. The initial debriefings by
the review committees were extremely positive. While we must await
receipt of the written reports before providing a definitive summary,
you should know that the panels were extremely impressed by the
planning, the materials, the presentations, and the performance of the
NRAO staff.
They were especially impressed with both the level of detail that has
gone into the planning--"years ahead" of other projects they knew at
comparable points in their lifecycles--and the teamwork displayed. They
could not believe that the NRAO staff members involved with ALMA
operations had been working together for barely a year. They and NSF also heard a clear
and strong message that ALMA is NRAO's top priority, and that the One
Observatory approach provides a suite of forefront facilities from meter
to submillimeter wavelengths to the astronomical community.
There are obviously some concerns, including the planned steep ramp-up
in hiring, and the adequacy of the resources both for user support and
for future maintenance and development, but both of these just argue for
more resources. Overall, the panel appeared overwhelmingly supportive
of our work.
We thank everyone who worked so hard to make this review a success, and
all who are continuing to make NRAO the world's forefront radio
astronomy observatory.
The entire Observatory should be proud."
Fred Lo and Ethan Schreier
ASAC charges for May 2007 meeting
At their telecon yesterday, the ASAC was presented with a set of charges to
address at their May face-to-face meeting. I forward them to you here so
that you might develop your own thoughts on the subjects.
ASAC Meeting
May, 2007
GENERAL CHARGE
The ALMA Scientific Advisory Committee (ASAC) will provide advice on
those major issues presented to the ASAC by the Project Scientist or the
ALMA Board that affect the science capabilities of ALMA and require
decisions to be made or priorities to be set regarding project tasks and
resources. The ASAC will be kept informed of progress and developments in
ALMA through periodic reports and briefings provided by the Joint ALMA
Office and shall meet at least twice a year. Reports of the ASAC's
deliberations will be made in writing to the Board by the Chairperson
of the ASAC following each Committee meeting, on a schedule specified
in advance by the Board. The Project Scientist serves on the Committee
ex officio.
Charge for the Meeting of May, 2007
The ASAC is requested to consider the following topics, and to make
recommendations to the Board that include your priority or time scale
where your recommendations require expenditure of ALMA's fixed resources.
Note: ASAC's written report must be received no later than Friday, 8 June
2007 in order to allow the JAO time to prepare their written response for
consideration of both documents by the Board at its 27-28 June 2007 meetings
in Chile.
I. Review and summarize the science in the version 2 of the DRSP. We are particularly interested in the qualitative changes from Version 1 of the DRSP and implications, if any, for the construction and operation of ALMA. In conjunction with this, review the status of the correlator capabilities and recommend which of its numerous modes should be implemented first.
II. Within the context of operational planning, review the status and capability of the Atacama Compact Array both as a set of special purpose sub arrays and as an element of the full ALMA.
III. Review the current status of molecular line databases and their readiness for ALMA science. The review should evaluate existing plans for the next five years in light of ALMA's needs at full operation and in coordination with other major projects with similar needs, in particular Herschel and SOFIA.
IV. The ASAC should read and discuss the Operations Plan. Depending on the questions raised in the formal review of the Operations Plan in late February, the Board may request ASAC input in formulating its responses. Such requests will come as addenda to these charges, if needed.
Clear skies,
Al
--
ChrisCarilli - 09 Mar 2007