It’s my pleasure as the Chair of the MTR to provide
an informal report on progress thus far. The first task was to produce the
Terms of Reference (ToR), which are available in full
on the CASCA website. I’ve heard some
people express uncertainty about the precise boundaries of the MTR, so it’s
useful to reproduce the Statement of Task which sets boundaries that the MTR
will operate within:
“The
MTR is not anticipated to be as wide-ranging and detailed as the decadal plan
outlined in the LRP2010. The key parts of the review are an assessment of the
status of the LRP2010 projects, and an analysis of new opportunities. The
series of priorities that result are anticipated to be relevant on a 5-year
timeline and are not to include major revisions or expansions of LRP2010 that
are inconsistent with the original goals of the plan. The resulting review will
serve as a single unified vision to reaffirm the LRP2010 process over the
second-half of the 2010-2020 decade.”
Once the ToR had
been prepared, the MTR panel was arrived at through a consultative process
between the CASCA Board, President and the MTR Chair. While scientific coverage
was the primary driver behind the panel selection, additional factors including
geography and demographics were included in the matrix of requirements. I’m
sure the community joins me in being extremely thankful to all the panel members
that have agreed to serve. They are, in alphabetical order,
After a quick overview of the MTR process,
Greg Fahlman and John Hutchings got the meeting going
with overviews of the current “astronomy landscape” and the activities of the
LRP implementation committee. Presentations on behalf of the CASCA science
committees then followed, and Rene Doyon wound up this presentation session
with a discussion of the enormous growth of opportunities in exoplanet science.
The questioning focused on a number of
issues, progress with LRP priorities being a common theme, but also industrial
involvement in the LRP/MTR was discussed and clearly has become an issue that
needs to be carefully considered during the MTR process.
The second session focused on space-based missions
with presentations on WFIRST, CASTOR, WISH, Athena+, SPICA and balloon programs.
After a short break for lunch questioning resumed. The high cost of space
missions combined with domestic funding challenges continues to make “space” a
difficult area for our community to handle effectively. Questioning focused on
mission specifics including development and funding levels. A short discussion
on downselect processes also ensued, although
missions will evolve rapidly over the coming months, suggesting that perhaps
such a step is premature at this time.
The final session of the day focused on
ground-based facilities. Short updates for established facilities were given,
but the primary focus was on future facilities, in particular TMT. I won’t
dwell on the TMT discussion at length, as there should be an update in e-cass, but clearly the project is reaching a point where the
window for entry is closing. CCAT is moving forward apace and is in the current
CFI round, while SKA developments are moving forward even though the
international side of the partnership has hit some issues. ngCFHT has now evolved into the Maunakea
Spectroscopic Explorer and was discussed extensively, but largely in the
context of potential collaborative opportunities for facilities. The proposal
from the East Asian Core Observatories Association (EACOA) in relation to
future operations of the JCMT represents an intriguing new development in this
direction. At the end of the day, it was clear that the potential benefits of
formalized collaborative agreements will have to be considered in detail within
the MTR, although the outlook for this issue really is much longer term than
the next five years, and requires input from other countries as well.
The meeting finished at four o’clock to
coincide with the start of the first match in the World Cup! I would like to
reiterate thanks to all those attended in particular those that flew-in just for
the day, and also Carmelle Robert and Laurent Drissen for carrying so much of the organizational load.
Looking to the next few months, the timeline
to the production of the final report is quite long, and should be roughly as
follows: A call for white papers will be announced soon, with a deadline of
November. We fully expect that many science cases will not have changed
significantly and where possible encourage people to make use of documents
produced for the 2010 LRP. However, in certain fields, for example X-ray
astronomy, it is clear that missions have changed in the last four years.
Townhall
meetings will happen in early 2015, and then the panel will present initial
recommendations at CASCA 2015. Report writing will largely occur over the
summer, although based upon experiences with the 2010 LRP it is anticipated the
final report will be available in November/December 2015. The final report is
anticipated to be in the range of 70-80 pages, in keeping with the reduced
scope of the MTR as compared to the full LRP.
To finish, I’d like to encourage everyone in
the community to participate in the MTR process. The creation of reports like
the MTR/LRP is largely a process of synthesis that depends as strongly on the
quality of the community input as it does on the insight and energy of the
panelists. I’m sure I speak for all the panelists when I say we’re looking
forward to working with everyone over the coming months and doing the very best
job we can on behalf of our community.