1. Providing Access for US Astronomers to the Next Generation of Large Ground Based OIR Telescopes
Scientific Potential
Current Design Efforts
Complementarity with JWST
Community Involvement

2. The NAS/NRC Decadal Survey Report:
“The Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope (GSMT), the committee’s top ground-based recommendation….is a 30-m-class ground-based telescope that will be a powerful complement to [JWST] in tracing the evolution of galaxies and the formation of stars and planets.”
“The committee recommends that technology development for GSMT begin immediately and that construction start within the decade.”
In their decadal report the national academy of sciences :
Gave GSMT the highest proiority of all ground based projects
Noted that it will be a powerful complement to JWST in the study of the formation and evolution of galaxies, stars, and planets
Recommended an immediate start to development of needed technology to permit actual construction to start within the present decade.
I will give a very brief summary of what has been done by three other groups to bring a GSMT into being. The main speakers of this session will elaborate further.

3. Community Vision for GSMT: The GSMT Science Working Group
At NSF’s request, AURA’s New Initiatives Office convened a Science Working Group (SWG) to “advise the NSF Division of Astronomical Sciences on a strategy for guiding federal investment in a Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope (GSMT).”
With a broad membership base from national and international groups that expect to play a role in developing next-generation telescopes, the SWG, chaired by Rolf-Peter Kudritzki, gave their first report to the NSF in 2003, June: Frontier Science Enabled by a Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope
NIO created in 2001 January intends to ensure broad community access to a 30 m telescope in the JWST era.
This report by the SWG does not single out any specific approach to accomplishing the goal of building a GSMT but lays out requirements and goals for all meter class telescopes
Rolf will address community involvement in his talks.

4. GSMT’s Science Working Group Report: Science
“The unique challenge of astronomy in the 21st century is to study ‘the evolution of the universe in order to relate causally the physical conditions during the Big Bang to the development of RNA and DNA’ (Riccardo Giacconi). A 20-m to 30-m telescope will provide the unprecedented capability to meet this challenge.”
GSMT SWG has drawn up an exciting scientific agenda for a GSMT

5. GSMT’s Science Working Group Report: Synergy with JWST
“In order to reap the enormous potential synergy between the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and a 20-m to 30-m telescope, it is essential to initiate major design and technology development efforts now to ensure that facility operations coincide with the early JWST era.”
SWG agreed with the NAS/NRC report that complementarity between GSMT and JWST will yield major scientific benefits that would not exist with the two telescopes operating on their on, i.e. non-contemporaneously

6. GSMT’s Science Working Group Report: Community Involvement
“Federal investment now in a major technology development program targeted at key areas can advance multiple design programs, and will ensure a strong public voice at all stages in the development of next-generation telescopes.” NSF should “’seize the moment’ and provide funding for advancing key technologies”.
SWG urged NSF to immediately begin funding the technologies needed to build and operate a GSMT

7. GSMT’s Science Working Group Report: Technology
While there are significant technical challenges to building telescopes of this size, there appear to be no show stoppers
Adaptive optics systems will be critical to the success of a GSMT and are a key challenge, but
Advanced AO systems have moved from the lab to the telescope and have become a routine tool for the study of phenomena on all scales – from planets and their atmospheres in our own solar system, extra-solar planetary formation and debris disks around stars, to black holes and extra galactic systems.
The next slide will illustrate this. Rolf and Gary Sanders will give specific illustrations.

8. The Use of Adaptive Optics Systems for Data Collection is Steadily Increasing

9. GSMT & JWST – The Power of Two
The top two priority missions of the 2001 Decadal Survey in Astronomy and Astrophysics
Each gives orders of magnitude gain in sensitivity over existing ground and space telescopes
Complementary capabilities and unique discovery spaces of each telescope open a new, exciting epoch for cosmic discovery
To reiterate, GSMT and JWST are two highest ranked projects in the decadal survey.
Their unique discovery spaces are strongly complementary.
A clear case for one plus one being greater than two

10. Statement by the AAAC in Annual Report: Science and Synergy with JWST
“The ambitious science goals, which include understanding the formation of galaxies and the chemical elements within just the first one billion years of the Big Bang, and the formation of stars and planets, will only be fully realized through operational overlap of the facilities, as HST and large-ground based telescopes have demonstrated over the last decade. Progress on these scientific objectives is heavily dependent on GSMT being developed on the same timescale as JWST.”
The third group I want to mention is the Astronomy and astrophysics advisory committee – reports to congress
They are arguing strongly for the contemporaneous oepration of the two facilities as a means of maximizing the science return from both.

11. Percentage of Refereed HST Papers with Ground based OIR “support”

12. Key Actions taken by AURA in Support of Decadal Survey’s call for a GSMT:
Engaged the community to define the science capabilities required for a GSMT
Developed a point design for a GSMT in order to study design options and identify technology challenges
Entered into a partnership with UC, Caltech and ACURA (CANADA) to carry out the design and development phase for a 30-meter telescope – TMT in order to:
Ensure access by US community to 30-meter class telescope via public-private partnership as recommended by the Decadal Survey
Involve the community during Design & Development phase
Submitted proposal to NSF in order to:
Support public participation in TMT partnership, and
Advance the design of an alternative GSMT concept

13. AURA’s NSF Proposal Will provide support to more than one GSMT design study
US leadership in astronomy has depended on a broad range of public and private OIR facilities
1948 – one 5-meter - Palomar
1970’s – 3-4m telescopes (CTIO, KPNO, CFHT, Lick, IRTF)
1990s – 6-10 m telescopes: (Keck, Magellan, Gemini, MMT, HET, LBT)
21st century – TMT, GMT, …
AURA provides public access to first ranked facilities through
partnerships (Gemini, WIYN, SOAR…) and
TSIP (Keck, HET, MMT, Magellan …)