2003 Business Meeting Minutes

Solar Physics Division
2003 Members’ Meeting
June 17, 2003
Minutes

Items are keyed to numbers on agenda. Meeting called to order at about 7 PM.

  1. Art Poland: Doug Rabin will be able to advertise civil service positions at GSFC. Art honored with T-shirts!
  2. Secretary Report: Tom Bogdan and Steve Cranmer are the new SPD Committee members. The new secretary: Neal Hurlburt. Member Directory under discussion. SolarNews continues.
  3. Treasurer’s Report (Joan Schmelz): The SPD is in good health. Self-held checking account being closed. Audit waiting on official AAS audit. The difference between our records and theirs is small (hundreds of dollars). Member count: As of Jun 3, we have 331 Full, 41 Assoc, 55 Emeritus, 34 Junior, 64 affiliate. Only 1 institution has 5 Junior members and that’s Memphis. Please get your students to join! Junior AAS membership is only $37 for 2 years.

    4. SPD Logo Competition: Over 100 entries received. Sarah Gibson, Amy Winebarger helped choose. $500 prize winner is Aaron Chavez.

  4. Harvey Prize report: Well established, good response to request for endowment. Sunset clause: spend principal down over about 25 years after which remaining funds free for some other use.
  5. SPD Announcements
    1. Popular Writing Award winners: Mark Garlick, “The Fate of the Earth”, Sky and Telescope, Oct 2002. E.C. Krupp, “Shelter from the Storm”, Sky and Telescope, Oct 2002. New committee members and article nominations needed. Current committee: Kucera, Kankelborg, Saba, Curt Suplee, Dave Webb. If you write something or see something, tell us!
    2. Press (Craig DeForest): Lighter year, but press releases submitted. This year, holding press conferences by telecon a la HEAD. Tom Berger today on high res images showing 3D structure. Tomorrow publicizing joint RHESSI/TRACE/SOHO observations. Please submit a result if you think it’s appropriate; Craig can’t find everything.
    3. Liaison Report
      1. Plasma Physics report from Jim Chen: SPD 2004 will include special sessions organized by SPD Liaisons. “What have we learned about the Sun from Stars?”
      2. Possible topic: reconnection in astrophysical and solar plasmas.
      3. Vahe Petrosian (high energy): organized session at HEAD in April to showcase RHESSI. Was a bit early and HEAD was joint with APS this year.
    4. SPD Committee Thanks to:
      Hale Prize: Terry Forbes, Leon Golub, Shadia Habbal (Chair), Jack Harvey, Barry Labonte. Shadia Habbal & Barry LaBonte are rotating off.
      Nominating Comm: Yuhong Fan (chair), Carl Schrivjer, Joe Hollweg
      Popular Writing: done
      Electronic Communcations: dormant
      Studentships: Gordon Emslie. Gave overview of first 25 years. Avg. of about 8 per year. A look at the 1996 and earlier shows pretty good return on the investment: quite a few studentship winners went on to earn PhDs.
    5. AAS has number of committees of interest to SPD. Would like to set a goal of at least one SPD nominee to every AAS committee. Please vote for Tim Bastian for nominating committee.
  6. Agency Reports
    1. NSO: SOLIS, ATST, AO, GONG++ major projects. KPVT and patrols phase out as SOLIS phases in. Support gone at Evans. ATST not getting early mirror purchase; ALMA bigget competitor for money. Current ATST concept has telescope 20m above ground. If mirror cannot be bought early, 2012 start instead of 2010. A couple of ready mirrors.

      Current AO system scalable, so it should be able to take average seeing at any ATST site and reach diffraction limit. New ASP will use AO and give diffraction limited vector magnetorams.

      GONG++ shifted to process controlled pipeline steady state. SOLIS moved to GONG farm. Vector m’grams in a few weeks. Solar stellar spectrograph already working and being cross calibrated, full disk patrol assembled and working soon.

      What happens in 2011? Considering co-locating NSO with a University interested in developing a solar program.

      Ron Moore: Site survey finished this year? Keil: narrow to 2 sites this year, probably, followed by second phase of testing various locations. Haleakala, Mexican Nat’l Observatory, BBSO, Panguitch Lake, Sac Peak, La Palma are candidates.

    2. Dale Gary: University Observatory Report
      [This is the first time for this format. DG asked directors of university observatories to submit a one or two transparency-page summary of their recent activities.]
      1. BBSO: New Solar Telescope, will be world’s largest solar and off-axis telescopes. 65cm going to Texas A&M. First engineering light late 2005. Relationship to ATST: NST provides US solar capabilities competitive with recent non-US facilities and strengthen universities. ATST is state of the art but not up until 2012 vs. 2006.
      2. Hawaii: IfA filling at least one more faculty position in solar. Visitor campaigns routinely done — contact them.
      3. Mt. Wilson 60′: 2003 is 20th consecutive year, 12th year of BiSON. Retrospective study of solar cycle 22 under way (Dopplergrams).
      4. Owens Valley: daily observations from 1-18 GHz. Currently operating antennas, working on 7th.
      5. FASR: severalrecent workshops, ranked #1 by Solar & Space Physics Survey Committee in “small” category, currently in 2nd year of study grant.
      6. SFO: CSUN/NSO Infrared Camera now in operation. Tilt plate active optic to remove gross image motion now in use at spectroheliograph.
      7. Wilcox: continues daily low-res magnetograms, and recently “recalibrated” data from Nov 2000 to Jul 2002.
    3. NSF-Bogdan

      Phil Ianna in Solar Astronomy and Astrophysics (SAA) can be worked with. This year’s solar terrestrial budget is $7 million, up 10.4% from FY2002.

      In 2003, 100 proposals came in FY 2003, 25% success rate compared to about 52/57% for 2002. Competition difficult: the reality is that aeronomy only in NSF while NASA does solar too.

      Current 2004 status: Administration recommended 2% increase, Congress authorized 15%, but appropriation TBD. Last two years have been good for NSF, but who knows?

      Some special programs: Nat’l Space Weather and Shine probably not recompeted next year, but some special intiatives we might go to. If want to do ITR (Information Technology Research) need real computer scientist on board. CAREER is 5-year grant to get you started at a university.

      SunRISE: No organized announcement or solicitation, several new proposals funded on ad hoc basis, PSPTs continue to receive UARS operational support, no particular target or ceiling. Mea culpa but no real groundswell of support. Faculy Development in the Space Sciences: idea to create new positions. AO drafted but not released.

      A criticism: less than 50% of requests for reviews are coming back, by far lowest in ATM. This is shameful!

      Summary: cautiously optimistic that next few years will be good ones. Program director applications due July 18.

    4. NASA: Todd Hoeksema

      Grants: SRT & LCAS; GIP; LWS; Theory; RSS@1AU;IDP; Advanced Mission Concepts Modest increase to SRT threatened.; transition to full cost accounting; problems with transition to new financial management program.

      LWS will have focus: Science Task Definition Team (STDT), MOWG (advisory committee to Lika), may want to “bend” science to fit.

      Senior Review process done, results announced in a month or two.

      Missions: SDO, SolarB, STEREO. Explorers the way to get additional missions (SMEX & Midex). NASA’s become a bit risk averse. World economy affecting international partners. Studies on Jupiter Orbiter, Solar Orbiter, Solar Probe. Studying new roadmap missions. Next roadmap team in ~18 months can affect future schedule. Sub-orbital program getting caught up and in pretty good shape right now.

      Publicity/EPO important! Lots of NASA help available to turn your science into something which makes the news. Especially need to keep sun in enws as approach solar min.

      Personnel changes: Todd at HQ another year, but then need new person. New HQ positions: STP program scientist, assistant for LWS.

    5. Nat’l Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee (NAAAC) is Congressionally mandated response to idea of moving all of astronomy to NASA. 5 NASA, 5 NSF, 3 OSTP appointments, purpose to advise NASA & NSF on working together to implement decadal survey “and all other related documents” Bill Wagner pointed out that NASA & NSF are actually working smoothly together now.
    6. International Heliophysical Year, to commence on 50th anniversary of IGY in 1957. http://ihy.gsfc.nasa.gov
  7. Mid year Committee meeting: idea from DPS: SPD meets one day, visits elected officials second day. Limited SPD support
  8. SPD E/O Committee: ensure an SPD presence in this important area; partner with existing AAS, AGU, and agency programs. Experimenting this year with teacher involvement in SPD Meeting. Please volunteer!
  9. Solar Physics 101 Proposal Copied from UKSP, Canaries, Orsay, Davos

    Goal: Introduce solar physics to 1st and 2nd year Grad students
    Format: 5-10 day series of lectures covering all of solar physics; lecturers resident through school.
    Conduct annually, possibly rotate location
    Seek NSF and NASA funding

  10. Next few meetings are joint with AAS in 2004, AGU 2005 New Orleans, 2006 Solo or AAS Calgary?? 2007 AAS in Hawaii. AAS would like us to meet with them during IAU years since attendance lower those years.
  11. Bylaws changes
    Described by SW. First one enables but does not require electronic ballots. Second slips all deadlines back 4 weeks. Look for ballots in Fall.
  12. Departing officers and committee members: David Alexander and Dana Longcope, Steve Walton, Judy Karpen.

Adjourn 10:30 PM.