The AWG held its Autumn meeting on 1998 October 26 - 27 at NASA Headquarters. The following is a brief summary of discussion highlights.
An issue with serious future implications is the availability of high-quality detectors in ALL wavelength bands that characterize Code S science. In some areas detector availability is a chronic problem, and in some areas the problems are likely to become acute. We are especially concerned as to the impact this will have on "faster, cheaper" missions; in the case of Explorers, for example, the time from selection to launch is supposed to be no more than 40 months. Any problems in detector procurement immediately jeopardize the entire mission.
At the request of the Code SR Discipline Scientists, the AWG has begun some initial inquiries about detector availability problems, and we have prepared an introductory report for NASA. This is available as a separate report on the Astrophysics Working Group website (at URL http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~AWG/). The AWG believes that this is an important problem that could become much worse with time. We believe that this is an issue that needs to be addressed at the strategic level, since possible solutions may require major programmatic changes. We will send our report on to the SScAC, as well as to the Discipline Scientists.
Several peer-review issues have arisen lately, primarily from recent Explorer competitions.
The first issue concerns the large number of co-investigators on Explorer programs. Proposals received under the most recent MIDEX AOs involved over 900 co-investigators. This comprises a large fraction of the space-astronomy community, and thus greatly reduces the potential pool of peer reviewers. Conflict of interest guidelines prohibit participation in reviews by principal investigators, co-investigators, or individuals from the home institutions of principal investigators. These rules are relaxed somewhat for the smaller competitions (e.g., GO programs and other NRAs), but are closely adhered to when the stakes are high (e.g., Explorer programs and other AOs). It is not clear what, if anything, should be done about this. A number of suggestions have been made, and we were asked to consider these and provide our reactions to the discipline scientists. Our discussions are summarized in a separate report. In addition to our responses to these specific suggestions, we considered other ideas that might lead to an improved or streamlined peer-review process. One positive suggestion was to adopt a procedure that NSF uses, which is to ask proposers to provide five names of qualified potential reviewers, as well as up to five names of reviewers who the proposer feels might be unable to assess the proposal fairly (e.g., personal rivals). Most members of the AWG thought that this information places little burden on the proposers, but is of great potential use to the program scientists, if not in assembling peer review panels at least in identifying mail-in reviewers. We urge NASA to request this information from proposers in future NRAs and AOs. Another way to alleviate the problem is by increasing the known pool of potential science peer reviewers. To assist with this, the AWG will again solicit from its membership nominations for potential peer reviewers, and these names will be passed on to the Code SR Discipline Scientists.
A second issue that has arisen concerns complaints about judgments that have been made by peer-review panels. One recent complaint involved a single number used in a background calculation. The proposal did not reference the source of this number, and the peer-review panel used an older reference that yielded a less favorable conclusion about the sensitivity of the experiment. We believe that problems of this type could be resolved by permitting the panels to communicate anonymously with the PI through the program scientist during the review if limited clarifications are required. This can be done by FAX to ensure a paper record.
A third and potentially very important issue that was discussed without resolution was the amount of effort that is now required to produce a competitive Explorer proposal (this is in fact the reason for large teams of co-investigators on recent proposals). Both headquarters personnel and AWG members are concerned about the resources that are going into proposals. Indeed, NASA centers and industry partners are already doing their own "down-selects" in order to reduce the number of proposals they must support. These decisions are not always based on scientific merit, and even when they are, the decisions might not correctly reflect the priorities of Code S. NASA is considering requiring short science-concept proposals in order to avoid preselection by other criteria. The AWG will continue to consider this issue and will provide suggestions if and when they arise.
There was another in a long series of discussions about NASA support of ground-based observations. NASA currently DOES support ground-based observations under the following general guidelines: