LSST Meets Washington Elite

Chuck Claver and Anna Spitz

LSST was sponsored by the American Astronomical Society (AAS) to participate in the 15th Annual Exhibition of the Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF) on Capitol Hill. The evening event, The Path to Innovation: Scientific Discovery and Learning, was held at the Rayburn house Office Building on March 24th. Don Sweeney and Chuck Claver traveled to Washington, DC to present at the event and also meet with several congressional staffers. They described LSST’s innovative science, data management, and education and public outreach (EPO) programs and discussed the decadal review process in which the astronomical community prioritizes activities for the decade ahead. At the CNSF event and office visits, Claver and Sweeney talked with staffers over the course of eight action packed hours.

Begun in 1988, the CNSF is an alliance of over 100 organizations, including the AAS, which promotes the goal of increasing the national investment in National Science Foundation’s (NSF) research and education programs. Participating organizations include professional, scientific and engineering societies, independent research organizations, colleges and universities, and higher education associations. Each year the CNSF holds an exhibition to feature science, mathematics, and engineering research and education projects supported by NSF. Claver and Sweeney mingled with congressional staffers and representatives to raise awareness of how LSST works to meet US research and education goals. Approximately 300 attended the 2009 event to view the 34 exhibits. Claver states, “This was not your typical poster session. Nancy Pelosi gave a short address, Tony Chan (Head of NSF’s Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences) visited us at the exhibit, and NSF Director Arden Bement was in attendance.”

AAS John Bahcall Public Policy Fellow Marcos Huerta facilitated visits earlier in the day with four groups of staffers: those of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Senator John McCain, the House Subcommittee on Research and Science Education, and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Sweeney and Claver enjoyed meeting staffers who were well-informed about the LSST project and receptive to a discussion of its scientific and economic benefits. Dahlia Sokolov, the new staff director (six months) of the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education, which oversees both NSF and the Department of Energy (DOE), was quite interested in how NSF and DOE are working together on LSST. In general the public private funding model, interagency cooperation and challenging project schedule caught the interest of staffers.

Sweeney and Claver emphasized the unique research and educational capabilities of a survey, which incorporates the time domain and offers innovative research and educational opportunities. The opportunities for innovative EPO and the resulting investment in EPO at early stages were particularly well-received. Sweeney and Claver made the case that using past surveys as models (e.g. Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Galaxy Zoo) LSST will engage citizen scientists and leverage their individual investigations into large-scale, cutting edge science. This engagement and the training of researchers will help the US remain competitive in world markets — as well as produce fantastic new discoveries in the fields of dark energy/dark matter, near Earth asteroids and other fields. Staffers wondered about the computing power and software development to make this all possible — Claver’s descriptions of the computer science research and implementation on LSST further impressed the staffers. Staffers seemed poised to remember the unique contributions of the project in both how it is done and what it will produce.

Claver and Sweeney have returned from their excellent adventure committed to continued improvement in communicating with policy makers and the public about LSST. They learned valuable lessons in presenting the case for LSST to those in the political realm, lessons that can help all collaborators focus their discussions with non-scientists.