The Project Manager’s
Corner: Coming Out
Gary Sanders, TMT Project Manager
June 2006
TMT is "coming out." With this inaugural TMT Newscast,
we move from informing you about various goings-on in the project
by pulling you to our Web site to what is known as "push." We
are starting to push some content out to an interested community.
We are coming out.
We have provided a lot of information to date. I, myself, have
written a series of articles covering the formation of the project,
its technology, its technical progress and our recent design
review:
What is new is that now we have a design that has been thoroughly
reviewed, and we have come out publicly with many details and
have lots to describe. We want you to be aware of the progress
and developments. So, unless you opt out, you will receive regular
updates on TMT.
The Conceptual Design Review presented our team and design
to a blue-ribbon panel of external experts and observers from
around the world. We got praise, we got questions, we got critiques,
we got homework. Most importantly, we got to proceed to the
next step. We will complete the development of a reference construction
schedule and a cost estimate good enough to help the TMT Board
plot the strategy ahead.
This review led to press coverage in Canada ("Canada's
Big Space Shot," Toronto Star, May 14, 2006). There was
coverage in Chile ("Listo el diseño de nuevo gran telescopio
para Chile", El Mercurio, June 2, 2006), and in France
("Un
oeil géant pour explorer le ciel," Le Figaro, June
7, 2006). Now that is coming out. There was more coverage on
numerous space and science Web sites and other newspapers.
For the telescope builders, the biggest way to come out is
the biannual SPIE/International Society for Optical Engineering
meeting titled "Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation."
Held in Orlando, Florida, conveniently just a week after our
big review, this meeting gave the TMT project a chance to present
55 papers on every aspect of our design. In front of 1,700 astronomers,
engineers and project enthusiasts, TMT staff and contributors
unveiled the details of our work.
Organized in several plenary and parallel sessions, our overview
papers on the telescope design, adaptive optics, and TMT scientific
instruments referenced more detailed papers on specific aspects
of these major systems for the real experts. The detailed papers
were also presented at sessions of the meeting. The written
papers will appear in the SPIE proceedings in several weeks.
Now that is coming out.
We complete this burst of coming out activities with this first
TMT Newscast. It is our outreach to you. We hope that you will
find these periodic broadcasts informative and entertaining. |
