Astronomy and Space Science Facilities Questionnaire

An analysis of the results up to 18 April can be seen here.

We are conducting a survey to establish a snap-shot of community attitudes to the range of current to (medium-term) future facilities in which the UK has a major financial stake. This will provide data about the opinions of UK-based professional astronomers and space scientists which will be a useful input to the current STFC consultation exercise. The questionnaire is intended to be of assistance in the process, and in no sense a substitute for expert peer-review of the detailed science cases for the different facilities, or other indicators of impact.

If you would like to take part in the survey, please begin by filling out the following information. Note that your details will be kept on a separate list to your survey answers, and so in that sense it will be anonymous.

We will publish the results to-date on 18th April. Please try to give input before that date.

If you have any questions about this survey, please email survey@star.le.ac.uk

Name:
Your position: Other Professor Other faculty Fellow Post doc PhD student
Institute: (UK research institute or STFC facility)
Email Address:
Approximate proportion of your research that is dependent on access to observational facilities: 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Note:

• Guide to grading:
• - => no opinion/don't know
• 0 => no or very little importance
• 1 => marginal importance
• 2 => useful
• 3 => important
• 4 => very important
• 5 => crucial
• We suggest you do not attempt to account for the cost of the facility in your judgement.
• Assume that each facility will continue to be available, with foreseen upgrades, except those (eg. the AAT) for which withdrawal was already decided prior to the recent programmatic review.
• Your scores for different facilities will be normalised by your total score over all facilities.
• The "proportion" you entered above will be used to weight your input to the questions on your own research, but not the questions asking you to take a broader view.
• Missions with launch dates beyond 2015, and facilities unlikely to come on-line within next decade have not been included.

Ground-based, (mainly) common-user facilities

	AAT	ESO3.6	Gemini North	Gemini South	JCMT	INT	LT	Merlin/ eMerlin	NTT	VLT	UKIRT	WHT	ALMA
Over past 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 10 years		- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5

Taking a broader perspective, please rate the facilities as you consider they have and will impact as far as UK science as a whole is concerned.

	AAT	ESO3.6	Gemini North	Gemini South	JCMT	INT	LT	Merlin/ eMerlin	NTT	VLT	UKIRT	WHT	ALMA
Over past 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 10 years		- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5

Ground-based, (mainly) dedicated facilities

Considering the following facilities, please rate them as far as their importance to your own research is concerned.

	GEO600	HESS	LIGO	VERITAS	CLOVER	DES	VISTA	VST
Over past 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 10 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5

Taking a broader perspective, please rate the facilities as you consider they have and will impact as far as UK science as a whole is concerned.

	GEO600	HESS	LIGO	VERITAS	CLOVER	DES	VISTA	VST
Over past 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 10 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5

Space-based, (mainly) common-user facilities

Considering the following facilities, please rate them as far as their importance to your own research is concerned.

	HST	INTEGRAL	XMM- Newton	Herschel	JWST
Over past 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 10 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5

Taking a broader perspective, please rate the facilities as you consider they have and will impact as far as UK science as a whole is concerned.

	HST	INTEGRAL	XMM- Newton	Herschel	JWST
Over past 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 10 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5

Space-based, (mainly) dedicated facilities

Considering the following facilities, please rate them as far as their importance to your own research is concerned.

	Swift	Planck	GAIA
Over past 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 10 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5

Taking a broader perspective, please rate the facilities as you consider they have and will impact as far as UK science as a whole is concerned.

	Swift	Planck	GAIA
Over past 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 10 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5

Planetary and Solar System probes

Considering the following facilities, please rate them as far as their importance to your own research is concerned.

	Cassini	Mars Express	Rosetta	Venus Express	Bepi- Colombo	ExoMars
To date	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Over mission lifetime	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5

Taking a broader perspective, please rate the facilities as you consider they have and will impact as far as UK science as a whole is concerned.

	Cassini	Mars Express	Rosetta	Venus Express	Bepi- Colombo	ExoMars
To date	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Over mission lifetime	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5

Solar/STP

Considering the following facilities, please rate them as far as their importance to your own research is concerned.

	BiSON	Cluster	CUTLASS/ SuperDARN	EISCAT	HINODE	SOHO	STEREO	Solar- Orbiter
Over past 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 10 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5				- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5

Taking a broader perspective, please rate the facilities as you consider they have and will impact as far as UK science as a whole is concerned.

	BiSON	Cluster	CUTLASS/ SuperDARN	EISCAT	HINODE	SOHO	STEREO	Solar- Orbiter
Over past 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 3 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5
Next 10 years	- 0 1 2 3 4 5				- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5	- 0 1 2 3 4 5

Finally...

	Percentage
Astronomy, celestial mechanics, databases and survey astronomy:
Extra-galactic astronomy and cosmology:
Galactic and inter-stellar astronomy:
Particle cosmology:
Planetary science:
Solar and solar-terrestrial physics:
Stars:
Knowledge exchange: