[X] My Assistant

[algorimancer]

Looking ahead to MSL (2010 isn't that far away), it occurs to me that it would be of mutual benefit to try to establish some sort of formal involvement between UMSF (or an interested pool of UMSF members, possibly coordinating through a private sub-forum) and the MSL PI's and associated teams. We've certainly got the talent pool, professional and otherwise, particularly considering the cartography, software development, and analysis which appears here. They could get the benefit of some competent assistance in a variety of forms (gratis), and we could acquire an inside line to the data products we care about. Anyone else think this would be a good idea? I'm not entirely sure how best to go about establishing this relationship, but we already have some members of the MSL team onboard here.

From my own perspective, I would like to be able to hit the ground running from the software perspective from the moment of landing. This means knowledge of such things as vehicle and instrument models (camera models) as well as locations and formats of data products - images, color calibration, and something to the effect of the pancam tracking database. Some aspects of data analysis might also be handled here, and I'm sure we'd all enjoy sharing opinions about mission planning

[nprev]

I think that's a terrific idea, man! There's a long tradition of pro-am collaboration in amateur astronomy, which in fact has become even stronger in recent years as equipment has improved. The computing revolution has obviously had the same effect on the tools available to pro & amateur image enthusiasts.

The only problem I see is that the amateur products may need to be approved before release. Not only is review manifestly essential in order to validate scientific findings, but the pros must publish or perish themselves, and they might not appreciate being scooped by an am.

The way that the pro/am process generally works in astronomy is that the pros either have established long-standing relationships with organized groups like AAVSO or ALPO for long-term observation campaigns, or the pros send out a call for observations of discrete events like asteroid occultations, comets, novae, etc. Discoveries of new objects or phenomena by everybody (pros & ams alike) are reported to the IAU via (in the case of asteroids & comets) the Minor Planet Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

Sorry for telling you more than you wanted to know (or what you knew already! ), but thought it might be helpful to look at precedents & processes when formulating an UMSF pro/am collaborative schema.

[algorimancer]

...The only problem I see is that the amateur products may need to be approved before release. Not only is review manifestly essential in order to validate scientific findings, but the pros must publish or perish themselves, and they might not appreciate being scooped by an am.

Agreed, validation and review are of course essential prior to any formal publication. Understanding that the pros live in the world of publish or perish should be fundamental assumption going into this (I work in biomechanics research myself - a couple of years ago I concluded that I have gotten over the idea of getting myself a Ph.D since all the doctorates I know spend most of their time writing grant applications and dealing with administrivia, leaving little time for actual research). I think that what UMSF brings to the table is the possibility for more publications than would otherwise be possible, at the minor expense of adding a co-author or acknowledgement.

It seems to me that, considering the expected pace of MSL and the volume of data returned, the MSL team may find itself a bit overwhelmed - more data than they have time or people to analyze in depth. UMSF may offer a mutually beneficial solution. Note that the contribution of UMSF need not be direct involvement in research, but might alternately involve facilitation of the infrastructure of the mission (software, hazard detection, identification of targets of opportunity, [naming rocks ], etceteras) which allows the MSL team to spend more attention on research than they otherwise could.