Discovery & Depth

In the United States, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has commissioned a review of NSF-funded astronomy assets with the goal of determining how to best spend money for this decade. The review is motivated by the perceived flat funding for Astronomy for the rest of the decade against the backdrop of paying for the costs to maintain current facilities, the anticipated great cost of paying for operation costs of new facilities (ALMA), future facilities (LSST, GSMT) and the desire to maintain a healthy funding for individual researchers and groups. The financial issues and costs are reasonably well determined. Thus the primary purview for the Portfolio Review committee is analysis and prioritizing of the astronomical returns derived from existing facilities, new facilities and the importance of funding researchers (individual or groups). Here, accepting the boundary conditions posed above, I have focused on fields centered on optical astronomy which offers the best opportunity for progress in this decade.