Baldwin then commented briefly on his quest to cost a competitive AO system. A 35 actuator system based on a bimorph mirror would cost $0.5M from Laplacian in Honolulu. Once one adds all the bits & pieces, the fully burdened cost based on Art Code's estimate for a system on WIYN comes to $4.6M. This buys something similar to the CFHT AOB except with twice as many actuators. This includes an A&G unit which we are already providing, so there should be some cost savings if we do things right. It is also unclear whether SOAR will pay University or NOAO overhead. Even with these savings however, AO will still be the most expensive ``instrument" we put on the telescope. Simon Morris told Baldwin & Cecil that the Gemini-N NGS was $2.7M without overhead; Morris will be sending the breakdown to Baldwin. Gemini is budgeting between $3-4M for a complete LGS system in the South + the LGS upgrade in the North. This seems very low to Baldwin given the budget at Keck II ($7M of which the Livermore Na laser +launch system would cost ~$2.2M to reproduce once they get it working.) The laser without launcher for Roger Angel's system would be $1M, from the Tucson firm Lightcycles. In summary, we are hearing numbers $1-2M for the laser systems, so $3.5-4M seems plausible for an LGS system. Baldwin is advocating putting in an NGS system with an upgrade to an LGS, but he keeps getting told that that's not a good policy.

Simkin reemphasized the need for standardized electronics interfaces. She reported from the nuclear cyclotron physicists at MSU that EPICS is not tied to VME. Simkin will look into their plans to move toward compactPCI, and will type up & circulate what she thinks should be in the Interface task. McMahan felt that EPICS would go bankrupt if it weren't for universities. Cecil noted that Sebring had budgeted for a computer analyst and for a coder, to be hired for 3 years to integrate the contractor's solutions to the TCS. Cecil will be visiting several contractors with Sebring in Jan. and will inquire about their interface plans to ensure that up to date solutions will be proposed. At present the Requirements to the contractors for the concept design have TBD for the interface standards. These will be resolved during the contractor visits. McMahan felt this was an acceptable strategy.

There was considerable discussion to identify the intended audience for the Science Requirements Doc., now circulating as a draft. Cecil felt that our duty was primarily to the scientists within the SOAR partnership, for whom we must clearly delineate SOAR's optimal niche where it would be most competitive. The present document did this in terms of Diaz and Baldwin's S/N scalings by aperture and flux. Simkin felt that anyone could read anything into the present draft because it took no strong stance. Cecil emphasized that this was because, as a draft, it was meant to provoke discussion among the scientists and compel them to examine their programs within the context of the SOAR/Blanco system. Simkin felt that discussion was impractical until the doc. was made much terser; too much of it was recycled material from the SWG report. She felt it was unreasonable for the Board to read a document of more than 3 pages for the telescope characteristics and 3 for the instruments; the rest could be in appendices. Cecil felt that a simple numerical tabulation of partner science proposals would reflect their current interests, not necessarily what new capabilities SOAR would enable and which it would do best. The partners will need time to absorb the implications of this telescope; we need to guide them with numerical simulations that quantify expected performance. There were now several tables in the draft doc. from Diaz, Baldwin, & Keck and Australis documents that did this. Elston felt it was essential to highlight what science would be lost if certain instruments were not in the initial complement. It was agreed that at least an executive summary should be written, [and Baldwin beat everyone to the punch the next day.]

Because this telecon was getting long-winded, it was decided to table discussion of the Science Requirements doc. until next week.