Memo


To:
Andrei Smolyakov, Science Team Leader


From:
David P. Steele


Subject:
Issues for Science Team


Date:
September 23, 1996


Dear Andrei:

Thank you again for agreeing to lead the science team through this challenging phase of its work. 
You have done a great job in leading the identification of scientific and technical feasibility issues
faced by the project, and in assembling resources to address them.  I particularly appreciate your
willingness to do this in spite of the fact that upper atmospheric physics is not your primary area of
interest.  Your contribution is very important, and I am personally grateful for your help.

Following yesterday's meeting, I put together a list of issues to be addressed by the science team,
that were identified in my notes.  I have listed them more or less in chronological order as they came
up in the meeting, rather than logical or priority order. You may have additional issues in your notes.

       Required accuracy of measurements
      Other possible targets, e.g., H2O, NO2
      Scattered light from off-axis targets
      Contamination from aurora and airglow: expected brightnesses
      Detector type
      Intensified or unintensified system
      If intensified, available phosphor types and relation to CCD quantum efficiency
      If intensified, channel diameter and separation of typical microchannel plates
      Desired passband of system, and means of implementing this: filter(s), intensifier
     photocathode choice, other
      Available sizes of video cameras for star field references
      Likelihood of using stellar emission lines as wavelength markers for spectra
      Grating: transmission vs reflection, advantages and disadvantages
      Maximum number of air masses for viewing from 15 km altitude
      Dynamics of payload suspended from parachute in compound pendulum approximation
     
I would like you to assign responsibility for these issues to the members of your team, so that they
can speak to the issues at tomorrow's plenary meeting or at a subsequent one, since time will be
insufficient to cover all the issues tomorrow.   I recommend asking each of the 6-7 graduate students
on the science team to present a brief (10-15 minute) report on one of the issues above. Many of the
topics were discussed yesterday with reference to written materials, and I feel it would be entirely
appropriate for the students responsible to make liberal use of those materials, not only for their own
preparation but also for their reports.  I have all of those materials, as well as any presented at 
previous meetings, and would be pleased to make them available as needed.

I would like to see syntheses of the results along with recommendations from the students.  There
will no doubt be debate about those recommendations but I feel the experience of formulating,
presenting, and defending them will be  useful for the students.  Each student must prepare a written
summary of his/her presentation for distribution to all present.  This need not be highly prefessional 
in appearance but must do justice to the content of the presentation.
I realize that this is short notice but that's the order of the day.  For the Engineering grad. Students 
there are topics within their competence, e.g., detector type/intensification for James Giesbrecht,
and payload dynamics for John Steele.

Please feel free to discuss this with me.  I would like to distribute an agenda this afternoon for
tomorrow's meeting so please let me know ASAP who will be speaking for how long.  I will keep
things on schedule.

On that note, I would also ask you to take responsibility for the conduct of science team meetings,
especially with respect to length.  While yesterday's meeting was packed with interesting stuff, at
least for the "science" people, I think many of us were just about saturated by the time we
adjourned.  I recognize that the science team is under time pressure to produce information needed
by all the other teams, and there wasn't time yesterday to schedule another meeting of the same
scope.  However, yesterday's meeting was a learning experience for all of us, on many levels.  I
would ask you, in the future, to give each meeting presenter a clear time limit beforehand, and make
them stick to it.  Those attending meetings have the right to know how much of their time will be
required, and we will jeopardize their good will if we don't respect that right.  If issues meriting
further discussion emerge during a meeting, invite the interested parties to continue the discussion
after the formal meeting, and task someone with recording and reporting the results of the
discussion.

Let me thank you again for your involvement and leadership in the project.  I look forward to
continuing to learn with and from you as we continue to work together.

Sincerely,



Dave Steele