Battle for Survival

The decision to cancel the UPF was a body blow for UKIRT, the more so because many people recognised the potential of the new instrument, but the deed was done and UKIRT was identified for closure on the 31st of March 2010, by then only a matter of a few months away. Gary Davis secured a stay of execution and the policy was changed to what was politely called a “managed withdrawal”. So Gary set about trying to somehow save the situation, for example by finding a new owner and handing over the telescope to them. Despite what was undoubtedly a very bad hand, he did have one card left to play, UKIRT was only one of two telescopes operated by the JAC, and much of the support infrastructure, including the technical staff, was shared with the JCMT. Closing UKIRT would throw all of those costs onto the JCMT, making it more expensive to operate. The trick would be to find a way to cut UKIRT’s costs so much that it would become more attractive to continue operating UKIRT than to close it. So he asked Andy Adamson and Tom Kerr to consider a number of possible scenarios, one of which was remote operation of the telescope from Hilo. Tom and Andy both quickly realised that remote operation was in fact a viable option and Tom recalls Gary being surprised that such a radical change in operational model would be possible in such a short time.