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The institute that manages the science programme for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) should expand its focus beyond that instrument, according to the director chosen to lead the institute into the next century.

Steven Beckwith, who is to take over the helm at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, next September, says one of his main objectives will be bringing in new work to the institute. “HST is the only thing that's done by the institute, and I personally think that's too little for an institute with the kind of resources that are there,” says Beckwith, who is at present managing director of the Max Planck Institut für Astronomie in Heidelberg, Germany.

Beckwith, whose appointment was announced by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy last week, succeeds Robert Williams as the institute's third director. A native of Wisconsin, Beckwith was a member of the astronomy faculty at Cornell University before joining Max-Planck, which he helped turn into a leading astronomy centre. He is an expert on star and planet formation, and has been a principal user of Europe's Infrared Space Observatory.

Beckwith: keen for more collaboration.

The most obvious new line of work would be to manage the scientific programme for the planned Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), an infrared-optimized space observatory that the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration plans to launch as a successor to Hubble around 2007 (see Nature 389, 651; 1997). The STScI is generally thought to be the leading contender for operating the NGST. But “even that by itself is probably not enough”, says Beckth.

The institute, he says, could be a leader in providing software products, such as those used for data reduction and telescope scheduling, to the general astronomy community. Programs written for the space telescope could be used just as well by other space- and ground-based instruments.

Although some sharing is already going on, he says, the astronomy community has not reached the level of collaboration that he sees among particle physicists. “We don't share as much as we could. It should be possible to save money overall for the field, or at least be able to use the resources we've got to do more than we are, by not duplicating efforts.”

This sharing of resources has political problems, he admits, and will happen only if large observatories and astronomy institutions sit down together to “establish a dialogue among the principal actors.” Beckwith would like the institute to play a lead role in that dialogue.