Another way to look at proprietary periods

[Stupendous Man <richmond@a188-l009.rit.edu>]

  Several people have commented on the policy of proprietary data 
periods on publicly funded telescopes such as HST.

  Consider a system in which all the data is made available to the
public as soon as it is taken.  If I'm an Unscrupulous Astronomer,
I'll look at the schedule and find a project which is right up 
my alley: "UBVRI observations of SN 2003xx".  Aha!  I plan to set
aside several hours the day that the data becomes available.  As soon
as it appears on the archive site, I download it, do a very quick
job of reducing and analyzing the results, and write a quick
paper, "Optical photometry of SN 2003xx".  I submit it at 4 AM
that night to Astronomical Journal.  The editor and referees find
a number of errors, but I fix them and eventually (two months later),
the paper is accepted.  As soon as it is (or even earlier), I hold
a press conference and announce "The latest amazing discovery
from the Hubble Space Telescope!"

  About a month after THAT, the astronomer who actually designed
the HST observing proposal submits _his_ version of a paper based
on the same data.  This paper has all the work done properly the
first time, and includes references to other observations of this
object which the astronomer has been collecting for some time.
It's by far a superior work.  He submits it to Astronomical Journal,
but the editor rejects it: "Sorry, this has already been done."
When he tries to hold his own press conference, the newspapers
say, "What's the point?  This is old news."  

  Net result: astronomers realize that the way to get ahead in
life is to grab the data which someone else has planned and
do a sloppy job analyzing it.  Most astronomers don't bother to
submit good requests to HST any more, since the days they put into
the effort are wasted.  Many papers are written quickly, rather
than well (which is not to say that this doesn't already happen :-( ).
  
  The bottom line: a loss to the scientific community.

  There are plenty of systems which work in the "me first, me best"
mode in our society; for example, the American economy, or
certain sectors of the Internet.  I tend to side with those who
believe that science isn't well suited for this mode of operation.
Actually, I could go on for hours talking about how the quality
of the average astronomical paper has ALREADY decreased markedly in the
past generation ... but I'll hold myself back  :-)

                                             Michael