John Mulchaey offers advice to Mike Blanton, the incoming director of Carnegie Observatories, encouraging him to follow his own instincts and use his outsider status to shake things up rather than simply continue existing practices. Mulchaey argues the director role is one of the best jobs in astronomy because it combines access to Las Campanas Observatory, in-house machine shops, and top astronomers with a level of scientific freedom rare elsewhere, while the president's job is to secure the funding that lets those ideas happen. He points to a small-scale project he calls Henrietta as the kind of low-cost idea that could have outsized scientific impact, and says he's curious what similarly ambitious ideas Blanton and Carnegie's astronomers will come up with next.
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Mulchaey notes that having an internal candidate as president (himself) can be useful precisely because he already understood how Carnegie operates, in contrast to the value of an outsider like Blanton bringing fresh perspective.
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Mulchaey describes his own role as finding the money so that ideas researchers propose can actually be funded and carried out.
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30:16>> Yeah. >> Cuz we're going to interview him, too, so >> Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yes. Well, I think I'm very excited to see what he'll do. >> Yeah. >> Because you know, the great thing Michael's coming from the outside. It's always good to have a good outside perspective. Yeah. Um and I say this is a is a person who was selected inside as president. Right. Um there's sometimes having an internal candidate is great. But I think since I kind of grew up at Carnegie all my career and was director, you know, I kind of already knew how things work and everything. I think sometimes it's good to have an outside perspective. So, I'm very curious to see what he'll do. I think my advice to him is really follow his instincts. And I think there's an opportunity for him to shake things up, and that's always a good thing. So, I'm very curious to see what he'll do
30:57and what he'll come up with. I mean, I think his role I I I I told him this when when when I was making the offer and trying to convince him to come, and thankfully it worked. >> Mhm. >> I really think he has like the best job in all of astronomy because it's it's like he has great resources, he has this Las Campanas Observatory, he has access to all these wonderful things we have here, machine shops and all this stuff, and great astronomers to work with, and the and the freedom that you won't have anywhere else. >> Yeah. >> So, the what I really want to see come from Michael and the whole group of astronomers is what are the things they're going to come up with next? What are the next ideas? Henrietta is a great example of this, right? That's a little tiny project that has huge implications if that works. And so, the thing is what are the next things like that? And now
31:38that's his job, he gets to do that. I had to find the money to make sure he can do it when he when he has the ideas. I'm really curious to see what he comes up with. >> Yeah, yeah, that's going to be great. Um I'm I'm looking forward to it. So, um I wanted to end by asking you about something that's personally very important to me, which is eclipse chasing. >> Ah, yes. Do you Are you an eclipse chaser? >> I I am an eclipse chaser. >> How many have you gone to? >> three. >> Okay, so I think we're on the same number. >> Oh, yeah, okay. >> You started in 2017. >> No, I started so, my dad took me to my first one in 2008 in India. It was on the banks of the Ganges, the Ganga River.
32:19It was absolutely phenomenal. And then in 2017, I actually organized like a 100-person campsite in Idaho with all of my friends, and I somehow convinced them I was like, "Guys, this is going to change your life." And they all showed up, and it was an amazing >> Yeah. >> And and it was like a textbook eclipse because there were no clouds in the sky. It was >> just It was It was honestly amazing. And then um I went to Texas for the most recent one and I think you were there in Dallas. >> yeah. >> Um and and Carnegie did a big outreach event. >> We had a huge outreach event. So we partnered with the Perot Museum, which is they're new partners for us and we're going to continue to work with them. It's a great science museum in downtown Dallas. >> Yeah. >> And so what had happened, the story
32:59behind this is kind of interesting. We had a total solar eclipse. So 2017 was my first one. >> Okay. >> Because there hadn't been one in the US so long. And so when I was a kid there just would hadn't been an opportunity. I mean my parents didn't think of traveling to go see them. >> Mhm. >> Um but so 2017 was my first one. I was in Idaho, too, which was It was brilliant beautiful.