  A study on future large accelerators [1] has considered a facility, which is
designed, built and operated by a worldwide collaboration of equal partner
institutions, and which is remote from most of these institutions. The full
range of operation was considered including commissioning, machine development,
maintenance, troubleshooting and repair. Experience from existing accelerators
confirms that most of these activities are already performed 'remotely'. The
large high-energy physics experiments and astronomy projects, already involve
international collaborations of distant institutions. Based on this experience,
the prospects for a machine operated remotely from far sites are encouraging.
Experts from each laboratory would remain at their home institution but
continue to participate in the operation of the machine after construction.
Experts are required to be on site only during initial commissioning and for
particularly difficult problems. Repairs require an on-site non-expert
maintenance crew. Most of the interventions can be made without an expert and
many of the rest resolved with remote assistance. There appears to be no
technical obstacle to controlling an accelerator from a distance. The major
challenge is to solve the complex management and communication problems.
