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Amid Controversy, Construction of Telescope In Hawaii Halted
An anonymous reader sends word that Hawaii Gov. David Ige has asked for a week-long hold in the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope atop Mauna Kea. "After more than a week of demonstrations and dozens of arrests, Hawaii Gov. David Ige said Tuesday that the company building one of the world's largest telescopes atop Hawaii's Mauna Kea has agreed to his request to halt construction for a week. 'They have responded to my request and on behalf of the president of the University and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs have agreed to a time out on the project, and there will be no construction activities this week,' Ige said at a news conference. Thirty Meter Telescope is constructing the telescope on land that is held sacred to some Native Hawaiians. Scientists say the location is ideal for the telescope, which could allow them to see into the earliest years of the universe. Ige said he hopes the temporary pause in construction will allow the interested parties to have more discussions about the project. Native Hawaiian groups have been protesting the construction of the telescope since its inception last year."
Just for the record: none of the spills have contacted the earth. Those are "spills" like when you spill coffee on your desk. All mirror cleaning water is trucked off the mountain. There are no palila birds or mamane trees at 13,000 ft. The TMT does not plan to have a cesspool. The EIS calls for a sealed building, everything except photons are trucked in and trucked out. There has been over a decade of very detailed planning and study focused on mitigating impact from all observatories and all of these documents are freely available online.
It's more about it being sacred for the gifts it gave the early Hawaiians in the form of food, water and other resources than of it being because of ghosts.
"The summit of Mauna Kea was seen as the "region of the gods", a place where benevolent spirits reside. Poliahu, deity of snow, also resides there."
Like I said, ghosts.
In any case, whether "ghosts" or "we liked hanging out there 1500 years ago", neither makes any difference as to whether or not we should build an observatory in one of the single most suitable spots on the planet for its primary purpose.
To my knowledge, they have and there is public information available on the environmental impact statement. This work is being done by astronomers who really do care. I've seen far to many people act as if this is some big mean corporation who just wants to profit at the cost of the environment or something. I've met these people, they are scientists, who value the environment and respecting culture. And if that were the main problem, the activists should hit those issues specifically instead of calling for the scrapping of the whole thing, and also, if that were the main issue, we wouldn't have prominent activists wanting a removal of all telescopes. It doesn't surprise or convince me when people who call for the TMT stopped on every conceivable ground also call for it to be stopped on environmental ones.
I live in Hawaii and am excited for the new 30 meter telescope. There are currently 13 telescopes at the summit of Mauna Kea. ...
Only complaint I have, I really wish most of these telescopes were open to the public. I have never had the opportunity to look through anything bigger than a backyard telescope and it would be amazing to be able to see what a thirty meter telescope can do.
As someone who actually uses these instruments, I can assure you that NO ONE "looks" through these telescopes. There are no eyepieces, or even the possibility of previewing the CCD images on those optical telescopes that take "field images". You have to put the digital image data through a whole data reduction "pipeline" to get the final images. In addition, a large number of the telescopes don't even use optical wavelengths: the Sub-Millimeter Array, James Clerk Maxwell, Caltech Sub-millimeter Observatory, and VBLA are all radio or microwave observatories. The U.K. InfraRed Telescope (UKIRT) and NASA's InfraRed Telescope Facility (IRTF) are...wait for it... infrared telescopes.