Hawaii Supreme Court Approves Thirty Meter Telescope On Mauna Kea (hawaiinewsnow.com)

Applehu Akbar shares a report from Hawaii News Now: After years of legal wrangling and protests, the Thirty Meter Telescope got a green light Tuesday from the state Supreme Court. In a 4-to-1 decision, the state's highest court ruled in favor of the telescope's construction atop Mauna Kea, effectively ending all legal avenues for contesting the controversial project unless the U.S. Supreme Court takes up the case. In a statement, TMT International Observatory Board of Governors Chairman Henry Yang said the body is "grateful" for the ruling and "committed to being good stewards on the mountain." Slashdot reader Applehu Akbar adds: "Green anti-science organizations, such as Deep Green Resistance and Sierra Club, have been trying to stop TMT construction for years, in an expanded version of an earlier campaign to halt the construction of large research telescopes in southeastern Arizona. As in Arizona, their excuse was at first endangered species on the construction site, and subsequently native rights.

"TMT is an advanced world-class telescope designed to investigate and answer some of the most fundamental questions regarding our universe, including the formation of stars and galaxies after the Big Bang and how the universe evolved to its present form. Native Hawaiians will also be included in other direct benefits from the TMT," the court wrote. "Thus, use of the land by TMT is consistent with conservation and in furtherance of the self-sufficiency of the state."

Comments

Re: “Green anti-science”?

[jd]

Telescope science advances.

And if you're building an interferometer - which they could and possibly have - then no, thirteen "isn't enough" because however many you have, you essentially only have one. One that has the collecting area of all the mirrors combined and the mirror size the maximum distance between any two mirror edges. A telescope more powerful than you could imagine.

The real objection is that the mountain simply isn't big enough to do a good enough job and you still have atmospheric effects.

What you want is something like this using optical telescopes in space. Collecting area one square kilometre, virtual mirror 3000 kilometres across.

With that, you could map every asteroid larger than a thimble in a matter of months, discover the atmospheric chemistry and weather patterns of every planet in a hundred light years and plot the exact 3D location of every star in the Andromeda galaxy.

Ok, it would cost a bit more, but as the consensus amongst the right is that taking from others in the name of science is fine for Kea, I must assume they've no problems with the Feds taking everything past the first five million from the rich. It's just religion after that and we're all agreed that religion has no value. What's wrong with taking nothing?