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posted by cmn32480 on Friday December 04 2015, @11:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the they-will-just-have-to-hubble-along dept.

From Nature.com:

Hawaii's supreme court has ruled that the construction permit for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on top of the mountain Mauna Kea is invalid. The 2 December decision is a major blow to the international consortium backing the US$1.5-billion telescope, and a win for the Native Hawaiians who have protested against its construction on what they regard as a sacred summit.

And the top reddit comment on the article, which I found neatly summed up the situation.

I spent time in Hawaii and talked to locals that were born and raised there about this issue. Its polarizing.

People against it brought up the need for spirituality and respect for the Hawaiian culture lost over hundred of years of Western influence.

Argument for the telescope, however, claimed that building it would do nothing but respect their history. How did the ancient Hawaiians get to the island? They used the stars. It was "in their blood" to understand the heavens. Most of the those complaining are young disenfranchised people struggling in one of the crappiest economies in America.

Of course this could be a generalization based on second hand observation.

As for me, as big as these telescopes are, they look like ants on top of these massive volcanoes. Ruining the scenery is nonsense.

We covered the Groundbreaking for World's Largest Telescope nearly a month ago.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by J053 on Saturday December 05 2015, @01:59AM

    by J053 (3532) <dakineNO@SPAMshangri-la.cx> on Saturday December 05 2015, @01:59AM (#272046) Homepage
    Sure - the dark side of the Moon would be a great place - as is Earth orbit (in response to comment #272037 above) - except when the facilities need maintenance. Then, it is very expensive. It's also difficult to put a telescope with a 30m diameter mirror into orbit (or onto the Moon) - if you wanted to try, it would be better to have an array of smaller light collectors - but then you have the issues of syncing them up and, again, maintenance. The mirror in Hubble has been replaced once, so it's not impossible, but an EVA mission is expensive. And no, robot technology is not yet evolved enough to do it that way.
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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 05 2015, @02:08AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 05 2015, @02:08AM (#272051)

    The mirror in Hubble wasn't replaced. They added smaller optics later in the path that corrected the mistake in the big primary mirror.