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Hearings on the potential construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), opposed by native and environmental activists, begin on October 18th:
If you are going to spend more than a billion dollars building one of the world's biggest telescopes, you'll want to put it in a place with the best possible view of the stars. But in the case of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), an instrument that promises unprecedented images of everything from the most distant galaxies to nearby exoplanets, builders may have to settle for second best.
Next week, the fierce legal and cultural battle that has engulfed efforts to build the TMT on Mauna Kea, a 4207-meter-high peak in Hawaii, will reignite as state officials open a pivotal hearing on whether to allow construction. The peak is rated as the best observing site in the Northern Hemisphere, but for Native Hawaiians it is sacred land, and many residents oppose the project. "The risk [to the project] is by no means small," says project manager Gary Sanders of the TMT International Observatory in Pasadena, California, and "the cost of delay is significant." So the project is also hedging its bets by considering alternative sites.
There is a wealth of information available on the Thirty-Meter Telescope web site.
Previously:
Protests Temporarily Halt Thirty-Meter Telescope's Construction in Hawaii
Hawaiian Court Revokes Permit for Construction of Thirty-Meter-Telescope
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @10:58PM
Just build the giant telescope In Space! where it has an unobstructed view of the stars. Stop shitting all over ancestral land for the fucking stupid and backward idea of building a telescope inside an amosphere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @11:06PM
You insensitive clod!
Space is my a(nce)stral land!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @11:12PM
The Outer Space Treaty is quite clear. You don't have any ancestral claim or any squatter's rights either.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Wednesday October 19 2016, @03:42AM
Yeah, keep telling yourself that after I build my giant solar powered telescope that just happens to block all of the Sun's rays from hitting the Earth.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by julian on Tuesday October 18 2016, @11:08PM
Because it costs 1000x as much money and has a useful operational life 1/1000 that of a ground based telescope.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @11:15PM
Idiot! Civilized societies don't use money.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @11:47PM
Idiot! Civilized societies don't use money.
We're America, not a civilized society.
(Score: 2) by julian on Tuesday October 18 2016, @11:20PM
That should say 1/10 the useful lifespan. Although I suppose a ground-based telescope could last thousands of years if maintained but it would likely become obsolete and pointless.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @11:27PM
short sited. build on moon, use local material to build it. sunlight to power it. Put the infrastructure in place.
Apple and Google will pay for it, Becuase of the land grab of space. They will then build L1 aqnd L5 colonies, and register all their IP there. No more stinking taxes. Just stuck the money into space.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @12:18AM
Depends... If Cliton wins she'll tax the moon, or blow it up. If Trump wins he'll build a hotel (and a wall to keep illegal aliens out) on the moon.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday October 19 2016, @04:55AM
short sited.
I see what you did there. Unless you did not do what you did there, and it is only a typo? Oh, the humanity? That passing ruffians can say "short sited" to massive astronomical installations! Times are even difficult for those who sell shrubberies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @11:25PM
The nice thing about ground telescopes is that you have a far more accessible maintenance window, compared to space. If you happen to screw up installing something, like a mirror, you wouldn't need to expend a lot of resources or wait for a long time to fix it (similar to Hubble's initial issues).
IIRC, another plus is that the introduction of Adaptive Optics and other techniques has made ground telescope resolutions sharper than that of the HST.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @01:00AM
I guess you haven't heard of adaptive optics.