Plan for $1 billion Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea summit now goes to chancellor
Video by David Corrigan
The Mauna Kea Management Board voted unanimously to approve the plan to build the Thirty Meter Telescope on the summit of Mauna Kea on Wednesday, during a public meeting held at Hilo’s Imiloa Astronomy Center.
The TMT will now go before the UH-Hilo chancellor, and then the University of Hawaii Board of Regents, for approval. Then, the Department of Land and Natural Resources will decide on a Conservation District Use Permit.
An extensive environmental impact statement has been signed off on by Governor Linda Lingle.
The Thirty Meter Telescope is expected to be the world’s most advanced and capable ground-based optical, near-infrared, and mid-infrared observatory when it sees first light in 2017.
The project also has its opponents, who say the sacred Mauna Kea should not be developed any further. A handful of those opponents were in the audience on Wednesday, ready to give their opinion during the public testimony.
In this video, project manager Gary Sanders talks about the highly anticipated astronomy project. Then, Stephanie Nagata of the Office of Mauna Kea Management presents the details of the TMT project, including some of the aspects of the lease that still need to be ironed out. Big Island Video News will have more from Nagata’s presentation in the coming days.
Finally, Ed Stevens of Kahu Ka Mauna says that although his group has reservations about development on Mauna Kea, they do not oppose the TMT project.
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I watched the video and was can I tell, amazing telescope. I was an astronomer for about 4-5 years with interest in optics. I got older and thru my career was involved in many business projects and financial processes.
I can see that in 30-40 years astronomers will want to build a 50/60 meter telescope. It is human nature to under-invest although you cannot call 1billion (my assumption it will come to 2 bill) under-investment to over-invest and spend much more upgrading.
I’m very confident that TMT will be called obsolete in 50 years begetting the proposal to build a HTM (100 meter telescope). Building huge optical telescopes on the planet is limited by the properties of our atmosphere and probably good up to a certain size.
I’d like to suggest this:
1) build something really huge (100 meter telescope for example) calculate the max mirror that makes sense to use on Earth
OR
2) since you use a segmented mirror use modern PC design principles (meaning upgrades are easy). Build the mirror and the structure to be expandable to accept more segments and gradually increase the mirror size in the future if needed.
I love astronomy but from my experience, huge scale precision instruments construction of which takes many years tend to be
under-calculated in terms of scale needed, finance etc. The question is not if you need it in now in 2010 when you approve the budget and finances are bad, but if you need it in 2020.
Andrew