Thirty Meter Telescope tech explained by former NASA JPL directorĮmail Meghan Bartels at or follow her.Will the Thirty Meter Telescope be moved to the Canary Islands?.Protests continue against giant telescope's construction on Hawaii's sacred Mauna Kea. "Eventually, you need a home, and that time is coming where we can't continue in a place where we don't have a home to build the telescope." What I've been saying for the last few months, I guess, is we need to get started soon, but I don't know what soon means. And when asked how long TMT might be willing to wait to sort out the situation at Maunakea before moving the facility to another location, the answer was more uncertainty. "It wasn't initiated by us at all, although we're very hopeful that this opportunity, now this space has been created, is a space where something good will happen," he said.Īs to when construction may resume, Squires called the late February time frame that has been discussed - with equally vague origins - realistic. Ige's statement on withdrawing law enforcement from the mountain in December read, "We made this decision after we were informed that TMT is not prepared to move forward with construction on Mauna Kea at this time."īut Gordon Squires, TMT's vice president for external relations, told that he wasn't sure how the withdrawal came about. They've done everything they're supposed to do legally."įor now, the uncertain truce on the mountain continues.Īnd the truce itself isn't very clear either, on closer inspection. I'm Native Hawaiian I know the social and historical injustices and the impacts of those injustices. "Those people sitting in the middle of the road have suffered. "We're also stuck because everybody's right," Chun said. "We're also stuck because the ecosystem that we're trying to have this conversation is not set up to solve these problems." "One of the reasons why we're stuck is because the conversation has been restricted to a very small, binary choice," Greg Chun, a psychologist and native Hawaiian who currently leads Maunakea stewardship at the University of Hawai'i, which oversees the astronomy community's use of the mountain, said during a presentation. On all sides, speakers at the conference acknowledged how knotty they consider the situation to be. "We have no choice but to stand, so we're letting you know that," she said. That's also how the kia'i have arrived at their opposition of the project and how their daily prayers on the mountain continue their process of determining how to live with Maunakea. "The way we create relationship is through ceremony, ritual, tradition, ancestral passing down of knowledge and protocol," Case said. Instead, she explained that they wanted to offer astronomers a glimpse into their world. You know why? Because we're meeting you for the first time, most of you." "We're not presenting our side to get another side, we're not going to do that. "This is different, perhaps, from what you thought this would be," said Pua Case, a native Hawaiian who has been organizing against the TMT for a decade. They shared with astronomers not their reasons for opposing the telescope, but the daily rituals they are following on Maunakea and an invitation to visit their roadside outpost. Near the end of the conference, a session that was a late addition to the program gave the podium to two kia'i. 5), about two dozen people greeted attendees in front of the convention center, demonstrating their support for the telescope with posters reading "Imua TMT," using a Hawaiian word that means to go forward.īut not all the discussions boiled down to such straightforward declarations. On the opening morning of the conference (Jan. The discussions unfurled throughout the conference and in a range of formats. They came armed with poster tubes and PowerPoint slides, ready to share and discuss a year's worth of scientific discoveries among them were supporters and opponents of the TMT, as well as others who weren't sure either way. Just after Christmas, the kūpuna and kia'i moved to allow normal access to the summit, but they remained beside the road in case the situation changed again.Īnd then, five islands to the northwest and 6,500 feet lower in altitude, in the early days of the new year, 3,500 astronomers poured into Honolulu. In December, David Ige, the governor of Hawaii, announced that he would temporarily withdraw law enforcement, since telescope construction wasn't in a state to proceed. Eventually, they agreed to allow staff up to the existing observatories via a side road. Then, stalemate: For five months, TMT opponents calling themselves kia'i, or protectors, camped out on the road leading to the summit.
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