Sixty percent of Hawaii Island residents support building the Thirty Meter Telescope atop Mauna Kea, according to a new poll.

That’s almost identical to a poll conducted last October that found 59 percent of Hawaii Island residents and 62 percent of residents statewide in favor of the $1.4 billion project.

The biggest change was in the number of people who said they were against construction of the 180-foot-tall observatory.

In October, 39 percent of Hawaii Island residents surveyed said they were against it. That dropped to 31 percent in the latest poll, conducted in July.

Native Hawaiians and part Hawaiians also remain split, with 46 percent in favor and 45 percent opposed.

Both polls were commissioned by TMT International Observatory and conducted by Honolulu-based Ward Research Inc.

“It was important for us to understand how Hawaii Island residents feel about the project, and the latest poll results demonstrate that opposition to TMT on Hawaii Island is decreasing,” said TMT Executive Director Ed Stone in a press release. “That’s significant and we are most grateful that the community’s support of the project remains high.”

Stone said he hopes to see construction on Mauna Kea resume by April 2018.

Quelle: Hawaii Tribune Herald

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Update: 13.10.2016

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As Hawaii deliberates, giant telescope considers new home
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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.

The TMT is one of three giant telescopes expected to dominate ground-based optical astronomy beginning in the next decade. The European Extremely Large Telescope (with a 39-meter mirror) and the Giant Magellan Telescope (24.5 meters) are already under construction, both in Chile. The TMT was also supposed to be underway by now, having won a construction permit from Hawaiian officials in 2011 after a long approval process. But the project ground to a halt after Native Hawaiian protesters disrupted a 2014 groundbreaking ceremony and later blocked workers from reaching the site. Then in December 2015, native activists won a ruling from Hawaii's supreme court that invalidated the TMT's building permit because of procedural violations. The court ordered the state's Board of Land and Natural Resources to reopen hearings designed to give the public a voice in the decision.

The sky's the limit
Troubles at Mauna Kea have forced the Thirty Meter Telescope to consider alternative sites. Lower elevations generally offer inferior observing conditions.
LOCATION ELEVATION (METERS)
Mauna Kea, Hawaii 4050
San Pedro Mártir, Mexico 2830
Roque de los Muchachos, Spain 2400
Antofagasta region, Chile 2300–4500
The new hearings begin on Hawaii's Big Island on 18 October and will last into late November. Sanders says the TMT's application is essentially unchanged. Witnesses have already supplied written statements, and more than a dozen parties, mostly opposing the project, will have a chance to ask questions. In the end, "it seems likely we'll get the permit," says astronomer Robert Kirshner, head of science programs at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in Palo Alto, California, which has so far ploughed $180 million into the TMT. But any decision, which is unlikely before the end of the year, will probably end up again in Hawaii's supreme court.

Even if the TMT ultimately gets a go-ahead, supporters worry that continuing opposition may make it difficult to build, staff, and operate the telescope. Protests on the mountain have become heated at times, according to press reports, and there have been arrests. "We can't take risks with people's safety," Sanders says.

Thirty Meter Telescope protestors
Plans to construct the Thirty Meter Telescope in Hawaii have prompted numerous protests by Native Hawaiians and others opposed to the project.
Associated Press
If Hawaii proves inhospitable, the TMT will try to relocate. Since this past February, experts have been reviewing alternative sites, including several that were studied when the TMT began serious planning in the mid-2000s. Cerro Armazones, a peak in northern Chile, was a favorite for the TMT, but it is now ruled out because Europe's giant scope is taking up residence. Other sites nearby are in contention. But moving the TMT to Chile would put all three giant telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere, where they would be unable to see much of the northern sky.

Potential Northern Hemisphere sites include San Pedro Mártir in Baja California in Mexico and Roque de los Muchachos on La Palma, a Spanish island off the Atlantic coast of Morocco. "Our friends in La Palma are pushing hard" to get the TMT, says Matt Mountain, president of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C. But neither alternative matches the seeing conditions on Mauna Kea, and they would bring extra cost and complication. The project has already ruled out sites in the Himalayas, put forward by India and China—both TMT partners along with the United States, Japan, and Canada—because they are too far from ports and have short construction seasons.

The TMT governors are expected to choose their top alternative site later this month. Regardless of what happens in Hawaii, the governors have vowed to start construction—on Mauna Kea or elsewhere—no later than April 2018.

Quelle: AAAS

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Update: 10.01.2017

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Construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope, illustrated above, in Hawaii remains on hold, and the project has developed a “Plan B” should those plans fail to win approval. (credit: TMT)

Decision time for the Thirty Meter Telescope 

Two years ago, astronomers were gearing up for the beginning of construction of one of the world’s largest telescopes. The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT)—named descriptively, if unimaginatively, after the diameter of its primary mirror—was set to start taking shape near the summit of Maunakea on the Big Island of Hawaii. With approvals from state officials and funding from various partners in place, the consortium working on the observatory for years was ready to start turning its concepts into reality.

Except the telescope didn’t start construction. Protests by native Hawaiian groups blocked access to the summit by construction crews for months, forcing the TMT to halt plans to start building the observatory (see “Thirty meter troubles”, The Space Review, July 6, 2015). The effort suffered another setback in December 2015, when the Supreme Court of Hawaii revoked the TMT’s construction permit, citing procedural errors by the state during a “contested case” hearing about the permit.

More than a year later, there’s still no certainty about when, or where, the TMT will be built. A new contested case hearing for a building permit in Hawaii finally started in October, and has gone slowly. “We were hoping it would start last spring,” said Michael Bolte, an astronomer at the University of California Santa Cruz and a member of the TMT’s board of governors, during a town hall meeting about TMT Friday at the 229th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Texas. “And it started out very slowly.”

The pace of the hearing has picked up since that slow start, he said, when it took 12 days of hearings just to get through the first three witnesses. Bolte didn’t give an estimate of when the hearing would be completed and a ruling made about the permit, but suggested that the process would be completed, with a permit hopefully issued, in the next few months.

That’s unlikely to end the debate about building TMT atop Maunakea. “If we go through that and a permit is issued in the next few months, almost for sure it’ll be challenged in court,” he said. Such a challenge would go directly to the state supreme court under a new law, he said, expediting the process. That’s already happened with another observatory, with the court upholding in October a permit issued for the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope being built atop Haleakala on Maui.

Bolte and other TMT officials said they remain optimistic that they will get a permit and win any legal challenge. They have, though, been actively developing a backup to Maunakea.

“There’s a risk the contested case won’t be ruled in our favor. There’s a risk that the land board will not issue a new permit, depending on what happens with the contested case. There’s a risk that the Hawaii Supreme Court will throw out our permit, not on procedural grounds this time, but on the substance,” he said. “So we decided on the board that we needed to have a Plan B.”

That effort included studying several alternative locations in China, Chile, India, Mexico, and Spain’s Canary Islands. For each site, Bolte said, the TMT team looked at several issues, from the scientific benefits and technical feasibility of building the TMT there to regulatory and other legal issues involved with getting approvals to build it.

In October, the TMT board reached a decision: the Observtorio del Roque de los Muchachos (ORM), on La Palma in the Canary Islands, will serve as the alternate site for the telescope, should Maunkea not be feasible for some reason.

Bolte argued that ORM would be a good fit for TMT if it can’t be built in Hawaii. While the design of the observatory would require some modifications to fit on the alternative site—the construction of the foundation, for example, would have to be changed because of the different geology of the mountain, he said—the site overall offered a similar fraction of clear nights and good seeing as Maunakea.

A big difference, he acknowledged, is the altitude: ORM is only about 2,400 meters above sea level, a kilometer and a half lower than Mauna Kea. That means a warmer atmosphere with more water vapor, which could affect infrared observations in particular. “If you’re planning to do lots of lots of work in the mid-infrared, it’s not as good a site,” he said.

ORM is also at a higher latitude: about 29 degrees north, versus 20 degrees north for Maunakea. That would keep TMT from observing some parts of the southern sky visible from Hawaii but not the Canaries. That, however, is not considered a dealbreaker, in part because two other so-called “extremely large telescopes,” the European Extremely Large Telescope and the Giant Magellan Telescope, are planned for Chile.

“Being in the north is an important aspect for the site,” said Catherine Pilachowski of Indiana University, who has been working on a proposal to get the National Science Foundation to fund part of TMT in exchange for a share of telescope time. “In some sense, it makes no sense to have all of the large telescopes in the southern hemisphere.”

Not everyone at the town hall meeting, though, was convinced of the quality of ORM, with attendees exchanging anecdotes about good or bad experiences observing at other telescopes there. “I was a little dubious about the Canary Islands,” Bolte admitted. “There are many anecdotal stories. But in the end we’re scientists, and the data didn’t bear out a number of anecdotal stories.”

With ORM selected as the backup site, the TMT is starting work there to prepare construction there, including negotiating a hosting agreement with ORM and beginning the permitting process. At the same time, TMT officials say they’re still committed to building the telescope on Maunakea if it can secure a permit and survive a likely legal challenge.

“Hawaii remains our preferred site,” Bolte said. “All of us are working as hard as we can to make Hawaii work, and we hope that’s how it works out.”

Why, then, pick an alternative site and start planning for its development if Maunakea remains the preferred location? Bolte suggested that the observatory’s patience for delays building Hawaii was running out, saying that TMT needs “assured access” to a site in place by this fall so that some of the TMT’s various partners can include construction plans into their 2018 budgets.

“We’re going to build this telescope some place, either in Hawaii or at La Palma,” he said. “We want to start construction by April 2018.”

There’s a very real question, though, of whether that will be possible on Maunakea. Even if TMT gets a new construction permit, and that permit is affirmed by the state supreme court, there’s likely to be renewed protests by native Hawaiian groups who oppose construction of any new observatory on the mountain they consider sacred. The earlier protests, after all, had very little to do about claims of procedural flaws in awarding the original construction permit.

Curiously, there was little discussion at the town hall meeting about new outreach efforts to native Hawaiians and others. “I thought we had done a quite good job” in those original outreach efforts, Bolte said. “That was a little bit mistaken.”

At the end of the town hall meeting, Bolte reiterated the TMT’s preference to building the observatory on Maunakea. “But, you adjust your expectations to reality,” he said. “We’ve all spent a lot of time and somebody’s dollars on this project. And if the choice is walk away, or an alternative site, I think everyone will go for an alternative site.”

Quelle: The Space Review

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Update: 4.03.2017

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Long-running hearings for whether a giant telescope can be built atop a Hawaii mountain have wrapped up. But it will be a while before a decision is made on a project that has prompted intense protests by those who believe it will desecrate sacred land.

Oftentimes emotional testimony concluded Thursday evening after 71 people testified over 44 days on the Big Island. Testifiers included Native Hawaiians who believe the project will harm cultural and religious practices on Mauna Kea and Native Hawaiians who believe it will provide jobs and educational opportunities.

The hearings officer will recommend whether the state land board should grant a construction permit for the Thirty Meter Telescope. If there are exceptions filed to the hearings officer's recommendations, the land board will hear arguments before issuing a written decision.

"We remain hopeful that the state can issue a permit in a timely manner to start construction in April 2018," said Scott Ishikawa, a spokesman for the telescope.

This second round of contested-case hearings was necessary after the state Supreme Court invalidated an earlier permit issued by the board.

The state has spent nearly $225,000 on the hearings, according to figures provided by state Department of Land and Natural Resources spokesman Dan Dennison.

Telescope officials have selected a backup site in the Spanish-controlled Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa if they can't build in Hawaii.

Quelle: abc

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Update: 11.06.2017

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A Home For The Thirty Meter Telescope

The Thirty Meter Telescope, when completed, could be the most advanced optical telescope to date, able to see 10 to 100 times farther and more clearly than older telescopes. The instrument’s backers hope that its sharper vision will enable them to examine some of the oldest objects in the universe and gain insights into the evolution of other stars and their planets. 

The telescope (TMT for short) was supposed to be built atop Mauna Kea, a mountaintop that is also one of the most sacred spots in Hawaii. But in 2015, a lawsuit from indigenous Hawaiians left the project in limbo.

[How to search for E.T. in an electronic dead zone.]

The TMT could still find a home at a backup site in the Canary Islands of Spain. Now, a group of Canadian scientists on the project are reporting on the pros and cons of switching sites. The good news: Moving to the Canary Islands would guarantee that the telescope could be built quickly enough to remain scientifically relevant. But, as Space.com senior reporter Michael Wall explains, the move wouldn’t be a cost-free decision.

Quelle: Science Friday