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Long-delayed Thirty Meter Telescope gets the go-ahead, for now
Building the world's largest telescope has proven to be even more difficult than one might expect. The Thirty Meter Telescope, which has been planned for construction atop of Hawaii's Mauna Kea, has hit a number of snags, but it got a major approval this week. The state's land board granted the project construction approval in a 5-2 vote, but those that have challenged it from the beginning plan to keep fighting.
Hawaiian court nullifies Thirty Meter Telescope's building permit
The Thirty Meter Telescope's story has been so full of trials and tribulations, a producer might just find a way to turn it into a soap opera. On Wednesday, the Hawaii Supreme Court has canceled the TMT group's permit, which gives them the right to build the gargantuan telescope atop the Mauna Kea volcano. According to the court, the Board of Land and Natural Resources should not have given the project permission to go forward before it had the chance to hear the side of a group petitioning against its approval. If you recall, the various universities and institutions from the US, Canada, China, India and Japan that make up the team had to wait for over a decade and overcome numerous hurdles before construction began in 2014.
Hawaii's Thirty Meter Telescope could force others to close
For one to rise, others must fall. Hawaii's governor David Ige has given his blessing to the controversial Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) that scientists want to build on the Mauna Kea mountain. But there's a catch -- in return, he wants "at least 25 percent" of the existing telescopes to be torn down. At the moment, there are 13 telescopes on the mountainside and only one is scheduled to be dismantled. Under Ige's new proposals, one facility would need to enter the decommissioning process this year, and the remainder in his 25 percent quota would need to be gone before the TMT is operational in the mid-2020s.
Thirty Meter Telescope's website was hacked to protest its construction
A lot of people are obviously still unhappy that the Thirty Meter Telescope's (TMT) construction was greenlit, because the project's website was reportedly hacked on Sunday. A group called Operation Green Rights, which is associated with Anonymous, claims to be the brains behind the DDoS attack that took down the the TMT portal for a few hours. A post on its website says: "Nothing will ever justify the destruction of ecosystems; filthy money can never replace them. Stand with the Hawaiian natives against #TMT." The group also claims to be behind another DDoS attack on Hawaii's local website.
Canada's economic issues might affect Thirty Meter Telescope's future
The Thirty Meter Telescope's (TMT) construction finally began in 2014 after a decade of delays, but its struggles aren't over yet. Its developers might find themselves $235 million short, since the Canadian government still hasn't released its part of the budget that the other major players have been expecting since last year. While the telescope's parts are already being built, the team needs Canada's money to proceed with the building's construction, as half of $235 million will be used for the telescope's gigantic steel enclosure. The Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy played a key role in getting the project off the ground -- and its government already spent $27 million on engineering plans -- so its members aren't giving up that easily.
The Thirty Meter Telescope's construction is finally underway
After decades in limbo and a few more months of construction delay, the folks behind the $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) Project have begun building the gargantuan device at last. The groundbreaking ceremony was held just this October 7th near the top of Hawaii's Mauna Kea volcano, six months later than the TMT organization originally intended when it got a land permit from the state's authorities in 2013. Since natives consider the summit of Mauna Kea (and the rest of the mountains in the region) as sacred (and since the sheer size of the observatory could affect the environment), the project's been met with resistance since its inception in the 90's. In fact, even the groundbreaking ceremony was moved back a few hours, because protesters blocked the road up the volcano during the event.
Hawaii clears land use for the Thirty Meter Telescope, construction to start in 2014
The Thirty Meter Telescope has been under development for more than a decade, but the sheer amount of land needed on Hawaii's Mauna Kea for its namesake main mirror has proved problematic: locals have formally challenged the multi-university effort over concerns that it might damage both the environment and natives' heritage. Regardless of which stance you take on the issue, the project is going forward now that the state's Board of Land and Natural Resources has granted an official land permit. The move clears an optical and near-infrared telescope with nine times the coverage area of its peers, and three times the sharpness. That's enough to observe light from 13 billion years ago as well as put a heavy focus on tracking extrasolar planets, including planets in the making. Any impact on science or Mauna Kea will have to wait when construction doesn't even start until April 2014, although we're hoping that environmental care requirements attached to the permit will let us appreciate both the early universe and modern-day Earth in equal measure.
