Less Than a Week Before Caltech Telescope Project Faces Start of Critical Hearing in Hawaii

Hawaiian Protesters Take to Streets of Pasadena from Protesters in Pasadena, April of 2015 on Vimeo.

Hawaiian officials will be conducting a hearing on October 18 to decide if they will allow the construction of a new telescope sponsored in part by Pasadena’s Caltech on Mauna Kea.

The Thirty Meter Telescope — a project that could cost about $1.4 billion— promises vivid and cutting-edge images of everything from exoplanets to distant galaxies but was met with heavy protests last year both in Pasadena and Hawaii from those who consider Mauna Kea sacred.

The TMT’s offices are on Walnut Street. The project is the results of partnership with Caltech, Department of Science and Technology of India, National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, National Research Council Canada and the University of California.

According to Science Mag, construction for the TMT was supposed to already be underway by now because Hawaiian officials awarded a construction permit for it in 2011. However, the project came to a halt in 2014 after protesters blocked workers from reaching the site and then in December 2015, activists won a ruling from Hawaii’s Supreme Court invalidating the permit.

Now, a new hearing is set to take place and will last from mid October through late November to see if TMT will get the go ahead.

“It seems likely we’ll get the permit,” said astronomer Robert Kirshner, whose science foundation has so far given $180 million toward the telescope, to Science Mag about next week’s hearing. However, the decision will ultimately rest in the hands of Hawaii’s Supreme Court.

To Hawaiians, Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on the state’s Big Island, is considered one of the most sacred places in the islands, according to earlier Pasadena Now reports. Mauna Kea is a primary source of pure drinking and irrigation water for residents of the Big Island as it flows all the way down to the Pacific Ocean.

Even if the project is approved, its supporters worry that it may never come to light as continuing opposition to its construction on sacred grounds may make it difficult to build and operate, according to Science Mag. The project’s overseers are actively looking for alternative sites just in case Hawaii proves to be too inhospitable.

Other potential sites include San Pedro Martir in Baja California and Roque de los Muchachos on La Palma, a Spanish island of the coast of Morocco. Whether construction starts on Mauna Kea or elsewhere, it is slated to begin April 2018.