05-21-2015, 07:11 PM
Opihikao,
"Of note, this 1.4 BILLION dollars number being thrown around does NOT mean it is spent here in Hawai'i. Big misconception for a lot of people. What trickles down to us here is lease rent, education "donations/funding", which is minimal compared to the overall costs (don't just mean the almighty "dollar/yen/loonie, etc.")."
You are quite correct to point out all that money is not going to be spent here. It's the nature of the beast. The facilities, technological knowledge and infrastructure to design and build the telescope mirror segments and instrumentation simply doesn't exist here. I wish it did, but the political environment here has never allowed that.
However, there is more to just rent and educational donations. Construction of the TMT will pay the wages of many local workers. When the TMT approaches an operational state wages will be paid to local workers.
The current observatories have roughly 50% of their employees from the local community who grew up here. Most of the others employed live here. The largest part of our observatory's budget is staff wages and is likely the same for the others (not sure about the TMT in its early commissioning phase).
That money is spent here. Millions of dollars every year that goes into the local economy.
I don't think you should ignore that.
"Of note, this 1.4 BILLION dollars number being thrown around does NOT mean it is spent here in Hawai'i. Big misconception for a lot of people. What trickles down to us here is lease rent, education "donations/funding", which is minimal compared to the overall costs (don't just mean the almighty "dollar/yen/loonie, etc.")."
You are quite correct to point out all that money is not going to be spent here. It's the nature of the beast. The facilities, technological knowledge and infrastructure to design and build the telescope mirror segments and instrumentation simply doesn't exist here. I wish it did, but the political environment here has never allowed that.
However, there is more to just rent and educational donations. Construction of the TMT will pay the wages of many local workers. When the TMT approaches an operational state wages will be paid to local workers.
The current observatories have roughly 50% of their employees from the local community who grew up here. Most of the others employed live here. The largest part of our observatory's budget is staff wages and is likely the same for the others (not sure about the TMT in its early commissioning phase).
That money is spent here. Millions of dollars every year that goes into the local economy.
I don't think you should ignore that.