(07-04-2026, 09:12 PM)HereOnThePrimalEdge Wrote: It’s certainly a loss for science, and a loss for Big Island.
(07-04-2026, 09:16 PM)Obie Wrote: I thought they offered to decommission several telescopes in exchange for the TMT.
If I remember right they did, three. The first two are gone, and the third is UKIRT.
No boogymen, no omg were going back to sticks and stones, no more than an agreement to move forward to more, and better, and do it within the framework of the original intent. So many scopes on the mountain.
And to think, what the TMT, finally, came to is what I have been saying since the very first time we discussed all this.. talk with the land owners. And look, the TMT gets it. Finally!
So yeah, we had an agreement, a few old scopes for a fantastic new one. Let's just hope, and I do, that the new one will get to be built before ground based astronomy is obsolete...
If not, and if I was steering the TMT folk's money I would suggest, put it in space. It could do so much more there than it would ever do here. Yeah they could have a more hands on relationship with it on Earth, but omg have you seen what the WEBB scope can do? Closeups of our own solar system to the furthest reaches ever seen, it's rewriting our understanding of the stars. And, you know, if a guy showed up to the folks that built it and asked how much they want to build another I bet it would be pennies on the dollar compared to the first go round. In fact, if they put ten, twelve, of them in orbit around the sun viewing in every direction.. we'd be done with all this silliness already. And our mauna could live in peace without all that nonsense between one guy's idea of right and another's wrong.
But as it is the decommissioning of the UKIRT says something about its worth. It isn't the best, the most, the every which way better than all the rest. It's an old expendable scope that was agreed to be decommissioned along with a few others to make way for the TMT. This has been stated, and it's been stated repeatedly. In fact, in the University of Hawaii System Annual Report, on the Mauna Kea Lands, submitted to the 2025 State Legislative Session which can be read in whole here, it says in part..
On September 27, 2017, the BLNR issued its 271-page Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Decision and Order containing 1,070 Findings of Fact and 512 Conclusions of Law, for the CDUP allowing the construction and operation of TMT. On October 30, 2018, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court affirmed the CDUP after various parties appealed. The process for obtaining the CDUP approval took approximately seven years from the permit application’s initial submission in 2010, including two contested cases, several judicial appeals, and two Hawaiʻi Supreme Court decisions. Parties continue to challenge the TMT project.
And further it clarifies..
Pursuant to the CDUP for the TMT project, the BLNR imposed special conditions regarding the decommissioning of telescopes on Maunakea, including the following:
Special Condition 10. The University will decommission three telescopes permanently, as soon as reasonably possible, and no new observatories will be constructed on those sites. This commitment will be legally binding on the University and shall be included in any lease renewal or extension proposed by the University for Mauna Kea.
Special Condition 11. Notwithstanding any lease renewal or extension, consistent with the Decommissioning Plan, at least two additional facilities will be permanently decommissioned by December 31, 2033, including the Very Long Baseline Array antenna and at least one additional observatory.
This is an agreement made, and codified by our State Supreme Court, almost ten years ago. And in case you missed it, back then they said as I highlighted in bold above..
The University will decommission three telescopes permanently, as soon as reasonably possible
So, no, UKIRT is not the best thing since mom and apple pie. It's a very old scope that has done wonders.. and still it has been slated to be decommissioned for almost a decade already. Which is to say of all the functioning observatories it's the most expendable. Not by my words, not by the other guy's words, but by the folks that really know, the folks that run the place.
And you know, it could be said, the sooner it goes the better the chances for the TMT to be built. UKIRT's hanging on is probably making it harder for TMT to gain the traction it needs with the local community to succeed.