TMT construction begins Monday 15 July

[AaronM]

It's a pompous college rag, what do you expect?

[TomK]

It's a pompous college rag, what do you expect?

I would expect better from a student at supposedly one of the best universities in the world.

['elepaio]

@ borklee, forgot to type the adjective/adverb;
flaming liberal

[AaronM]

It's a pompous college rag, what do you expect?

I would expect better from a student at supposedly one of the best universities in the world.

And what does that say about the state of education today?  Even a school with a billion dollar endowment cannot churn out quality!

[TomK]

It's a pompous college rag, what do you expect?

I would expect better from a student at supposedly one of the best universities in the world.

And what does that say about the state of education today?  Even a school with a billion dollar endowment cannot churn out quality!

I couldn't agree more. I saw a big drop in the standard of graduate students back in the early 2000s when I used to interact with them much more than I do now, and I don't think things have improved since then. I think there are still some excellent graduates that are as good as any produced in the past, but the overall standard has dropped significantly.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

In our discussions about the TMT it was repeatedly suggested by some that there was no need for a new observatory on Mauna Kea, because soon we will have bigger, better space based telescopes. 

Here’s another article showing that’s not true. Budgets are on the chopping block for both the space based Chandra and Hubble.  It’s not easy to launch and operate a telescope in space.  It’s expensive. They’re hard to upgrade and repair. 

Supporters of the Chandra X-ray Observatory say the school bus-sized instrument is healthy and could keep doing science for another decade, but NASA recently announced a plan to slash its funding and effectively wrap up the mission.

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/23/nx-s1-504...nniversary

[TomK]

Most arguments about not needing ground-based telescopes were shot down quickly, albeit unintelligible to those who rejected the reasoning. Chandra is a different beast; an X-ray observatory has to be in orbit; you can't detect cosmic X-rays from the ground. On the other hand, the next generation of large ground-based telescopes can do the job of the JWST or Hubble for a much lower cost and can be maintained and upgraded.

[kalakoa]

The next generation of large ground-based telescopes might never be built. Case in point: TMT.

[TomK]

How so? Construction of the ESO Extremely Large Telescope in Chile is over 50% complete. It will also have a much larger primary mirror than the TMT. Then there's the Giant Magellan Telescope being constructed, also in Chile.

[kalakoa]

Neither ELT nor GMT are in the northern hemisphere where TMT was planned.

Do telescopes in the southern hemisphere preclude the need for any telescopes in the northern hemisphere?

If so, "the" Hawaiians have won, at the cost of the UH astronomy program, jobs, economic diversification, etc.