Questioning probes impacts of telescope
July 19, 2011
WAILUKU – The grilling of experts about the impact of the Advanced Solar Telescope on Haleakala began Monday and is expected to last through Wednesday.
Attorney James Kimo Frankel attempted to get project manager Craig Foltz to admit that there would be “major, permanent” adverse impacts to Native Hawaiian culture and traditions if the telescope were permitted to be erected at Science City (formally, the Haleakala High Altitude Observatory).
Foltz, who works for the National Science Administration, agreed there would be permanent, adverse impacts, but he did not admit they could not be mitigated.
For example, putting up a 142-foot tower would affect some view planes.
Permanently? Frankel wanted to know. Not necessarily, Foltz testified.
NSA, which is building the telescope, expects to use it for up to 50 years. After that, it could be torn down, and the view plane could be restored.
Guarantee? Frankel wanted to know. Not necessarily, Foltz testified. After NSA and the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy are through with it, it would be offered to the Native Hawaiians for their use, if they want it.
NSA has set up a Native Hawaiian Advisory Group, which will have some say in what happens. Frankel pressed Foltz hard all morning about whether or not NSA would have the final say.
For example, he wanted to know, during construction could the on-site Hawaiian cultural monitor stop construction?
Yes, said Foltz. How? asked Frankel. The final protocol has not been written, Foltz said, but it will be.
The state Board of Land and Natural Resources will have to consider a conservation district use permit. Kilakila O Haleakala, represented by Frankel of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., is pursuing a challenge to the permit, and hearings officer Steven Jacobson is conducting the cross-examination of witnesses on Maui this week.
Read the rest of this Maui News article
In other news, one of the Mauna Kea telescopes leaked ethylene glycol all over and is shut down for cleanup:
Subaru 8-meter Telescope Damaged by Leaking Coolant
by Nancy Atkinson on July 6, 2011
A “serious hardware incident” has shut down the Subaru Telescope indefinitely. A leak allowed orange-colored coolant to spill over the primary mirror and into the main camera, as well as into other instruments and the structure of the telescope. The damage is still being assessed. During the clean-up and recovery of equipment, nighttime observations have been suspended, as well as daytime summit tours of the telescope.
An announcement posted on the Subaru telescope website said that operators detected an error signal while shutting down the observation system at the end of the night shift during the early morning of Saturday, July 2, 2011.
When engineers arrived to assess the situation, they found extensive leakage of coolant (ethylene glycol) over most of the entire telescope. The leak originated from the “top unit” of the telescope, which is located at the center of the top ring and includes the Subaru Prime Focus Camera (Suprime-Cam) and auxiliary optics.
Although they promptly shut off the supply of coolant, a significant amount of leakage had already occurred, from the top unit itself down to the tertiary mirror, the primary mirror and some of its actuators, the Faint Object Camera and Spectrograph (FOCAS, a Cassegrain instrument) and its auxiliary optics, and the telescope floor.