Work continues around the world on the Thirty Meter Telescope’s various systems despite no sign of a new construction date on Maunakea.
TMT Project Manager Fengchuan Liu delivered a presentation Thursday to a hui of Big Island chambers of commerce updating them about the current status of the project and changes to the TMT’s outreach strategies.
Liu said that 82% of the telescope’s systems are either in their final design phases or have reached the fabrication stage, and all of its subsystems are actively being built or are ready to be built.
Meanwhile, 92 segments of the telescope’s primary mirror have been cut and polished around the globe, leaving 480 to go, Liu said. The final design will include 492 segments, with several dozen spares, that together will form the eponymous 30-meter-diameter primary mirror.
At the same time, Liu said TMT is in the process of converting the East Asian Observatory facility at the University of Hawaii at Hilo into a laboratory to assemble the mirror segments, attaching the polished mirrors to their underlying metal framework. The EAO facility, Liu explained to the Tribune-Herald, currently is operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, one of the TMT partners.
However, Liu said the telescope is nowhere near to actually being built on the mountain. The project is awaiting several “necessary steps” from the federal government before any construction can move forward.
One of those steps was completed in February with the completion of a preliminary design review by the National Science Foundation that Liu said the project “passed with flying colors.”
The project also is awaiting a federal environmental impact statement, which Liu said does not have any firm publication date. However, he said the federal government issued in July 2022 a notification of intent to develop the impact statement, and Liu said that process will take at least two years to complete.
While the TMT project was awarded federal funding last month — $6.5 million from the NSF — that funding is not a commitment to start construction, Liu said, and isn’t necessarily linked to the successful review earlier this year.
“We are all learning the NSF process,” Liu said in email after the meeting.
In any case, the $6.5 million only represents half of the $15.3 million NSF awarded to a greater “United States Extremely Large Telescope Program,” which would develop similarly sized observatories on both north and south hemispheres. That program was highlighted by a 2020 federal study as the nation’s highest-priority ground-based astronomical project for the next decade.
Without any imminent start to construction, Liu said TMT is reconsidering its outreach strategies on the Big Island, acknowledging the project has not endeared itself to many on the island, and has provoked two large-scale protests and demonstrations on Maunakea.
“We apologize for contributing to divisions in the community,” Liu said, adding that he understands the TMT represents to many Native Hawaiians a “symbol of colonialism.”
Liu added that TMT’s outreach has generally been limited to the business communities and middle-class residents, and has not sufficiently included rural residents or Native Hawaiian communities.
Instead, Liu said the project now is taking a new tack in its public relations strategy, approaching communities that have opposed the project and building up mutual respect over time.
“Every conversation we have ends better than it starts,” Liu said, explaining that, while he isn’t asking anyone to change their position, he hopes to humanize the people and motivations behind the project. “People come out of it saying things like, ‘I may still oppose your project, but now you are my friend.’”
TMT Outreach Specialist Yuko Kakazu said the perception of the project as a conflict between science and culture is a false one, and explained that people on both sides of the issue have a shared desire to see the Big Island prosper and be a place for children to thrive.
To that end, Kakazu said, TMT has partnered with local organizations for youth outreach programs, including providing one-on-one tutoring for students, which she said has decreased the number of island students failing multiple classes by 75%.
Other initiatives include helping teachers design science and math curricula — and translating said curricula into ‘Olelo Hawaii — integrating Hawaiian cultural practices into outreach programs such as screenings at ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center and developing programs wherein Hawaiian students can visit TMT partner countries, including Japan.
Email Michael Brestovasnky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
