Telescope removed from Mauna Kea on Big Island as local Hawaiian council rejects new telescopes on Haleakala on Maui
Even as a local Hawaiian authority on the Big Island has completed the removal of the first of three telescopes on the top of Mauna Kea, a local council on the island of Maui have voted 9-0 to oppose an Air Force project to build new telescopes on top of Haleakala.
The proposed new facility is called AMOS STAR, which is an acronym for Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing Site Small Telescope Advanced Research. It would feature six telescopes enclosed in ground-mounted domes and one rooftop-mounted domed telescope.
The county’s resolution urged the military to heed community calls to cease their development efforts. It urged the National Park Service, Federal Aviation Administration and the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources to deny the project permits.
At this time it appears that Hawaiians desended from the original indigenous population are opposed to all western technology, even as they rely on it. These new telescopes are proposed by the Air Force because it needs better capilities to track the tens of thousands of new satellites being launched by numerous companies and governments. This information will help prevent collisions in space.
As for their claims that these peaks are “considered wao akua, or ‘realm of the gods,’ and [places] of deep spirituality for Native Hawaiians to engage in some of these traditional practices,” as stated in the council’s resolution, I have some doubts. For almost three-quarters of a century such religious concerns and objections were never mentioned by anyone. If they existed indigenous Hawaiians appeared to have no problem “engaging in traditional practices” right next to telescopes. Only when some activists appeared in the past decade, looking to insert themselves in the process (thus obtaining positions of power and money) did the peaks become so important religiously.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. Or you can buy it directly from the author and get an autographed copy.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Even as a local Hawaiian authority on the Big Island has completed the removal of the first of three telescopes on the top of Mauna Kea, a local council on the island of Maui have voted 9-0 to oppose an Air Force project to build new telescopes on top of Haleakala.
The proposed new facility is called AMOS STAR, which is an acronym for Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing Site Small Telescope Advanced Research. It would feature six telescopes enclosed in ground-mounted domes and one rooftop-mounted domed telescope.
The county’s resolution urged the military to heed community calls to cease their development efforts. It urged the National Park Service, Federal Aviation Administration and the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources to deny the project permits.
At this time it appears that Hawaiians desended from the original indigenous population are opposed to all western technology, even as they rely on it. These new telescopes are proposed by the Air Force because it needs better capilities to track the tens of thousands of new satellites being launched by numerous companies and governments. This information will help prevent collisions in space.
As for their claims that these peaks are “considered wao akua, or ‘realm of the gods,’ and [places] of deep spirituality for Native Hawaiians to engage in some of these traditional practices,” as stated in the council’s resolution, I have some doubts. For almost three-quarters of a century such religious concerns and objections were never mentioned by anyone. If they existed indigenous Hawaiians appeared to have no problem “engaging in traditional practices” right next to telescopes. Only when some activists appeared in the past decade, looking to insert themselves in the process (thus obtaining positions of power and money) did the peaks become so important religiously.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. Or you can buy it directly from the author and get an autographed copy.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Having no written history has certainly proven convenient for aboriginal malcontents in many places, not just Hawaii. They can assert whatever is politically convenient without fear of any pushback from spineless authorities.
While I’d be happy to take all this economic development money away from the Big Island and let the locals pay the consequences of this Luddite nonsense, I worry about how much encouragement this will give to heckler’s vetoes for projects like these in the rest of the United States.
Meanwhile, we learn today that SaveRGV is launching a like-minded lawsuit against SpaceX for “industrial wastewater” contamination from its Starbase deluge system. I think it’s high time Elon waged unrestricted lawfare against these fanatics.
SpaceX page on the SaveRVG site: https://www.savergv.org/spacex
Space Exploration Technologies Corp has filed for permission to discharge up to 200,000 gal/day (0.2 MGD) into South Bay. Perhaps the activists could take a look at the various wastewater plants in the immediate area, some of which they likely use.
https://www.lmwd.org/sewer
City of Port Isabel (1.1 MGD) discharges to Vadia Ancha, a body of water about a mile North of South Bay, and connected to it.
City of South Padre Island (3.35 MGD from two plants) discharges to Laguna Madre, also about a mile North of South Bay, and connected to it.
The municipal discharges are continuous, while SpaceX is only seeking a permit for intermittent discharge of water that cannot be recycled.
Perhaps savervg.org can demonstrate that none of this effluent enters South Bay, and that it is as pristine as the day Eve ate the apple. Eh, probably not.
… blah blah blah ….
“original indigenous…”
Indigenous ? No such thing for the pacific islands or the Americas, north or south.
Not to discuss the euorpean family tree.
All came from somewhere else.
Where did they come from anyway ?
Posted this in another thread, but this is very relevant here:
Dr. Brian Keating (June 4, 2024)
A Brief Tour of the Simmons Observatory Telescope
https://youtu.be/dUGkpf_9u-g
4:20
It isn’t just telescopes. Dams, power plants are being dismantled.
I don’t like it one bit.
Reurun Hawaii to Territory status.
Jeff, this is what happens when a nation is so prosperous and successful, activism can be a personally-profitable career path.
Many start out confronting a legitimate threat – smog, Love Canals, etc. It is after they prevail in those conflicts, that a combination of:
> The zero-risk mentality.
> The hubris and moral certitude embodied in the phrase “we know better”.
> Preferred treatment in the eyes of the law.
> The desire to keep a gig going that they find emotionally satisfying and personally profitable.
> And a lack of respect for the unalienable rights of their neighbors, in their self-righteous pursuit of the “greater good”..
leads them to move the goalposts beyond the original goal line and onto our playing field of the pursuit of happiness – possibly to the point of being counterproductive when it comes to our ability to interdict real environmental threats. Our prosperity gives us the breathing space to actually care about the environment … OTOH when people are worried about where their next meal is coming from, they are more likely to fillet Willy than free him.
So maybe “power and money” were at the beginning of the objections to white-man’s technology? Who’d a thunk it?
As the flight from reason gains altitude and momentum, logical contradiction (practice of evil in the name of virtue – i.e., DEI and its EO/AA predecessors), reversal of cause and effect (in economics the idea that an “economy” can consume its way to prosperity), and Aristotle’s law that state something cannot be itself and something else at the same time or in the same respect (the idea that biological sex is fungible when called “gender”).
The “Gods” and those who worship them entirely approve of this “flight” and its inescapable itinerary!
Jester, you hit the telescope on the mirror. There is never a fear of bad times in the U.S., where bad times are similar to Haiti now, or Rwanda 30 years ago, or anytime in the 13th century. The worst of Americans, even the homeless, are better off than most in the rest of the world.
We are so rich that a lot of the young ones believe it will continue forever – until it doesn’t. Why wouldn’t it?
Insufficient intelligent maintenance folks for the extant systems.
Unfettered illegal immigration by folks who only want the goodies, not to help produce said goodies.
Allowing our military to be changed from love of country to ‘we demand equality’.
Huge spending & debts, leading to inflation.
Authoritarian government that forced vax and 6-ft separation onto everyone because it was “the science”. Until we found out there was no science behind it.
To your last point – Chick-fil-A has opened a new subsidiary in southern Spain, Italy & Greece – Orca-fil-A.
Engineers the next target
https://phys.org/news/2024-06-formal-classes-effective-welfare.html
Jeff Wright, you are correct. That is a load of horse pucky they are trying to put on engineers to make them “woke”. I have a Masters degree in Engineering and see that stuff for what it is.
I would like to point out that while the volcano is big, the sacred area is exactly where the white devil wants telescopes. There simply isn’t room for both.
Robert wrote: “At this time it appears that Hawaiians desended from the original indigenous population are opposed to all western technology, even as they rely on it.”
Using another culture’s technology? I believe this is called cultural appropriation.
_____________
Jester Naybor wrote: “Jeff, this is what happens when a nation is so prosperous and successful, activism can be a personally-profitable career path.”
It has led to a form of extortion, sort of like corruption but not from government officials. However, this form of extortion uses government regulators to support it. If SpaceX agrees to pay off these groups, then SpaceX can proceed with the next step in their plans. Then the groups spend their ill-gotten (immorally but perfectly legally obtained) money on a big victory party for themselves, and the leftover funds go toward salaries for the next extortion of SpaceX (or whatever other victims they have on their list).