TMT protesters abandon camp due to Wuhan virus fears
The protesters who have been blocking construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea in Hawaii have abandoned their camp due to fears of COVID-19.
Though this gives the consortium an opportunity to begin construction, don’t expect it. Based on info I’ve gotten from within the astronomy community (most of which is liberal and thus very focused on identity politics), the consortium that wants to build TMT is torn over these protests, with many astronomers sympathetic to the protesters’ false claims of bigotry and religious oppression.
TMT will not be built in Hawaii. Whether it is built at all remains an open question.
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In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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The protesters who have been blocking construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea in Hawaii have abandoned their camp due to fears of COVID-19.
Though this gives the consortium an opportunity to begin construction, don’t expect it. Based on info I’ve gotten from within the astronomy community (most of which is liberal and thus very focused on identity politics), the consortium that wants to build TMT is torn over these protests, with many astronomers sympathetic to the protesters’ false claims of bigotry and religious oppression.
TMT will not be built in Hawaii. Whether it is built at all remains an open question.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
The probable cancellation of the TMT project, like the just announced bankruptcy of One Web, does not augur well for the future of Big Science / high technology projects. Indeed, we may be looking at the closing of a sort of Overton window of allowable discourse in which there was both the vision and the financing to sustain such projects. Now, with the looming uncertainty surrounding the Corona Virus debacle, it is hard to imagine what, exactly, might come out of all this.
One the one hand, as others have observed, what happens with respect to the CV’s impact on our economy may finally force some hard thinking about pulling the plug on the SLS boondoggle — even for the slow learners in Congress — but it may hit the private sector just as hard. In Boeing’s case, this may be a *good* thing, and absent an unlimited government bail-out, they may have a come to Jesus moment and be forced to start building quality / affordable hardware again, albeit on a reduced scale.
My fear, however, is that even SpaceX, the Crown Jewel in America’s space technology sector, may get hit so hard that it cannot go on, and then what are we left with? More to the point, without a viable SpaceX — or something like it — we simply do not have a viable manned American space program. The question is, with an economy in shambles, what will have to be done, should anybody want to, to keep SpaceX afloat. Or, has the window on doable / affordable manned space exploration already begun to close, perhaps never to reopen?
Something else to ponder (the author warns that he is wearing his tinfoil hat), I would submit that the very future of capitalism may be tied to the kind of off-world economic development that most of the readers of this site look forward to, and — for this very reason — The Powers That Be among the woke elites DO NOT WANT SUCH DEVELOPMENT TO HAPPEN. If SpaceX and manned space exploration can be shut down, this would be an enormous victory for the statists with their finite, self serving view of what is either possible or desirable. In this sense, the CV outbreak and its economic aftermath offers a wonderful opportunity to keep the spirit of American free enterprise OUT of space, and I suspect that they will not let this opportunity go to waste.
But what is a rational response to this, and how can SpaceX be kept going as a viable enterprise if “the market” won’t support it? Do we simply give up the dream of human beings living and working in space, leaving it — if it happens at all —
to the Chinese?
Milt,
The economy isn’t in shambles (modulo the fiscal disarray and whatever consequences this will have). This isn’t a war with damages to the industrial base. Once businesses go back towards normal, we might even see a nice boom. The market for SpaceX’ services continues: comm/EO/nav sats, Starlink, NASA launches, diverse rideshare payloads, space tourism in the (near) future. Why should that suddenly drop?
And do the woke elites really dislike SpaceX? Or is this more the establishment-affiliated “classic space” that sees a dangerous competitor and wants to keep it small?
I’m quite optimistic here.
Milt,
It didn’t start with TMT. The U.S. has seen a number of Big Science projects cancelled over the last three decades. The main novelty of TMT is that the leftist Luddites involved are relying mainly on tribalism rather than environmentalism as the hook on which to hang their protests. Usually it’s some endangered species that provides the pretext.
As for these being potential End Times for capitalism, liberty, truth, justice and The American Way, I think such notions lack historical context. Covid-19 isn’t even in the Top Ten challenges faced and defeated by the United States in its nearly 2.5 centuries of existence. Number 1 on that list – with a .58 caliber mini-ball bullet – is the American Civil War. A bit of perspective is in order here.
It’s not going to take eons to recover from this most recent medical and economic insult any more than it did to recover from Obama’s 8-year-long Great Depression 2.0 once its author had exited the White House. The same will prove true once the Covid-19 pandemic recedes to the status of manageable nuisance. The U.S. economy wants to boom. It only fails to do so when deliberately restrained. That proved true post-Carter, post-Obama and will prove true once again post-Chinese Pox.
Somebody needs to start working on the preliminary engineering for a 8m space telescope with a Starlink antenna for high-bandwidth communications.