Pua Case

Pua Case Instagram – Mahalo to KAHEA for providing this summary and to the organizations who collaborated to gather your feedback to ensure that our collective voice would be heard.

REPOST FROM KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance

Mahalo to YOU for the thousands of emails telling the National Science Foundation (NSF) Board leaders and Director not to fund construction of the Thirty-Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea!
UPDATE: Today the NSF Board met in Washington D.C. for a update on the process of determining whether to fund an extremely large telescope (ELT), and if so – which one? The TMT or the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT)? What we learned:
– NSF recommended capping total funding for either ELT at $1.6 billion.
– The NSF director is convening a panel to provide input to him on whether to advance either of the ELT projects (GMT or TMT) to the final stage. He stressed this is not a decision to construct ANY telescopes.
– The new panel will separately assess: (1) progress since preliminary design phase; (2) partnerships and resources; (3) risks and risk mitigation; (4) governance models; (5) scientific complementarity to European ELT; (6) opportunities for early career scientist access; (7) engagement of the public; and, (😎 the impact of supporting a project on agency resources in design, construction, and operation phases.
The NSF Director is currently convening this panel, the main question for which is to assess the “readiness” of the ELT projects. The panel is to provide its report in September 2023. Then the NSF Director will update NSF, Congress, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy.
We will update as we learn more about these NSF processes and what they mean for Mauna Kea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbXG5bYTzGA (start at 2:05:00 min) | Posted on 03/May/2024 06:49:54