Losing Hawaii telescope risks billions in funds – University

Vassilis Syrmos, vice-president for research and innovation at the University of Hawaii in the United States, says that not building the advanced Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT) on the summit of Mauna Kea on Hawaii’s Big Island could impair the university’s ability to attract research dollars, reports Associated Press.

Some Native Hawaiians oppose building the observatory on Mauna Kea because they believe its summit is sacred. Protesters have been blocking the road to the summit since mid-July to prevent construction from getting under way.

Syrmos told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the university was expecting to be in a good position to receive billions for TMT-related astronomy research and instrumentation development from the National Science Foundation, but the funding will go elsewhere if the telescope isn’t built in Hawaii. The university’s Institute for Astronomy is among the top three programmes at the university in terms of the amount of research dollars generated.
Full report on the AP site