Gerard Kuiper opened Mauna Kea to astronomy, then lost it to a rival bid
In the 1960s planetary scientist Gerard Kuiper persuaded Hawaii's governor to bulldoze a dirt road up Mauna Kea and put the mountain's first telescope on a cinder cone. When NASA opened the larger project to competition, a University of Hawaii physicist won it. Furious that his mountain had been taken, Kuiper left for Arizona.
Kuiper had been hunting for a dry site for infrared work after examining Apollo-program photographs sharper than any ground telescope could manage. Haleakalā on Maui proved too cloudy, but Mauna Kea's summit, though often snowy, sat in exceptionally dry air. He deliberately avoided the highest peak because it was holy ground. The University of Hawaii bid, led by John Jefferies, proposed a two-metre telescope shared with NASA and won despite the university lacking established astronomers. Maps from 1901 already mark a Hawaii Astronomy Station near the summit.
The site has few rivals. At 4,207 metres it rises above most of the atmosphere's water vapour, the air is clean and steady, cloud cover is low, and the surrounding ocean keeps skies dark. At the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, median seeing is 0.43 arcseconds. By 2012 thirteen facilities, some funded by as many as eleven countries, worked there, with mirrors and dishes from 0.9 to 25 metres. The University of Hawaii's 88-inch telescope, about the size of Hubble's mirror, is now among the smallest on the mountain. Research at these observatories fed the supernova studies that earned Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt and Adam Riess the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for showing the universe's expansion is speeding up.
Working there takes care. Astronomers sleep at the Hale Pōhaku centre, 2,800 metres up, and often spend eight hours or a full night acclimatising before heading to the summit; tourists are urged to pause at least half an hour. To keep the skies dark, Hawaii's Night Sky Protection Act took effect in 2013, and many streets on the Big Island are unlit or dimly lit.
The mountain is central to Native Hawaiian religion and culture, and telescope building has faced opposition since the early years from Hawaiians, environmentalists concerned for rare native birds, and residents of Hilo. Management plans have since set aside most of the reserve for natural and cultural preservation, and several older telescopes are slated for removal. The state lease runs until 2033.
Source: Maunakea Observatories
