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The U.S. Air Force is conducting local meetings during which they describe a plan to put six or seven new ground-based telescopes on sacred ground on Haleakala.
The objective of the Air Force mission is to use the telescopes to search for objects in space as well as to identify threats to space assets.
A National Environmental Policy Act environmental assessment is required to measure the impact of the telescope domes on the site that has the same importance to Hawaiians as Holocaust sites in Europe have to Jews.
So, how do you measure the impact of these structures on this very sacred land? You can't.
Instead, why not add another alternative that has no impact on this land. This could be accomplished by inserting a constellation of telescopes in space.
The telescopes would rotate to maximize their field of view.
I supported a project at the University of Arizona a couple of years ago with mission requirements defined by National Aeronautics and Space Administration engineers that seemed very similar.
Perhaps the Air Force space command could leverage work already performed by NASA that does not require a NEPA analysis of the sacred land on Haleakala.
Gary Wonacott
Kihei