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"Tipping the Velvet"
An exuberant, lusty novel about a lesbian adventuress follows its heroine through the underworld of Victorian London.
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"A Clever Base-Ballist: The Life and Times of John Montgomery Ward"
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"Broke Heart Blues"
The novelist explores the repercussions of a violent act in a town where life ends with high school.
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Ivory Tower
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Every year, undergrad film programs release wide-eyed film majors into an unfriendly Hollywood. Ithaca College wants its students ready for the shock.
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[07/28/99]

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People were outraged -- or at least some were. The triumphal gathering belied a feud that has erupted over how Mauna Kea is to be managed in the new millennium. The Sierra Club and native Hawaiian groups did not attend the June 25 event. Environmentalists say star-struck scientists are trampling fragile ecosystems. Native Hawaiians say the astronomers who run the mountaintop are desecrating a profoundly sacred place. For their part, the astronomers admit some guilt in not listening to concerns, but also claim they have been blindsided with criticism of projects that were approved and started a decade ago.

Hanging in the balance is control of the planet's most important astronomical real estate. "Our people have this one mountain just for them and [the scientists] are taking it over. That's not right. And that mountain is so sacred. It is one of a kind," says Reynolds Kamakawiwioole, a native Hawaiian activist and ardent opponent of further astronomical development. "The saddest thing is, they never had a chance to sit down with the native Hawaiians."

In the Hawaiian language, Mauna Kea means "white mountain" -- a reference to the shining snowcap the summit wears several months out of the year. According to the Hawaiian creation chant, the mountain comes from the union of Papa, the Sky Father, and Wakea, the Earth Mother. Mauna Kea is also considered the piko (bellybutton) of the world, according to Polynesian myths recognized around the Pacific.

At the summit, winds whip up to 150 mph and the frigid air gets thin enough to necessitate oxygen masks for visitors; it is an inhospitable slice of heaven. But consistently clear skies, scant light pollution and the thinness of the air ensure that, with the right conditions, telescopes and naked eyes alike can glean more from the night sky than from anywhere else in the world. (The only telescope that tops terrestrial scopes -- and then only in certain parts of the electromagnetic spectrum -- is the Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits the planet beyond the distortions of the atmosphere.)

Since 1968, scientists have built 13 separate observatories on the summit under auspices of a 65-year lease from Hawaii's Department of Land and Natural Resources. The lease assigned use of all the lands on Mauna Kea above 12,000 feet to the University of Hawaii, and created the 11,228-acre Mauna Kea Science Reserve. The telescopes have cost nearly $1 billion to build, and tens of millions more are spent each year running them. The four newest telescopes -- the Gemini, the Japanese Subaru Telescope and the Keck I and II observatories -- belong to a new class that boasts powerful computerized optical systems and reflective mirrors wider than a two-lane highway.

These scopes have the capability to peer back to the very edge of time -- as far back as14 billion light years ago, just after the Big Bang,. Collectively, they represent the majority of the planet's high-end astronomical firepower. "It's the largest collection anywhere of large telescopes. It's an unbelievable capability and a huge step up in aperture," says Robert McLaren, interim director of the UH Institute for Astronomy. His institution has become a world power in the field, thanks to observation time it receives on these telescopes as part of the lease agreements. In recent months, Mauna Kea has emitted a steady stream of groundbreaking astronomical discoveries and eye-popping images, which have brought the stars closer to Earth than ever before.

But the transition from pristine volcanic wasteland to stargazing nirvana has not been without conflict. In the 1970s pig hunters, conservationists and native Hawaiians questioned the impact of construction and vehicle traffic. In the 1980s, the Audubon Society raised a ruckus about the development of support facilities at the 9,600-foot level that overlapped the habitat of the palila, an endangered Hawaiian bird. In 1995, the Sierra Club and several native Hawaiian groups complained about trash on the summit from telescope construction.

Next page | Sanctity of the mountain ruined?