Randall Kosaki’s commentary suggests that it might be better to place “ultra-high-end” telescopes in low Earth orbit instead of atop mountains (“Scientific research is not a sacred thing; sometimes it must give way to other values,” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, Aug. 5).

This is impractical. The diameter of the Hubble Space Telescope’s primary mirror was only 2.4 meters. The James Webb Space Telescope will be 6.5 meters and requires a complicated unfolding mechanism because no rocket is large enough to handle it otherwise. The idea of attempting this with a 30-meter telescope is ludicrous.

NASA has rejected the idea of assembling telescopes in low Earth orbit because the amount of debris in the area would damage the mirror segments during assembly. Even with the thin atmosphere above Mauna Kea, the Thirty Meter Telescope will have a resolution 12 times sharper than the Hubble.

Ronald A. Lynch

Moiliili

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