Military Connections to Mount Graham Observatories : AZ IMC

Someone suggested I should put this out on the indy media site--so here it is. Mount Graham's one of my favorite places; I haven't been too involved lately in the struggle to stop the observatories lately. I'd be willing to go through my files with anyone who wants to gather newer info about all this. By the way, the Roger Angel and the Center discussed herein are also involved in at least one very non-astronomical military project--developing infrared sensing to look under the vegetation cover on mountainsides to detect the movement of guerrillas, refugees, etc. This kind of techonology would be used in places like Colombia.

***AN OVERVIEW CONCERNING MILITARY CONNECTIONS TO THE
MOUNT GRAHAM OBSERVATORIES***
by James Jordan

There would be no observatories atop Mount Graham
were it not for the US Air Force. More specifically,
there would be no observatories there but for the work
of Roger Angel, of Steward Observatory's Mirror Lab,
and his work with the Phillips Lab (formerly called
the Air Force Weapons Lab). At a time when all
adaptive optics work was still classified, Angel was a
leading researcher in this field. Because of his
expertise in the area, the Air Force awarded $5.44
million to the Mirror Lab to develop revolutionary
deformable mirror techniques in order to cast the
military's largest telescope mirror for use at the
Starfire Optical Observatory, located in Albuquerque,
at Kirtland Air Force Base. The Starfire observatory
is a part of the Phillips Lab, also located at
Kirtland. This observatory, with its newfangled
adaptive optics mirror, exists for one purpose--the
development of space based and/or directed laser
weaponry.
The Catholic Church's Vatican Observatory was, in
many respects, created as a guinnea pig model for the
Starfire Observatory. Its mirror was built with Air
Force money in order to test out the deformable mirror
technology. The Air Force donated the mirror, as well
as state of the art magnetic suspension drive
mechanisms, both developed as Starfire prototypes.
(It is difficult to imagine many Astronomical purposes
for these mechanisms, but they are essential when
following the erratic paths of missiles.)
Often times when UA astronomers want to brag about
the "seeing" ability of the Mount Graham
observatories, they will compare them to the Hubble
Spaced Based observatory. This is because, at the
time the Star Wars system was being conceived, space
based observation was seen as the avant garde of deep
space astronomy. The reason for a shift to reliance on
adaptive optics was due to the availability of funding
from the military. Astronomical research became the
military's prostitute.
In Jyly, 1993, Angel applied for a $20 million grant
from the Defense Department ot establish a Center for
Astronomical Adaptive Optics at the UA campus, which
would be augmented by elaborate, multiple laser
systems. According to the Arizona Daily star,

"Initial research would focus on developing corrective
systems for infrared astronomy....In the final year of
the program, the team would tackle visible light image
correction at the MMT (Multiple Mirror Telescope).
That system could require several 500-watt lasers
operating simultaneously throughout the night....An
even more elaborate system would be used to correct
visible light images from the $60 million Large
Binocular Telescope planned for Mt. Graham. That
telescope would combine light from two
8.4-meter-diameter mirrors.

When lobbying support for the Center from Sen. John
McCain, Angel made the point in a letter that,

"The Center's program emphasizing adaptive optics for
large telescopes will be complementary to ongoing work
by the air Force and Navy. Our very large telescopes
now under construction will provide the highest
resolution images in the infrared, with the potential
for unique surveillance information...."

Fortunately, Mount Graham activists were able to
marshall an outcry of opposition to such lasers on the
mountain. Furthermore, it turns out that we stumbled
on something of a schism within the Air Force itself
between those favoring the development of high tech
weaponry, versus those favoring more conventional
approaches. Because the original specifications of
the contract said nothing about research work on Mount
Graham, we were able to temporarily abate funding for
the Center for this contract.
However, the Center is now established. We know,
too, how willing Angel, the Vatican Observatory, and
Steward Observatory are willing to sell themselves to
the pleasures of the military-industrial complex. We
must, therefore, be vigilant in keeping up with their
activities. Important questions need to be answered.
What kind of work is the Center doing, where are its
contracts coming from, and what kind of presence does
it have, or does it plan to have, on Mount Graham? In
general, what is the research already being done on
Mount Graham, and where is the funding coming from?
To what researchers working for whom has the VATT
observatory rented time?