213
It is a tragedy that Spain should have thrown away such an opportunity. The
French firm SAGEM, which also had had no previous experience with such
mirrors, had to be commissioned for the task and is now Europe’s leading firm
in segmented mirrors, which are now the norm for new terrestrial and space
telescopes. It should also be added, to our even greater chagrin, that it was an
outstanding Canarian engineer, Javier Castro, designer the GTC’s optics, who
provided SAGEM with specific solutions to help that company finish the
polishing of the mirrors.
I now describe, in broad brush strokes, how this impossible dream of a
large Spanish telescope was made possible, bearing in mind our total inexperience in the design and construction of large telescopes and considering that
our previous track record consisted of a humble 80-cm telescope (the IAC-80).
Another far from trivial concern was the lack of money for such an immense
undertaking. There is no denying that it seemed an impossible challenge for
our country at the time. In fact, it was the very first Big Science project led
and built by Spain, and located on its territory. We had previously always
failed to get any Big Science project established in Spain.
We began by exploring the simplest path, which was to work in collaboration with close colleagues, our experienced British partners, who had just
built and set up a 4.2-m telescope at the Roque. This Anglo–Dutch instrument, named the William Herschel Telescope, entered into service in 1987
and was the biggest and most advanced telescope in Europe at the time. It had
even earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records. It was designed by the
Royal Greenwich Observatory. So, wasting no time, during the inaugural ceremony of the telescope I made overtures to Alec Boksenberg, the then Director
of the RGO. We soon arrived at an agreement on both the desirability of having an 8-m telescope at the ORM and the advantages of building one jointly
between the RGO and the IAC. We decided to start work immediately on a
pre- project for a telescope of that class; with such a document in our hands,
we felt we would have a stronger argument with which to convince our countries to meet the costs and get other countries to join us. To bolster the initiative, we persuaded the CCI (see Chap. 10) to set up a subcommittee specifically
tasked with taking a decision on the ‘large European telescope’.
We formed a joint technical group headed by Brian Mack (the British engineer of the 4.2-m telescope project) and Pedro Álvarez (head of the IAC’s
Instrumentation Division). In 1989 we had a written project for an 8-m telescope, but we were able to convince only the British and Spanish authorities
of its viability. Spain and the United Kingdom opened negotiations on the
basis of a 50 per cent participation by both parties to set up the telescope at
the ORM. All went well until, at the eleventh hour, the British were tempted
21 The Biggest, Most Advanced Telescope in the World (1989–Present)
It is a tragedy that Spain should have thrown away such an opportunity. The
French firm SAGEM, which also had had no previous experience with such
mirrors, had to be commissioned for the task and is now Europe’s leading firm
in segmented mirrors, which are now the norm for new terrestrial and space
telescopes. It should also be added, to our even greater chagrin, that it was an
outstanding Canarian engineer, Javier Castro, designer the GTC’s optics, who
provided SAGEM with specific solutions to help that company finish the
polishing of the mirrors.
I now describe, in broad brush strokes, how this impossible dream of a
large Spanish telescope was made possible, bearing in mind our total inexperience in the design and construction of large telescopes and considering that
our previous track record consisted of a humble 80-cm telescope (the IAC-80).
Another far from trivial concern was the lack of money for such an immense
undertaking. There is no denying that it seemed an impossible challenge for
our country at the time. In fact, it was the very first Big Science project led
and built by Spain, and located on its territory. We had previously always
failed to get any Big Science project established in Spain.
We began by exploring the simplest path, which was to work in collaboration with close colleagues, our experienced British partners, who had just
built and set up a 4.2-m telescope at the Roque. This Anglo–Dutch instrument, named the William Herschel Telescope, entered into service in 1987
and was the biggest and most advanced telescope in Europe at the time. It had
even earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records. It was designed by the
Royal Greenwich Observatory. So, wasting no time, during the inaugural ceremony of the telescope I made overtures to Alec Boksenberg, the then Director
of the RGO. We soon arrived at an agreement on both the desirability of having an 8-m telescope at the ORM and the advantages of building one jointly
between the RGO and the IAC. We decided to start work immediately on a
pre- project for a telescope of that class; with such a document in our hands,
we felt we would have a stronger argument with which to convince our countries to meet the costs and get other countries to join us. To bolster the initiative, we persuaded the CCI (see Chap. 10) to set up a subcommittee specifically
tasked with taking a decision on the ‘large European telescope’.
We formed a joint technical group headed by Brian Mack (the British engineer of the 4.2-m telescope project) and Pedro Álvarez (head of the IAC’s
Instrumentation Division). In 1989 we had a written project for an 8-m telescope, but we were able to convince only the British and Spanish authorities
of its viability. Spain and the United Kingdom opened negotiations on the
basis of a 50 per cent participation by both parties to set up the telescope at
the ORM. All went well until, at the eleventh hour, the British were tempted
21 The Biggest, Most Advanced Telescope in the World (1989–Present)