240
The report was submitted to the Ministry of Science, Technology, and
Innovation, and the Ministry of Economy and Treasury, and also to the
Canarian Government. The political parties were also informed. The question
of the E-ELT was raised in the Canarian and national parliaments on repeated
occasions. Yet the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation always
voiced its opposition. Looked at now through the perspective of time and taking into account all that had happened then, this opposition is of particular
significance.
Nevertheless, 300,000,000 euros were placed on the negotiating table, the
amount that ESO said was still needed to build the telescope. A non- legislative
proposal prospered and was supported by all the political parties, the PSOE
included, thus obliging the Spanish government, during the Mr Zapatero’s
presidency of the European Union, to back actions to get the super telescope
built in the Canaries. The E-ELT was then the only European large scientific
infrastructure of ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures) with any possibility of being located in Spain. There is also documentary evidence that the European Parliament broke a lance in favour of installing
the E-ELT in the Canaries.
In spite of everything the E-ELT went to Chile. On 4 March 2010 the
Council of ESO decided it would be located on Cerro Armazones, a mountain for which an access road would need to be built and whose summit
would need to be levelled. But ESO has never wanted to publish the scientific
data on which their decision had been based. The astrophysicist representing
Spain on the Council, Xavier Barcons, when presented with our demand that
Spain should force the comparative data to be published before making the
Council’s decision public, said that he did not do this ‘in order to prevent the
fame of the astronomical quality of the Canarian sky being torpedoed’. A
strange reply, even stranger in the light of what is known today, thanks to the
American TMT team. ESO finally made its decision public on 20 April.
If historians should someday decide to investigate the reason why Spain,
with so many trump cards in its hand, came to lose the E-ELT, they will find
abundant material for their research. There are the minutes of meetings of the
Spanish and European parliaments, together with those of the Council of
ESO, and the official registers of the coming and goings of Spanish ministries
and the IAC, thanks to the detailed coverage of the topic by the news media.
Here, I have simply given a brief account of a number of significant episodes
that speak for themselves.
For a number of years there was a working group, funded by the European
VI Framework Programme, dedicated to ‘E-ELT Site Characterization’, whose
mission was to make precise comparative measurements worldwide,
F. Sánchez
The report was submitted to the Ministry of Science, Technology, and
Innovation, and the Ministry of Economy and Treasury, and also to the
Canarian Government. The political parties were also informed. The question
of the E-ELT was raised in the Canarian and national parliaments on repeated
occasions. Yet the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation always
voiced its opposition. Looked at now through the perspective of time and taking into account all that had happened then, this opposition is of particular
significance.
Nevertheless, 300,000,000 euros were placed on the negotiating table, the
amount that ESO said was still needed to build the telescope. A non- legislative
proposal prospered and was supported by all the political parties, the PSOE
included, thus obliging the Spanish government, during the Mr Zapatero’s
presidency of the European Union, to back actions to get the super telescope
built in the Canaries. The E-ELT was then the only European large scientific
infrastructure of ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures) with any possibility of being located in Spain. There is also documentary evidence that the European Parliament broke a lance in favour of installing
the E-ELT in the Canaries.
In spite of everything the E-ELT went to Chile. On 4 March 2010 the
Council of ESO decided it would be located on Cerro Armazones, a mountain for which an access road would need to be built and whose summit
would need to be levelled. But ESO has never wanted to publish the scientific
data on which their decision had been based. The astrophysicist representing
Spain on the Council, Xavier Barcons, when presented with our demand that
Spain should force the comparative data to be published before making the
Council’s decision public, said that he did not do this ‘in order to prevent the
fame of the astronomical quality of the Canarian sky being torpedoed’. A
strange reply, even stranger in the light of what is known today, thanks to the
American TMT team. ESO finally made its decision public on 20 April.
If historians should someday decide to investigate the reason why Spain,
with so many trump cards in its hand, came to lose the E-ELT, they will find
abundant material for their research. There are the minutes of meetings of the
Spanish and European parliaments, together with those of the Council of
ESO, and the official registers of the coming and goings of Spanish ministries
and the IAC, thanks to the detailed coverage of the topic by the news media.
Here, I have simply given a brief account of a number of significant episodes
that speak for themselves.
For a number of years there was a working group, funded by the European
VI Framework Programme, dedicated to ‘E-ELT Site Characterization’, whose
mission was to make precise comparative measurements worldwide,
F. Sánchez