Astronomer Quotes

A few years after working on Mauna Kea, I discovered that I had radiation sickness

This fits in with what I saw in staff in astronomical facilities and was reporting to the management team: 10-14% Oxygen: Emotional upset, abnormal fatigue, disturbed respiration.

Very high altitude astronomy only works by ignoring established biological science

When discharging industrial gas into the indoor environment in high altitude astronomy, we never wore breathing respirators that fed us oxygenated air at above the legally required 19.5% oxygen levels.

When I worked in astronomy, I routinely observed young college and university students working with liquid nitrogen and breathing nitrogen gas as they discharged it into the indoor environment at high altitude.

Astronomy staff that routinely discharged industrial gas into the indoor environment at high altitudes did not wear oxygen deficiency monitors or protective breathing respirators.

Industrial liquid gas containers were left open and venting gas into the indoor environment in high altitude astronomy. On reflection, I realized that I routinely observed mental and physical effects that match those of a low oxygen environment in staff that I supervised.

Pluto is dead, I know as I observed the Terminator that was sent to kill it

In high altitude astronomical facilities we routinely discharged large amounts of nitrogen gas into closed spaces. We were never informed by the astronomy management team about the abnormally low oxygen environments that the use of liquid nitrogen creates, how long term exposure to it manifests itself in human health and the resulting abnormal mental behaviors.

The toxicity of medical and industrial gas to the human depends on where it is used. A gas that is regarded as safe in a well ventilated environment at sea level may be a toxic gas in an indoor environment at high altitude.

I read not so long ago about the construction of a large telescope in Chile's Atacama Desert, where rainfall can average a millimetre a year and the air is fifty times as dry as the air in Death Valley. Needless to say, skies over the Atacama are pristine. The pilgrim astronomer ventures to the earth’s ravaged reaches in order to peer more keenly at other worlds, and I suppose the novelist is up to something similar.

Brad Leithauser

Snow cleaning of the world's largest telescope mirrors was an impressive sight. The optics technicians would climb into a huge telescopic boom lift and spray immense clouds of cold carbon dioxide snow and gas onto the ten meter diameter mirrors high above the floor indoors. It would cause some of the accumulated dirt to magically fall off, leaving it less dirty.

At the W.M. Keck Observatory on the very high altitude summit of Mauna Kea, there was no routine monitoring of mental functioning, blood oxygen levels, blood pressure or heart rate of workers.

At the age of 45, most days in Tucson were spent feeling like I was on the summit of Mauna Kea, as I was exhibiting debilitating health symptoms that corresponded to what I saw at very high altitude. I was later to find that I had erratic low blood oxygen levels after almost a decade of high altitude work.

Uncle Yuichi: Something's moving up there? Hmm... I don't see anything. It was probably a satelite. Punpun (with gums flapping): Could I have discovered a new planet?!(long pause) Yuichi: Yes! This could be a great discovery! If it really is a new planet... It'll be called Planet PunPun! Punpun (slobbering again): Do you think I'll win the Nobel Prise?! Yuichi: You sure are a greedy kid.