I don&#x27;t understand. They haven&#x27;t been denied a permit, they had the permit. Construction had begun. They were given the go ahead, handshook on a deal with the state of Hawaii-- giving way more than any telescope before. And now, they&#x27;ve been cut off in the middle of full scale production.<p>It&#x27;s a bit of a sucker punch because, for eight years, survey planning, software programming, building design, etc. have been underway with this specific site in mind. There are hundreds of people working on this. Tens to hundreds of thousands of man hours are wasted if this decision stands. PhD work on &quot;site predictions for TMT&quot; &quot;Error estimations for TMT&quot; &quot;Optic Performance for TMT&quot; etc. etc. are worthless.<p>This isn&#x27;t a back-yard telescope you just prop up anywhere. This is a precision instrument that was designed for this exact spot. The optics designed Mauna Kea atmospheric seeing; the dome designed for Mauna Kea atmospheric temperature, air pressure and turbulence; the survey strategy planned for Mauna Kea weather patterns and sky visibility.