in the early 1960s, the hawaii island chamber of commerce encouraged astronomical development of mauna kea, as economic stimulus; this coincided with university of arizona astronomer gerard kuiper's search for sites to use newly improved detectors of infrared light. site testing by kuiper's assistant alika herring in 1964 confirmed the summit's outstanding suitability. an intense three-way competition for nasa funds to construct a large telescope began between kuiper, harvard university, and the university of hawaii (uh), which only had experience in solar astronomy. this culminated in funds being awarded to the "upstart" uh proposal. uh rebuilt its small astronomy department into a new institute for astronomy, and in 1968 the hawaii department of land and natural resources gave it a 65-year lease for all land within a radius of its telescope, essentially that above . on its completion in 1970, the uh was the seventh largest optical/infrared telescope in the world.