Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–211
Wendy, until well into 2007. Richard Ellis and I worked very hard to put Humpty Dumpty back
together.
ASPATURIAN: What was the proposal?
TOMBRELLO: Basically, to figure out a way among ourselves to go forward with either one
telescope or two telescopes, but with a coherent plan. Personalities get to be a controlling
interest in these kinds of things. Some of the difficulties were relics of the old Caltech–Carnegie
divorce in optical astronomy, which I mentioned in an earlier interview [Session 4]. Part of it
was the history with Gus and the failed attempt at being part of TMT. Gus thought he could do it
without putting up any money, and Caltech was putting up a substantial amount of money. The
University of California, particularly Santa Cruz, was putting up money. It just wouldn’t have
worked to let somebody in for old times’ sake, when there weren’t any old times that were very
positive. It was a lost opportunity, and now we’re left with a competition between two major
telescopes. I think TMT will win. I like the design better personally. I don’t like the design of
Carnegie’s GMT [Giant Magellan Telescope]. But I do think there are some advantages,
because they have a site. Carnegie actually bought the land in Chile in the days when they set up
Las Campanas. It’s a reasonably good site. There are some better. But still, it’s an attractive
offer to have all that land and a place to put this telescope. If Gus had said any of that and
thrown that in as a way of getting this thing started, it might have flown.
ASPATURIAN: I have a question for you. If I recall the Decadal Survey, the NSF has been urged
to make some kind of decision regarding TMT and GMT. I assume they will to some extent be
guided by Congress, which surely would be influenced by the fact that the plan is to put the TMT
in Hawaii, which will keep jobs in the United States. Do you see that as a potential asset?
TOMBRELLO: I believe I agree with what you said. The NSF will find it easier to pick a U.S.
site. I think there’s a lot of sentiment for putting it in Hawaii. Even before we had any serious
money for TMT, we started the site survey, because we knew that was going to be the longest
item in there. We did probably more stuff on site selection in Chile, and we looked at all sorts of
other places, but not in detail. We studied prospective sites from satellite photographs and things
like that, trying to get an idea of cloud cover and other things. How many good nights do you
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