| Description |
The field of astronomy has a history of approaching large-scale development projects with a limited gauge of the interests of stakeholders beyond the immediate scientific community. Traditional processes of decision-making have demonstrated little regard for the broader communities affected by major observatory projects. For instance, the approach to the development of the Mauna Kea observatories in Hawaii, with the project's history of protests, has been particularly troublesome. A recent episode in this ongoing conflict is the heightened contention surrounding the Thirty Meter Telescope at Mauna Kea, indicating that the question of the best approach to these projects remains unresolved. This dispute and those like it around the world make evident the present need for an approach to project development that incorporates input from pertinent stakeholders. The Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope collaboration (ngEHT) is an ongoing project that seeks to build on the work of the original Event Horizon Telescope collaboration, which saw success in creating the first images of black holes. The ngEHT will expand on this effort by building seven new telescopes across various continents to develop images and videos of black holes. A distinctive aspect of this project is the History, Philosophy, and Culture working group (HPC), which brings together social science and humanities perspectives to contextualize "the pursuit of scientific knowledge. |
