At a table on one side of the courtroom sat three well-paid, suited female attorneys. Their client, U.H., and its various sponsors want a use permit for more high-tech instruments to further pierce the skies. With those additional telescopes might come various environmental impacts, like more sewage and chemical spills that some say seep into the water table that provides the island's drinking water. The summit's unique natural environment, which provides habitat for various species, including the endangered wekiu bug (Please see below.), might be further degraded. U.H. insists that it can effectively mitigate all the various negative impacts that its intended expansion might make upon the environment. But the opposition pointed to a long trail of promises by U.H. which it has ignored or broken and the lack of an approved management plan, as required by law.

Behind the aggressive, objecting U.H. attorneys sat aloha-shirted, bearded, mid-life scientists. They came, one at a time, to the witness table to the front to testify to their love of astronomy and science and the importance of their work to understand the origins of life and its potential presence beyond our Earth. Though articulate about astronomy and outer space, when questioned about land use and the nature of the fragile ecosystem of the mountain, they had little to say.