Altitude Quotes

Astronomy staff that routinely discharged industrial gas into the indoor environment at high altitudes did not wear oxygen deficiency monitors or protective breathing respirators.

I regard taking healthy sea level adapted children to the 13,796 feet very high altitude summit of Mauna Kea as a form of child abuse.

The biggest surprise that I had during my time in high altitude astronomy was being prevented from arranging a free Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) onsite evaluation to assist with bringing the observatory into OSHA compliance by the upper management team that I reported to.

A healthy person that uses medical oxygen to perform their job on a daily basis should expect to eventually become a sick person.

The scandal with the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) atop Mauna Kea is how it managed to obtain a construction permit to build a manned telescope in a known biologically toxic environment to workers. How many more people need to die, get injured or develop long term very high altitude sickness that will last a lifetime?

Gratitude is an excellent attitude which can lift you to a greater altitude if you put it on as a vesture.

When I worked at the W. M. Keck Observatory on the 13,796 feet very high altitude summit of Mauna Kea, we would routinely be engulfed in cold clouds of helium and nitrogen gas as we discharged it into the video camera systems daily. The management team never warned us that we were in a hazardous oxygen deprived environment during this activity that was known for its ability to adversely affect physical and mental health, and possibly bring on death by asphyxiation.

High altitude astronomy is a strange world of oxygen starvation, sleep deprivation and radiation sickness.

Altitude sickness, unregulated drugs and medical gas enabled workers to become drug abusers/addicts

At the W.M. Keck Observatory on the very high altitude summit of Mauna Kea, there was no routine monitoring of mental functioning, blood oxygen levels, blood pressure or heart rate of workers.

Extreme night shift work in high altitude astronomy is easily avoidable by using a split night shift where the first night shift starts before sunset and finishes at midnight and the second night shift starts with a new fresh person working through to after sunrise.

I consider myself fortunate that I spent three years working at 7,775 feet before spending five years working at 13,796 feet on the summit of Mauna Kea. I can only wonder how much more severe my long term very high altitude sickness could have been without the initial adaptation to the lower altitude.