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Gemini Project Status (1Mar96)
(from USGP, NOAO Newsletter No. 45, March 1996)

It's a very exciting time for Gemini. There are many people working
around the world to make this a successful project. Two areas that most
seem to capture our excitement are the construction at the sites and
the progress of the primary mirrors. We all enjoy pulling up the WWW
Gemini homepage (http://www.gemini.edu/) and checking the daily
progress of the Mauna Kea site construction. That will be particularly
fun this spring when the enclosure is being erected. A recent photo of
the site construction at Cerro Pachn is shown here as it may surprise
you to know that the foundation work has come along so quickly since it
began in October. Foundation work there will be completed by this
summer.

The primary mirrors continue to make headlines. The first blank was
successfully transported across the Atlantic in December. This was
watched anxiously by a number of interested parties since it represents
the first time an 8-meter mirror has shipped across the open ocean. The
blank is waiting its turn at REOSC now, behind the number two and three
ESO VLT 8-meter blanks, to be ground and polished. The grinding,
polishing and figuring of the Gemini number one mirror blank is
scheduled to be complete by July 1997.

On 30 January, Corning announced that the number 2 Gemini mirror blank
was successfully fused. The second primary mirror blank will be slumped
to the miniscus shape in July and delivered to REOSC in May 1997.

			[Photos not included]

	Cerro Pachn Telescope Pier Construction, December 1995.

	Trucking the Gemini Mirror Blank from Canton, New York to
	the St. Lawrence River, 29 November, in 10 degree F weather.

	Within hours of arriving at the Port of Ogdensburg the 25
	ton mirror blank and container were lifted by crane into
	the 185 meter long Greek freighter.

	Several hours were spent lashing and welding the container
	to the floor of the hold before the ship left for Antwerp,
	Belgium. From Antwerp the blank traveled by barge down the
	shore of France to the mouth of the Seine River, through
	Paris, arriving successfully at REOSC, just south of Paris,
	on 16 December.

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