Aiming for the Stars
Project to Ease Telescope Reconditioning
By K. Robert Wendel

Twinkle, twinkle little star," is just a nursery rhyme for most people, but astronomers have been frustrated by that "twinkle" for centuries.

The distortion - or twinkle - caused by the earth's atmosphere limited earth-bound telescopes from obtaining a true picture of the stars, but scientific breakthroughs in the early 1990s now allows astronomers to correct that distortion, eliminating the "twinkle."

The latest construction project at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque is aimed at continuing that work with a new, $15.5 million telescope compensation lab.

The lab will support the U.S. Air Force's Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate by creating a building to re coat telescope lenses. In the past, the 3.5-meter lenses were shipped to the University of Arizona'' Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory in Tucson, an often risky proposition moving a 4,500 lb. piece of glass hundreds of miles.

"The mirror periodically needs to be re coated, and that meant shipping it back to the U of A," said J. Rich Garcia, a spokesman for Kirtland Air Force Base. "You take a lot of risk when you take a big chunk of glass and transport it."

After breaking ground in February, the, 52,000-sq.-ft. building is under construction, with the Albuquerque design-build team of general contractor K.L House Inc. working with DMJM H + N to build the project. This is the team's third design-build for the Corps of Engineers.

"In design-build, if you don't pair up right, you are going to have problems. It's not just about the architects and the engineers, but the subcontractors too," said Gary Clayton, a principal with K.L. House Inc. "With design-build, you have better control, but DB doesn't work if you don't communicate."

The new lab's principle mission is to re coat and polish the lenses to 21 nanometers, or 3,000 times thinner than a human hair. The extremely technical nature of the project meant designers and builders had to develop an intimate understanding of the lab's uses and needs.
"We had to identify the processes and experiments, so we had to learn what they do and how they do it," said Art Montoya, a senior associate DMJM H + N.

"You have to be sure you have good sound mediation through the walls and they have some experiments that are sensitive to vibration, so we had to engineer for those."

Engineers created isolated slabs to inhibit the transfer of vibration between areas, while also employing thick, 12-in. slabs and isolating the mechanical units.

The project will also be the new home to more than 80 scientists and technicians who have been scattered around the base in separate facilities. The two-story structure includes labs approaching clean room classification, as well as office space and conference rooms.

Because the project is remote, AUI Inc. of Albuquerque is building 18,000 lin. ft. of water line to supply the building's fire suppression needs, along with 11,000 lin. ft. of sewer line.

Built on a slab-on-grade foundation, the steel framed, EIFS clad structure will be painted entirely white to reduce the building's heat load.

"Everything is white," said Mike Brogdon, a principal with K.L. House Inc. "They don't want anything around to absorb energy that could cause heat waves or atmospheric distortions. We are even putting in a gravel parking lot instead of asphalt."