HILO, Hawai'i — Plans for the Outriggers telescopes project on Mauna Kea are being abandoned, finally putting to rest the slim possibility that private funding might be found to complete the project estimated at $50 million to $70 million.

The outlook for the project has been bleak since NASA cut funding last year for the Outriggers, which had been planned as an array of four to six smaller telescopes arranged around the much larger twin 33-foot telescopes of the W.M. Keck Observatory.

The space agency has spent $15 million to $20 million on the Outriggers, which were supposed to sharpen images from Keck.

The project was part of NASA's Origins Program, and one of the uses of the new telescopes would have been to accelerate the search for planets outside our solar system. Another $25 million to $50 million would have been needed to finish the Outriggers.

"There is no intention at all to build the Outriggers. Nobody wants to do that, because there's no funding for it," said Rolf-Peter Kudritzki, director of the University of Hawai'i Institute for Astronomy.

With NASA budget cuts announced last year, "that's something we have to accept, and now we have to focus on the things that we want to do at this point," he said.

Mauna Kea is traditionally considered sacred to Hawaiians, and the Outriggers project stirred controversy that caused years of delays. The mountain is regarded as the meeting place of the sky god Wakea and the earth mother Papa, who in legend eventually became the parents of the first ancestor of the Hawaiian people.

Hawaiians and environmentalists who opposed the project used the courts and state administrative procedures to raise questions about the management of the mountain and the protection of its cultural and environmental resources.

They also cited the significant overall impact of the dozen observatories already on the mountain, and successfully sued to reverse the state Board of Land and Natural Resources' decision to issue a conservation district use permit for the project.

Circuit Court Judge Glenn Hara last year reversed the land board's decision to issue a permit for the project, ruling that the board must first approve a comprehensive management plan for the mountain.

Then last fall, the UH Institute for Astronomy asked the land board for time extensions for the permit.

Kealoha Pisciotta, who was a leader in the challenges to the Outriggers, questioned why the astronomy institute would say it plans to drop the project while it seeks a permit extension that potentially keeps it alive.

"Which action are we to believe? Have they withdrawn their permit extension request?" she asked. Pisciotta is president of Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, an organization of Hawaiian cultural practitioners with ties to the mountain.

Kudritzki said the permit extension was needed for technical legal purposes to keep the issue alive until Hara issues a final ruling in the case. That final decision is needed to clarify exactly what must be included in the Mauna Kea management plan for it to pass muster with the court.

Once that is done, all efforts on behalf of the Outrigger project will stop, he said. "I have made it very clear to our partners, we are not going to continue with this project, and in the end, it is the University of Hawai'i's decision," Kudritzki said.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.