On Being Late: Cruising Mauna Kea and Unsettling Technoscientific Conquest in Hawai‘i

Conquest of new frontiers in the universe requires colonization old ones. This article interrogates technoscience desires to explore outer space, and how time territory for discovering extraterrestrials habitable planets are organized through settler colonialism on our own. Examining modern astronomy at Mauna Kea, I argue technoscientific promise Thirty Meter Telescope hinges a temporality lateness—late show up late time—that contributes dehumanization, elimination, dispossession Kanaka Maoli, Indigenous people Hawai‘i. demonstrate further that kia‘i—mountain protectors—unsettle conquest by cruising Kea as an alternative tempo disrupts pace building observatory.