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This is extremely far from my area of expertise so I am probably wrong, but I imagine that at some point we will advance earth based telescopes to the point whe
by wtvanhest 9y ago
This is extremely far from my area of expertise so I am probably wrong, but I imagine that at some point we will advance earth based telescopes to the point where we get diminishing returns when considering atmospheric disturbance.
At that point, it will make more and more sense to launch space based telescopes. But... if we wait until we reach that point in the diminishing returns curve, than we lost valuable innovation time/expertise in space based technology.
My hunch is that if we wanted to get the best telescope tech in any given period of time, we should do both and watch as the two types of technologies converge.
- aptwebapps 9y agoWhat do you mean by the two types of technology converging?
- andy_ppp 9y agoLaunching huge telescopes (and possibly assemble them) into space...?
- wtvanhest 9y agoNo, I mean ground based telescope tech and space based tech. Both have different limits and advantages.
- andy_ppp 9y agoIsn’t it size vs astmopheric noise? Or are there loads of other factors?
- deepsun 9y agoThere is at least one space telescope that connects with ground-based telescopes using interferometry, so in some sense, they could be called one telescope: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spektr-R https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spektr-R