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They might get cheap to launch but they'll be quite expensive to build for the foreseeable future.
by rtkwe 7y ago
They might get cheap to launch but they'll be quite expensive to build for the foreseeable future.
- Robotbeat 7y agoI don't see why they need to be. SpaceX has been able to reduce the cost of building space hardware with Starlink by an order of magnitude. When things are cheaper to launch, you can find ways to reduce the cost to build those things.
- rtkwe 7y agoThey're large and complex and the optics for each are generally pretty custom to the application they're being built for. Starlink benefits from decades of work in cubesats and radio transmitters to make most of it's components COTS or nearly COTS. There's not really a lot of earth based applications for gold coated beryllium hexagons to make making a JWST style mirror cheap and easy.
- Robotbeat 7y agoThat's inconsistent with the fact that ground-based astronomy is able to build large and complex optics pretty cheaply, which is the basis for this complaint to begin with. By leveraging these things, you could build an inexpensive space telescope. No one has done so because it has only recently become fairly cheap to launch stuff. JWST is such a terrible example of a space telescope done with good cost constraints, BTW. And that kind of infrared astronomy which needs gold-coated mirrors and 20 Kelvin operating temperatures can't be done on the ground at all. We were discussing near-visible optical instruments and comparing to ground astronomy.