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I don't think we give up the night sky for this. naked-eye observers will never notice except close to sunrise and sunset, and even if astronomers are complaini

I don't think we give up the night sky for this. naked-eye observers will never notice except close to sunrise and sunset, and even if astronomers are complaining about it now, there are solutions for their issues, either in image processing or with better scheduling (scheduling is straightforward if you have tracking data, so I imagine they're doing both already to some extent). Also, better heavy-lift capabilities will likely make space telescopes easier to manufacture and deploy. We're going to have a lot of satellites and even space stations (hopefully) in our future, its just the way it is.

ryanmercer 7y ago
>Also, better heavy-lift capabilities will likely make space telescopes easier to manufacture and deploy. Exactly. If ITS/BFR/whatever it is right now actually starts launching in the next 10-15 years we'll be able to deploy (relatively) cheap space telescopes of all variety. Even better, if it does get operational, we'll be able to build one or more observatories on the moon where you'll basically have a 14 day night at any point and they could be operated entirely remotely and actually be upgraded/changed as needed with manned missions showing up to swap out instruments. You could even go drop a bunch of smaller-optic telescopes on the moon and use optical aperture synthesis to do some pretty impressive stuff. Spread little clusters all around the moon and you'd have an optical astronomer's dream come true. Similarly you could distribute a bunch of relatively small radio telescopes on the far side of the moon and aside from some communication relay satellites (which you could use lasers for) you'd have virtually no interference from Earth. While it's certainly said for research from Earth right now, if Starlink gets profitable it gives SpaceX more money to develop better launch technology which opens up space for far cheaper science.

ryanmercer 7y ago

>Also, better heavy-lift capabilities will likely make space telescopes easier to manufacture and deploy. Exactly. If ITS/BFR/whatever it is right now actually starts launching in the next 10-15 years we'll be able to deploy (relatively) cheap space telescopes of all variety. Even better, if it does get operational, we'll be able to build one or more observatories on the moon where you'll basically have a 14 day night at any point and they could be operated entirely remotely and actually be upgraded/changed as needed with manned missions showing up to swap out instruments. You could even go drop a bunch of smaller-optic telescopes on the moon and use optical aperture synthesis to do some pretty impressive stuff. Spread little clusters all around the moon and you'd have an optical astronomer's dream come true. Similarly you could distribute a bunch of relatively small radio telescopes on the far side of the moon and aside from some communication relay satellites (which you could use lasers for) you'd have virtually no interference from Earth. While it's certainly said for research from Earth right now, if Starlink gets profitable it gives SpaceX more money to develop better launch technology which opens up space for far cheaper science.