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> There's no way to put a telescope with a 30-meter-diameter primary mirror in space... it's way beyond our technical capabilities now. I don't think it's that
by pharke 7y ago
> There's no way to put a telescope with a 30-meter-diameter primary mirror in space... it's way beyond our technical capabilities now.
I don't think it's that far off, the primary mirror for Hubble was 2.4m and the big telescopes you're talking about are made up of mirror segments around 10m in size. The Falcon 9's payload fairing is 5.2m diameter and 13m long and the proposed Starship fairing would be 9m diameter by 19m high. SpaceX is currently proving they are capable of sustaining a rapid launch cadence and have already proved they're capable of docking with the ISS. If someone built a modular space telescope, they'd be the first ones to call to get it into orbit for assembly.
Cost has been a severe bottleneck to getting science into space for so long that we seem to have become convinced that it will always be so. These Starlink launches are the first real steps in proving that it need not be so.
- SiempreViernes 7y agoPlease say how you will put an Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope in space.
- paranoidrobot 7y agoGiven that this is looking for atmospheric events, is it even impacted by the Starlink launches?
- SiempreViernes 7y agoYes, adding more transient background will of course affect IACTs.
- DiogenesKynikos 7y agoIt is barely within our technical capabilities to build 30-meter-class telescopes on Earth. Such telescopes cost on the order of $1 billion each. The cost to build JWST, a 6.5-meter space telescope, is over $10 billion. The ground-based telescope costs 1/10th as much and has 20x the collecting area (and 4.5x the resolution). Unlike the space telescope, the ground-based telescope can be periodically upgraded with new cameras, spectrometers, and other scientific instruments. Space telescopes have a place in astronomy, but they're no substitute for ground-based telescopes.