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The science output of a given device usually shows heavily diminishing returns. I would say 12 Hubbles would have had at most twice the impact of 1 Hubble, prob
by jessriedel 6y ago
The science output of a given device usually shows heavily diminishing returns. I would say 12 Hubbles would have had at most twice the impact of 1 Hubble, probably less.
- sephamorr 6y agoDefinitely agree. However, the long tail will likely include discovering some more 'improbably' results. For example, the researchers who ultimately discovered Phosphine on Venus this week had early requests for observation time on telescopes denied and seemed to have to have been extremely persistent to finally get their chance.
- dwaltrip 6y agoThere is definitely a very long, fat tail with scientific research. I think this one of the most under-appreciated aspects of science. That and the countless unexpected insights and connections between seemingly unrelated pieces of knowledge that can happen long after an initial discovery.
- jniedrauer 6y agoThe famous "deep field" image from Hubble almost didn't happen, at least for many more years, due to limited time availability[0]. > “The telescope allocation committee would never have approved such a long, risky project,” Other similar "high risk" experiments would be more likely to occur if time constraints were not such a concern. [0]: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2015/04/24/when-hubble-stared-at-nothing-for-100-hours/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2015/04...
- ISL 6y agoAgreed. I suspect that the impact of added Hubbles would be roughly linear in the number of satellites for at least three or four more satellites. The bigger question is whether the requisite resources could have a larger combined impact elsewhere by delivering similar advances in astrophysical missions, for which I suspect the answer was correctly judged to be "yes".
- melling 6y agoHubble’s replacement, James Webb, could offer us an opportunity to have a second space telescope. We just need to figure out how to repair the Hubble.
- NikolaeVarius 6y agoIts not a replacement . Its a successor
- melling 6y agoHubble will be gone in 5-10 year. Whenever it breaks it’s done. Call the James’s Webb whatever you want. The point is that it would be useful to have both for decades
- tdy721 6y agoJames Webb isn’t a spy satellite chassis. The Vera Rubins telescope is though
- java-man 6y agoAnd I really fail to see why we build ONE James Webb. What of there is anomaly at launch? Why not build two? If one fails, we have another. If both launch, we have two telescopes! (Well, I don't know how difficult to have to instruments bobbing around L2 point). Most of the price of JW is research and development anyway. It will not be 2x the price, it will be much less, so even if we ignore the possible scientific output, from a purely financial perspective two would be a bargain. I just don't understand why we build one JW, and one Hubble, but we can afford 12 KHs and god know how many other spy telescopes...
- assap_cocky 6y agoFirst rule in government spending: Why build one when you can have two at twice the price? If only this was true.
- UI_at_80x24 6y ago
- jessriedel 6y agoThe deep field images are not a significant fraction of the total scientific output of Hubble.
- tdy721 6y agoNope, they are the icons of the project. Images from the edge of reality. They significantly impacted how I grew up seeing the universe though, and I’m sure I’m not alone on this.
- jessriedel 6y agoIn that case, you're arguing that a greater fraction of time with scientific instruments should be devoted to publicly consumable results. That's fine; I mostly agree. But that's not the claim under discussion, which is whether we would have much more total scientific impact if we had many more Hubbles.