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Why does it need to be physically ON any planetary body? What are the advantages of having it on the moon rather than free floating in a moon-like orbit? ...
by koheripbal 6y ago
Why does it need to be physically ON any planetary body? What are the advantages of having it on the moon rather than free floating in a moon-like orbit? ...or for that matter a more distant eccentric orbit?
- koheripbal 6y agoI should have read the article... the answer is shielding. even in lunar orbit, it's better than orbiting the Earth for brief periods.
- pueblito 6y agoOne advantage would be a foothold on a strategically valuable location
- whimsicalism 6y agoDemocracies are far too short-sighted for this to be an actual reason. Also, this is just a paper published in a journal.
- jvanderbot 6y agoSize also. It's easy to spool dish wires out on the ground on the moon, hard to spool them out and keep them where you want in orbit.
- a1369209993 6y ago> hard to spool them out and keep them where you want in orbit. Well, it's easy if you rotate the whole thing and use centrifugal force, but that has other problems.
- Rebelgecko 6y agoThermal management is easier when you can physically touch other objects, easier to know where you are, easier to maintain pointing accuracy, etc
- jcims 6y agoFor large aperture radio-telescopes like Arecibo or VLBA one advantage would be that you can use gravity and the structural reinforcement of the surface to maintain precise formation and location of your reflectors. One of these days we'll perfect fine stationkeeping and be able to fly large clusters of scopes/reflectors/etc and surface-based scopes will likely become less attractive.