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It's hard to imagine how this could be easier or cheaper than just launching another space telescope. I see from the article that it uses a spinning liquid mir
by metalliqaz 6y ago
It's hard to imagine how this could be easier or cheaper than just launching another space telescope. I see from the article that it uses a spinning liquid mirror, so yes, that would require gravity to work, but how many extra launches would it take to get the telescope to the moon and also the lander equipment.
- helsinkiandrew 6y agoI assume (its a shame the article didn't go into this) that the telescope would basically be a big fabric structure and it and the liquid mirror can be easily transported and set up without humans. The magnification of the 100M mirror make up for the lack of being able to point it anywhere at a much reduced cost than a 'traditional' space telescope.
- mannykannot 6y agoThe thinking might be that if we are going to return to the moon, then the more we have in the way of useful projects to do there, the better. The JWST is not exactly going smoothly, and telescopes of that size will not be powerful enough to study the era of the first stars.
- mkoubaa 6y agoLaunch a mining and manufacturing unit and built it along with anything else we need on the moon
- metalliqaz 6y agoThat technology doesn't exist...
- m4rtink 6y agoUntil someone starts working on it, no technology usually exists.
- metalliqaz 6y agoYeah, well, right now a mining and manufacturing operation on Earth weighs more than the entirety of everything humankind has ever lifted into space, by at least an order of magnitude, probably several orders of magnitude. And it still relies on a worldwide transportation network to move materiel. We could build 10 JWST and still come in well under budget compared to developing that tech.
- nitrogen 6y agoWatching Cody's Lab on YouTube, it seems people used to mine and refine (distill) some metals with what looks like less than a ton of equipment.
- metalliqaz 6y agoAnd then manufacture it into a high-precision instrument... in space?
- m4rtink 6y agoJust turning asteroid material to below average 3D printer feed could be a big and useful first step - just overengineer everything by a factor of 3+ and you can build a big part of your mining operation in place from local resources, to refine/proces/manufacture from the good stuff.
- mkoubaa 6y agoBuild a crude tool, then use the crude tool to build a less crude tool, repeat. This is more or less how civilization happened
- sbierwagen 6y agoIt absolutely would not be easier or cheaper. The idea is to make a larger, more capable instrument than the JWST. From the paper: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/588034 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/588034 >Without an independent infrastructure in place at a lunar pole, it would likely be impossible to construct and operate a large liquid-mirror telescope.