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The tragedy of the inert beurocracy. The decline of the physical supports of this radio telescope was known for years. Maintenance was neglected for years, a we

The tragedy of the inert beurocracy. The decline of the physical supports of this radio telescope was known for years. Maintenance was neglected for years, a well paid beurocracy used up all available funds. All well documented. They needed to allocate funds to maintain that cannot be used to swell bureaocrat's pockets - Puerto Rico is well known for this. It is possible that funders became exhausted at this political game that they starved it of funds intentionally - intending to direct funds to mm arrays and other new projects where there is less political cronyism. Now it is dead - how big is the budget now?

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Lift observatories to space, beyond the clutches of inept bureaucracies and natural decay from on-planet neglect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_telescopes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_telescopes
- aurizon 6y ago
  Yes, this is the trend. With lower cost of launches, I would like to see more remote observatories at the stable lagrange points where they are immune from most man made interference and the inherent stability does not burn consumables to any degree - one assumes solar will suffice for energy.
- paulmd 6y ago
  That solves nothing, without maintenance space-based telescopes will run out of consumables (cryogenics to cool the sensors, etc) or their orbits will eventually decay, or they will eventually need hands-on maintenance. Nothing lasts forever, even in space.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Hubble has been operational for about 30 years. An observatory needs to last only for its expected lifetime, until its successor arrives in orbit. One would expect to be lifting newer, improved platforms to orbit on a brisk cadence as the cost of launch continues to decline.
    - paulmd 6y ago
      and in that time it's required four servicing missions - which require someone to pay for them, you know. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#Servicing_missions_and_new_instruments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#Servici... sending up shorter-lived observatories which are disposed of after a fixed lifespan is fine, that's already the model for stuff like lagrange observatories, those are obviously never going to get a shuttle servicing crew. but it doesn't fix the overall problem that science doesn't get funded on an ongoing basis, if there isn't funding then there will never be any followup missions with disposable observatives either, it will just be the one short-term mission and that's it, we're done. again, you haven't actually solved the problem that science costs money and someone has to pay for it, whether you're operating on a model of servicing a high-end expensive instrument or a repeated missions with disposable ones, and whether it's terrestrial or space-based one. someone has to pay to replace the space-based disposable instrument if you want to continue that capability, the problem is nobody will want to pay for the next mission just like nobody wanted to pay to maintain Arecibo. if you can come up with some way to guarantee ongoing funding for disposable missions then congrats, please let the world know, we can apply that same thing to enduring scientific instruments too. shouting 'disposable missions!' alone isn't a plausible solution for the actual problem here, it's just spacex fetishism. Cheap launches are great but it doesn't solve the problem of funding - someone still has to buy a new instrument and pay to launch it. Moreover missions will naturally evolve to fit the available launch capacity and expenses. when launch capability is cheap, you will get bigger and more sensitive systems that cost more to build and launch. That's a good thing, in the birds-eye view that will be missions with greater scientific capabilities than we could reasonably mount today, but just cheap launch capacity isn't going to magically drive costs to zero, except for some fixed-capacity 'today mission' which will eventually be of no scientific value. Onwards and upwards is the name of the game.
    - freeone3000 6y ago
      Hubble has had 4 servicing missions, each of which cost an entire shuttle launch. Hubble is extremely expensive to service -- and it's currently running with two broken gyroscopes, since there's no shuttle to service it and nobody has the budget to do a SpaceX launch to fix it when it's "working fine". JWST, its replacement, has been in a warehouse for thirty years. "In space" doesn't fix any of the problems!
- rcxdude 6y ago
  space-based astronomy is ridiculously expensive, as well as not being a straight upgrade to ground-based astronomy. If we can't get the funding to maintain existing ground-based telescopes, what's the hope of getting many times that for space-based telescopes?

toomuchtodo 6y ago

Lift observatories to space, beyond the clutches of inept bureaucracies and natural decay from on-planet neglect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_telescopes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_telescopes

aurizon 6y ago
Yes, this is the trend. With lower cost of launches, I would like to see more remote observatories at the stable lagrange points where they are immune from most man made interference and the inherent stability does not burn consumables to any degree - one assumes solar will suffice for energy.
paulmd 6y ago
That solves nothing, without maintenance space-based telescopes will run out of consumables (cryogenics to cool the sensors, etc) or their orbits will eventually decay, or they will eventually need hands-on maintenance. Nothing lasts forever, even in space.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Hubble has been operational for about 30 years. An observatory needs to last only for its expected lifetime, until its successor arrives in orbit. One would expect to be lifting newer, improved platforms to orbit on a brisk cadence as the cost of launch continues to decline.
  - paulmd 6y ago
    and in that time it's required four servicing missions - which require someone to pay for them, you know. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#Servicing_missions_and_new_instruments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#Servici... sending up shorter-lived observatories which are disposed of after a fixed lifespan is fine, that's already the model for stuff like lagrange observatories, those are obviously never going to get a shuttle servicing crew. but it doesn't fix the overall problem that science doesn't get funded on an ongoing basis, if there isn't funding then there will never be any followup missions with disposable observatives either, it will just be the one short-term mission and that's it, we're done. again, you haven't actually solved the problem that science costs money and someone has to pay for it, whether you're operating on a model of servicing a high-end expensive instrument or a repeated missions with disposable ones, and whether it's terrestrial or space-based one. someone has to pay to replace the space-based disposable instrument if you want to continue that capability, the problem is nobody will want to pay for the next mission just like nobody wanted to pay to maintain Arecibo. if you can come up with some way to guarantee ongoing funding for disposable missions then congrats, please let the world know, we can apply that same thing to enduring scientific instruments too. shouting 'disposable missions!' alone isn't a plausible solution for the actual problem here, it's just spacex fetishism. Cheap launches are great but it doesn't solve the problem of funding - someone still has to buy a new instrument and pay to launch it. Moreover missions will naturally evolve to fit the available launch capacity and expenses. when launch capability is cheap, you will get bigger and more sensitive systems that cost more to build and launch. That's a good thing, in the birds-eye view that will be missions with greater scientific capabilities than we could reasonably mount today, but just cheap launch capacity isn't going to magically drive costs to zero, except for some fixed-capacity 'today mission' which will eventually be of no scientific value. Onwards and upwards is the name of the game.
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    Hubble has had 4 servicing missions, each of which cost an entire shuttle launch. Hubble is extremely expensive to service -- and it's currently running with two broken gyroscopes, since there's no shuttle to service it and nobody has the budget to do a SpaceX launch to fix it when it's "working fine". JWST, its replacement, has been in a warehouse for thirty years. "In space" doesn't fix any of the problems!
rcxdude 6y ago
space-based astronomy is ridiculously expensive, as well as not being a straight upgrade to ground-based astronomy. If we can't get the funding to maintain existing ground-based telescopes, what's the hope of getting many times that for space-based telescopes?