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These two questions (Arecibo and SpaceX) are orthogonal. Arecibo is ground-based science. SpaceX is access to Earth orbit, not really anything to do with scie
by mturmon 6y ago
These two questions (Arecibo and SpaceX) are orthogonal. Arecibo is ground-based science. SpaceX is access to Earth orbit, not really anything to do with science or research.
NSF is an agency promoting research. It is continually handing old telescopes over to university consortia, and building the next generation of hardware. In this case, the handoff was bungled. A lot of technical debt had piled up. But it turns out to be really hard to get people to pay for upgrades and maintenance.
For more on the technical story of this collapse, see: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/how-famed-arecibo-telescope-fell-and-how-it-might-rise-again https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/how-famed-arecibo-te...
- simplicio 6y agoYea, Arecibo aside, we're entering something of a golden age of ground-based observatories, so disagree we're in decay when it comes to such devices.
- jonplackett 6y agoWould Starship allow for a much bigger telescope to be put in orbit?
- Out_of_Characte 6y agoNot really, Perseverance didn't even use spaceX. total cost is the limiting factor like it almost always is. Extremely large fairings are only needed when you need a complex piece up in a single piece.
- jonplackett 6y agoThanks. I imagined that for a really big telescope then a really big faring would be useful for that exact reason. Why isn’t that the case? Wouldn’t starship at least make it a lot cheaper to put a really big telescope in orbit?