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Yes. If Elon was as concerned about the survival of humanity as he claims with his mars initiatives then he’d outfit these with some equipment for this. There’s
by ianai 5y ago
Yes. If Elon was as concerned about the survival of humanity as he claims with his mars initiatives then he’d outfit these with some equipment for this. There’s got to be a way to do both internet and radio astronomy.
- immmmmm 5y agoputting extremely sensitive RF detectors on top of extremely power RF emitters doesn't seems the best match
- hypertele-Xii 5y agoUntil you realize every single satellite that both transmits and receives information has solved this problem already, including Starlink.
- emn13 5y agoI'm somewhat skeptical that every radio receiver is interchangable. Yes, starlink will have some kind of transceiver - but do you have any citation to back up the claim that it can be used effectively for astronomical observation? Even if the physics are fundamentally the same, all kinds of practical implementation details like orientation, bandwidth, frequency, and probably all kinds of stuff an actual expert in the field would know about may well differ.
- Dylan16807 5y agoThey got the signal to noise margins down enough for effective communication. That doesn't mean they'd be within orders of magnitude of optimal for measuring extremely weak signals.
- cryptonector 5y agoIt takes enormous amounts of capital to do all of this. He's got to build some of that capital first, and to do that he has to pursue commercial interests first. Once he's got positive cash-flow and growth and demonstrated a sustainable business, then he still can't quite build a radio telescope on SpaceX's dime for fiduciary reasons, but he'd have built a launch facility that governments could use to do it.
- justapassenger 5y ago> It takes enormous amounts of capital to do all of this He's literally richest person on earth and SpaceX is his playground.
- cryptonector 5y agoHe can't just dedicate it to this or anything else in one go. That wealth is largely paper wealth based on other people's idea of what he can deliver, but then he has to, you know, deliver -- if he suddenly dedicated himself entirely to non-commercial projects, then he'd suddenly not be all that rich anymore. So, he has to make SpaceX more clearly a success before he can dedicate any capital to a space-based radiotelescope. And even then, he can't use SpaceX's capital -- he has to use his own.
- panick21_ 5y agoSpaceX has to survive on its own, he can just do any project he wants. Sure, he could sell lots of Tesla stock and develop some scientific instruments but even for a rich person just dropping many billions on something experimental instrument is a bit rich. Musk is gone have enough opportunity to invest in things that are not commercially viable for Mars missions. Because it will take a long time before NASA gives them money for this.
- enchiridion 5y agoMaybe it just hasn’t gained enough steam for him to notice? Maybe it’s not directly applicable to colonizing Mars? All of his current business ventures make sense when viewed through the lens of setting up a highly autonomous Martian colony. Each self funds R&D. Tesla: power generation, storage, management. Autonomous vehicles and droids to operate in hostile environments. SpaceX: transportation and communications. Boring Co.: protected subterranean environments. NeuraLink: Humans are more expensive to send. Augment the ones there with AI
- ianai 5y agoI'd bet he could get funding from various governments by just hiring 1 astrophysicist and adding minimal hardware to the satellites. They're SDR so it might just be a software update.
- enchiridion 5y agoWould be great! Especially because they plan to send so many more satellites up. Hopefully someone from SpaceX will see it here.
- cdash 5y agoThat is all based on the assumption that anything could be done to prevent an extinction level event with current technology.