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Exactly! SOPHIA is not just the bird herself. How many jobs of historical interest are going away here? (No, I don't think we should keep all jobs forever) How

Exactly! SOPHIA is not just the bird herself. How many jobs of historical interest are going away here? (No, I don't think we should keep all jobs forever) How many seasons of a reality show could be made about the person who maintains the telescope itself? The telescope support system? Heck, even the engineering of Ye Olde 747-400 and how different it is from other 747s in terms of maintenance costs and procedures. Yes, lots of those are just 'nerdy interests' but there are families who have built lives around supporting SOPHIA and likely at least some involved in Kuiper before her, and we're gointg to shut it all down, we should at least record what it was like before it stops, what it was like before they weld the airplane doors shut so morons don't try to parkour inside, get injured, and sue the museum etc., a necessary activity that still restricts the public from more fully understanding what this entire system (bird, observatory, support structures, experiments, results, an dmore) was like, and that's in a best case where NASA puts SOPHIA on display somewhere instead of the much more common [park her and cannibalize her parts, move her to a boneyard, scrap her] pipeline that ends most (admittedly pretty common) birds.

andjd 4y ago
Wow. When I started reading this comment I thought it was a joke. We're going to keep operating a scientific instrument just for a reality show? Sofia, like any telescope, is a tool that we use to learn about the universe. It has a cost to keep running, and that cost needs to be weighed against alternative uses for that budget. The primary benefit of SOFIA over ground-based telescopes is that you avoid a level of interference and distortion from our atmosphere. Space-based telescopes offer the same benefit, with the additional benefit of not subjecting the optics to turbulent air. With the advance of adaptive optics on ground-based telescopes and with private space companies competing to bring the cost of a launch down, there are probably more cost-effective solutions to the problems SOFIA was designed decades ago to solve.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  You missed his point I think. We would not be keeping a scientific instrument 'just for a reality show', we would use the reality show as a way of preserving the instrument.
  - Multicomp 4y ago
    Correct, thanks, I will try to be more succinct and clear about my comments in the future. We are losing afaict unique scientific capabilities with this shutdown, the least we can do is document it well so the next multi billion dollar project to regain said capabilities has clearer acceptance criteria.
- Tarragon 4y ago
  SOFIA gets above most of the water vapor in the atmosphere allowing it to do IR astronomy that ground based telescopes can't. SOFIA is accessible in a way that space telescopes aren't. This allows switching instruments, upgrading instruments, and development of new instruments that can't be done in active space telescopes. Its development and maintenance cost to date is a bit over 1/10 the cost of Webb to date. Plus it's really cool to cut a hole in an airplane and stick a telescope out.
cstross 4y ago
SOPHIA isn't a 747-400; if it was, it would probably still be flying. Instead, it's the now-extremely-rare 747SP, a 747-100 derivative designed for special long range operations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747SP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747SP The original 747-100 had a much shorter range than the 747-400 (due to earlier, fuel-thirsty engines and a bunch of other early design decisions). The SP was shortened and modified extensively to achieve roughly the range of the -400, albeit with fewer passengers, but was obsolescent by the early 1980s. SOFIA was built into an aircraft that first flew in 1977: today it's a 45-year old example of a plane with a 30 year design life, and unlike the B-52 there is no deep-pocket Pentagon contract paying for long-term maintenance. (Yes, putting her out to pasture in an aviation museum would be the ideal fate for this historic aircraft.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_Observatory_for_Infrared_Astronomy#The_SOFIA_aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_Observatory_for_...
- Multicomp 4y ago
  I appreciate the correction, you are correct indeed. That's what I get for reading what feels like 80 aircraft articles in a 2-hour wiki walk, I'm bound to get some details mixed up!

andjd 4y ago

Wow. When I started reading this comment I thought it was a joke. We're going to keep operating a scientific instrument just for a reality show? Sofia, like any telescope, is a tool that we use to learn about the universe. It has a cost to keep running, and that cost needs to be weighed against alternative uses for that budget. The primary benefit of SOFIA over ground-based telescopes is that you avoid a level of interference and distortion from our atmosphere. Space-based telescopes offer the same benefit, with the additional benefit of not subjecting the optics to turbulent air. With the advance of adaptive optics on ground-based telescopes and with private space companies competing to bring the cost of a launch down, there are probably more cost-effective solutions to the problems SOFIA was designed decades ago to solve.

jacquesm 4y ago
You missed his point I think. We would not be keeping a scientific instrument 'just for a reality show', we would use the reality show as a way of preserving the instrument.
- Multicomp 4y ago
  Correct, thanks, I will try to be more succinct and clear about my comments in the future. We are losing afaict unique scientific capabilities with this shutdown, the least we can do is document it well so the next multi billion dollar project to regain said capabilities has clearer acceptance criteria.
Tarragon 4y ago
SOFIA gets above most of the water vapor in the atmosphere allowing it to do IR astronomy that ground based telescopes can't. SOFIA is accessible in a way that space telescopes aren't. This allows switching instruments, upgrading instruments, and development of new instruments that can't be done in active space telescopes. Its development and maintenance cost to date is a bit over 1/10 the cost of Webb to date. Plus it's really cool to cut a hole in an airplane and stick a telescope out.

cstross 4y ago

SOPHIA isn't a 747-400; if it was, it would probably still be flying. Instead, it's the now-extremely-rare 747SP, a 747-100 derivative designed for special long range operations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747SP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747SP The original 747-100 had a much shorter range than the 747-400 (due to earlier, fuel-thirsty engines and a bunch of other early design decisions). The SP was shortened and modified extensively to achieve roughly the range of the -400, albeit with fewer passengers, but was obsolescent by the early 1980s. SOFIA was built into an aircraft that first flew in 1977: today it's a 45-year old example of a plane with a 30 year design life, and unlike the B-52 there is no deep-pocket Pentagon contract paying for long-term maintenance. (Yes, putting her out to pasture in an aviation museum would be the ideal fate for this historic aircraft.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_Observatory_for_Infrared_Astronomy#The_SOFIA_aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_Observatory_for_...

Multicomp 4y ago
I appreciate the correction, you are correct indeed. That's what I get for reading what feels like 80 aircraft articles in a 2-hour wiki walk, I'm bound to get some details mixed up!