29 ms·

Barely worth to launch another one. It would be more cost effective to invest some R&D into building a telescope with a different target wavelength to get more

by zaarn 4y ago

Barely worth to launch another one. It would be more cost effective to invest some R&D into building a telescope with a different target wavelength to get more science than if you had two of the same telescope. The engineers will also absolutely want to fix any issues they found in Webb already.

aalleavitch 4y ago
The degree to which science has advanced since the Webb project started can't be understated either. We have a fundamentally better understanding of the technology available and what we even want to look at. Much better to simply move onto the next project, of which there are currently very many.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  This one is probably my favorite: https://www.space.com/nasa-telescope-far-side-of-moon.html https://www.space.com/nasa-telescope-far-side-of-moon.html Though I'm not sure if it will ever be built.
  - mulmen 4y ago
    Even if such a device never made an observation or discovery the experience of building it and making it operational would be worthwhile.
  - Phrenzy 4y ago
    I wonder if they have a list of craters already picked out.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  What’s the next project? Roman [1] doesn’t seem as groundbreaking as Webb was. [1] https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/ https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/
  - aalleavitch 4y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proposed_space_observatories#Space_observatories_under_development https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proposed_space_obser...
  - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
    There has been a lot of work on earth based telescopes (eg the 30 meter, giant Magellan, and some array based telescopes) that are going online in the next decade.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Are superior terrestrial 'scopes even possible, anymore, with Starlink interference getting worse each week? Serious question. Or can its interference be filtered out effectively?
      - dotnet00 4y ago
        For the most part, yes, with adaptive optics and corrective measures being taken to deal with more satellites in orbit, ground telescopes are superior or at least comparable to space telescopes given their ability to be much larger. Space telescopes these days are primarily being designed for observations that simply can't be done while in the atmosphere (eg the wavelengths JWST and NGR look at). The value of a space telescope in the same wavelength range as what ground based telescopes usually use would mainly benefit in terms of being able to have much longer exposures.
      - maskedinvader 4y ago
        My understanding is ground based telescopes imaging in the same wavelengths also have to deal with distortion in the atmosphere, star link interference would be easier to filter out compared to the other stuff (which is why locations for these mega ground based telescopes are chosen with utmost care ) Disclaimer. Not a physicals or astronomer, just a enthusiastic backyard amateur astronomer who reads a lot about telescopes .
      - wumpus 4y ago
- noelrock 4y ago
  Was going to reply along these lines. I was fortunate to live with someone who was working on the James Webb and telling me excitedly about it — back in 2006! Surely even with the various upgrades/spec changes/delays, things have moved sufficiently that whatever is started even today will be a marked upgrade. In any event, many many areas to aim at, and relatively limited funding unfortunately.
foobarian 4y ago
I wonder how feasible it would be to count on Starship to succeed, so that each flight could deliver one hexagonal mirror segment, eventually culminating in a giant composite mirror
- delecti 4y ago
  Based on how JWST folded up, the width of the hexagonal segments is already a sizable chunk of its overall launch diameter. Doing what you suggest could absolutely result in a bigger overall telescope, but the complexity would be increased vastly more than the overall telescope diameter.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    You would not need to fold it at all. Instead, launch dozens of Webb-scale scopes for a fraction of the price, able to point in that many directions at once.
    - delecti 4y ago
      I don't think you understood what I meant. If you launch the segments by themselves, the width of a single segment would still be limited to the internal diameter of the launch vessel, we're not going to just bolt a naked mirror to the front of a rocket. If you compare how the JWST was folded, the width of the individual segments was already close to the maximum allowable diameter of the launch vessel. Leaving the rest of that launch vessel empty won't get you a much bigger final mirror.
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        I understood perfectly. Starship is 9 meters wide.
      - kortex 4y ago
        JWST folded is about 3 tiles wide, in a housing 4.7m in diameter, unfolding to 6.5m. So a JWST style fold in a Starship would be double. A one-mirror-segment-per-flight would be something like 36m, in the same arrangement. But since you would be constructing from separate sections, the diameter is theoretically limitless.
vasco 4y ago
> Barely worth to launch another one How do you figure? A fleet of space telescopes research teams could interact with through an API without much cost and zero approval, would for sure advance science by a lot. I find it weird to see a statement like this, so maybe you have something else in mind. It's a stretch to go from "building a different one would give new classes of insights" to "having more people being able to use this thing we only have 1 of a kind is barely worth it".
- Hallucinaut 4y ago
  "Why build one when you could build two for twice the cost?"
  - falseprofit 4y ago
    The cost is nothing next to what we spend on war
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- SiempreViernes 4y ago
  > A fleet of space telescopes research teams could interact with through an API without much cost and zero approval, would for sure advance science by a lot. 100 % someone would point at the sun by accident and burn all the sensors within six months if access is unrestricted and the api is powerful. In any case easy access to data will mostly result in data lying idle on disks somewhere because people are busy doing something more interesting. Analysing data is many months of work, and you don't get more months just because there is more data.
- drexlspivey 4y ago
  The next one should ship with a react app

by zaarn 4y ago

aalleavitch 4y ago

The degree to which science has advanced since the Webb project started can't be understated either. We have a fundamentally better understanding of the technology available and what we even want to look at. Much better to simply move onto the next project, of which there are currently very many.

jacquesm 4y ago
This one is probably my favorite: https://www.space.com/nasa-telescope-far-side-of-moon.html https://www.space.com/nasa-telescope-far-side-of-moon.html Though I'm not sure if it will ever be built.
- mulmen 4y ago
  Even if such a device never made an observation or discovery the experience of building it and making it operational would be worthwhile.
- Phrenzy 4y ago
  I wonder if they have a list of craters already picked out.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
What’s the next project? Roman [1] doesn’t seem as groundbreaking as Webb was. [1] https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/ https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/
- aalleavitch 4y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proposed_space_observatories#Space_observatories_under_development https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proposed_space_obser...
- adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
  There has been a lot of work on earth based telescopes (eg the 30 meter, giant Magellan, and some array based telescopes) that are going online in the next decade.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Are superior terrestrial 'scopes even possible, anymore, with Starlink interference getting worse each week? Serious question. Or can its interference be filtered out effectively?
    - dotnet00 4y ago
      For the most part, yes, with adaptive optics and corrective measures being taken to deal with more satellites in orbit, ground telescopes are superior or at least comparable to space telescopes given their ability to be much larger. Space telescopes these days are primarily being designed for observations that simply can't be done while in the atmosphere (eg the wavelengths JWST and NGR look at). The value of a space telescope in the same wavelength range as what ground based telescopes usually use would mainly benefit in terms of being able to have much longer exposures.
    - maskedinvader 4y ago
      My understanding is ground based telescopes imaging in the same wavelengths also have to deal with distortion in the atmosphere, star link interference would be easier to filter out compared to the other stuff (which is why locations for these mega ground based telescopes are chosen with utmost care ) Disclaimer. Not a physicals or astronomer, just a enthusiastic backyard amateur astronomer who reads a lot about telescopes .
    - wumpus 4y ago
noelrock 4y ago
Was going to reply along these lines. I was fortunate to live with someone who was working on the James Webb and telling me excitedly about it — back in 2006! Surely even with the various upgrades/spec changes/delays, things have moved sufficiently that whatever is started even today will be a marked upgrade. In any event, many many areas to aim at, and relatively limited funding unfortunately.

foobarian 4y ago

I wonder how feasible it would be to count on Starship to succeed, so that each flight could deliver one hexagonal mirror segment, eventually culminating in a giant composite mirror

delecti 4y ago
Based on how JWST folded up, the width of the hexagonal segments is already a sizable chunk of its overall launch diameter. Doing what you suggest could absolutely result in a bigger overall telescope, but the complexity would be increased vastly more than the overall telescope diameter.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  You would not need to fold it at all. Instead, launch dozens of Webb-scale scopes for a fraction of the price, able to point in that many directions at once.
  - delecti 4y ago
    I don't think you understood what I meant. If you launch the segments by themselves, the width of a single segment would still be limited to the internal diameter of the launch vessel, we're not going to just bolt a naked mirror to the front of a rocket. If you compare how the JWST was folded, the width of the individual segments was already close to the maximum allowable diameter of the launch vessel. Leaving the rest of that launch vessel empty won't get you a much bigger final mirror.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      I understood perfectly. Starship is 9 meters wide.
    - kortex 4y ago
      JWST folded is about 3 tiles wide, in a housing 4.7m in diameter, unfolding to 6.5m. So a JWST style fold in a Starship would be double. A one-mirror-segment-per-flight would be something like 36m, in the same arrangement. But since you would be constructing from separate sections, the diameter is theoretically limitless.

vasco 4y ago

> Barely worth to launch another one How do you figure? A fleet of space telescopes research teams could interact with through an API without much cost and zero approval, would for sure advance science by a lot. I find it weird to see a statement like this, so maybe you have something else in mind. It's a stretch to go from "building a different one would give new classes of insights" to "having more people being able to use this thing we only have 1 of a kind is barely worth it".

Hallucinaut 4y ago
"Why build one when you could build two for twice the cost?"
- falseprofit 4y ago
  The cost is nothing next to what we spend on war
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
SiempreViernes 4y ago
> A fleet of space telescopes research teams could interact with through an API without much cost and zero approval, would for sure advance science by a lot. 100 % someone would point at the sun by accident and burn all the sensors within six months if access is unrestricted and the api is powerful. In any case easy access to data will mostly result in data lying idle on disks somewhere because people are busy doing something more interesting. Analysing data is many months of work, and you don't get more months just because there is more data.
drexlspivey 4y ago
The next one should ship with a react app