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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.
by 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 agoI 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 agoI understood perfectly. Starship is 9 meters wide.
- kortex 4y agoJWST 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.
- cnlevy 4y agoJust stack the mirrors inside Starship, and assemble them in space. Below, an example of a 300m diameter telescope using 8-meter mirror segments assembled in-orbit https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/11/17/science-upside-for-starship/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/11/17/science-upside...
- SiempreViernes 4y agoThe launch is already a minor fraction of the total price, making a small bit of the price smaller obviously doesn't solve anything.
- ncmncm 4y agoMaking it not need to fold, or spend years testing and re-testing all the unfolding, would solve a very great deal.