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What would be the point? Where would we send them? What would they do when they get there? They can't be more effective telescopes than Hubble since they would

What would be the point? Where would we send them? What would they do when they get there? They can't be more effective telescopes than Hubble since they would be tiny, and it would be impossible to combine the images. Another problem is that they are too tiny to send radio back to the Earth. How would we launch them? SpaceX gets them to Earth orbit. It would be expensive to get them to rest of Solar System. Sending out like Voyager probes would be harder that takes forever to get anywhere useful. Getting them up to speed of this object is beyond our technology.

b112 2y ago
What would be the point? Where would we send them? What would they do when they get there? Ask the same question about anything else we send into space. They can't be more effective telescopes than Hubble since they would be tiny, and it would be impossible to combine the images. I see nothing impossible about combining the images. Why do you deem it impossible? Further, what does size have to do with it? If I gather 1 metre wide of light from 1000 lenses, and mesh them, is that not better than Hubbles meager, tiny size? Well, I don't know yet. But I do know that I can launch 1000 satellites for under $1M, so maybe it's worth a test. Another problem is that they are too tiny to send radio back to the Earth. Huh?! Why on earth so? You can have receivers in orbit. You could have regional radio-only platforms to collect(again, small) and re-transmit. Antennas aren't big bulky things, wire mesh in space can be super light. Most of antenna weight on earth is to support itself. How would we launch them? SpaceX gets them to Earth orbit. There are multiple ways to move things from LEO to above. Did you miss the part about how cheap it will be to launch to orbit? LEO is solved, just scale for 1kg payloads, and see how easy it is to get them to escape velocity. These things will be cheap, flimsy, minimally engineered. The goal is to iterate, and see what works. If 99% of them blow up, malfunction, break on the first try, you improve on the 1% that works for the next time. Because it's cheap to try! I feel your not viewing this through the optics of almost-free. Would you levy all these worries and concerns and such, if I was launching paper-folded boats onto a river, to see which survived the best? Because that's what this is. That's how cheap this is. It would be expensive to get them to rest of Solar System Why? It's not expensive to get things to orbit, it's cheap. That means everything is cheap, including fuel. Think of the future, not the past. And in another post, I discussed solar sails, electric methods of propulsion, I have to repeat here.. this is fun, experimental playtime. Getting them up to speed of this object is beyond our technology. You think it's impossible to get other objects to the speed we got Voyagers, a 1/2 century ago? This is a strange assertion. Regardless, I simply stipulated "away from earth", as in, the earth/moon system. There are immense advantages to that simple act. And you're stuck on "hubble". It was an example. There are 1000s of other sensor platforms we can attempt, measuring all manner of things, looking for variations in physical laws, and validating assumptions we have. The key part here is... there will no longer be a restriction on getting things to space (it used to take YEARS to get a launch window). There will be no cost barrier to getting things to space, none, nada. There will be the opportunity to experiment, cheaply, easily, on whims, instead of decades of research and then an attempt to validate at enormous expense. Think of the possibilities. Stop thinking of the roadblocks, which often are mired in old-cost, old-launch think.
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  > I see nothing impossible about combining the images. Why do you deem it impossible? Further, what does size have to do with it? If I gather 1 metre wide of light from 1000 lenses, and mesh them, is that not better than Hubbles meager, tiny size? Well, I don't know yet. But I do know that I can launch 1000 satellites for under $1M, so maybe it's worth a test. Does this work for non-radio telescopy? My understanding was that this sort of thing works great for intereferometry at certain wavelengths, and basically not-at-all with others.
- ianburrell 2y ago
  Interferometry requires stable satellites and precise measurements of position. That require larger size for the stability and lots of sophisticated instruments. Lots of little telescopes cannot see dim objects. Notice how much more the JMST is seeing over Hubble because of the larger mirror. There is minimum sensitivity of sensor and need to give it more light from big mirror. 1m mirror will never see a faint galaxy even if there is a thousand of them. Also, 1m mirrors are not cheap. Mesh antenna would be useless. It needs to be a rigid dish of some size to reach across the Solar System. It also needs quite a bit of power to reach that far. Solar sails and rockets take up space, quite a lot of space compared to payload. Your thousands of hundred dollar probes would be hundreds of hundred dollar probes attached to thousand dolllar rockets. There are also scaling factors where thinks don't work beyond certain size. SpaceX costs less because of mass produced larger size. You are the one that brought up tons of little probes. Cheap access to space means lots of medium probes are feasible. But medium probes cost money which means less sensitive to cheap access to space. > Getting them up to speed of this object is beyond our technology. This post is about interstellar object. I wasn't sure if you meant Solar System probe, one going that speed, or one going interstellar distances.
  - b112 2y ago
    What you're missing here is, the way you change all of your concerns, is to game alternative solutions at small size, and then test them. We literally could not cost effectively do so before. We can now. With weekly launches and vigorous testing, issues can be knocked down. Dev paths can be tried. Yet the perception I'm getting on this side of the screen is "we cannot do that, it's impossible to ever do that, don't even ever try" This is a recipe to halt all scientific progress. I don't think this is your intention, but that seems to be your argument. EG, you're arguing from "we can't do this because currently we don't know how to", so "oh well, that won't ever work".

b112 2y ago

What would be the point? Where would we send them? What would they do when they get there? Ask the same question about anything else we send into space. They can't be more effective telescopes than Hubble since they would be tiny, and it would be impossible to combine the images. I see nothing impossible about combining the images. Why do you deem it impossible? Further, what does size have to do with it? If I gather 1 metre wide of light from 1000 lenses, and mesh them, is that not better than Hubbles meager, tiny size? Well, I don't know yet. But I do know that I can launch 1000 satellites for under $1M, so maybe it's worth a test. Another problem is that they are too tiny to send radio back to the Earth. Huh?! Why on earth so? You can have receivers in orbit. You could have regional radio-only platforms to collect(again, small) and re-transmit. Antennas aren't big bulky things, wire mesh in space can be super light. Most of antenna weight on earth is to support itself. How would we launch them? SpaceX gets them to Earth orbit. There are multiple ways to move things from LEO to above. Did you miss the part about how cheap it will be to launch to orbit? LEO is solved, just scale for 1kg payloads, and see how easy it is to get them to escape velocity. These things will be cheap, flimsy, minimally engineered. The goal is to iterate, and see what works. If 99% of them blow up, malfunction, break on the first try, you improve on the 1% that works for the next time. Because it's cheap to try! I feel your not viewing this through the optics of almost-free. Would you levy all these worries and concerns and such, if I was launching paper-folded boats onto a river, to see which survived the best? Because that's what this is. That's how cheap this is. It would be expensive to get them to rest of Solar System Why? It's not expensive to get things to orbit, it's cheap. That means everything is cheap, including fuel. Think of the future, not the past. And in another post, I discussed solar sails, electric methods of propulsion, I have to repeat here.. this is fun, experimental playtime. Getting them up to speed of this object is beyond our technology. You think it's impossible to get other objects to the speed we got Voyagers, a 1/2 century ago? This is a strange assertion. Regardless, I simply stipulated "away from earth", as in, the earth/moon system. There are immense advantages to that simple act. And you're stuck on "hubble". It was an example. There are 1000s of other sensor platforms we can attempt, measuring all manner of things, looking for variations in physical laws, and validating assumptions we have. The key part here is... there will no longer be a restriction on getting things to space (it used to take YEARS to get a launch window). There will be no cost barrier to getting things to space, none, nada. There will be the opportunity to experiment, cheaply, easily, on whims, instead of decades of research and then an attempt to validate at enormous expense. Think of the possibilities. Stop thinking of the roadblocks, which often are mired in old-cost, old-launch think.

pavel_lishin 2y ago
> I see nothing impossible about combining the images. Why do you deem it impossible? Further, what does size have to do with it? If I gather 1 metre wide of light from 1000 lenses, and mesh them, is that not better than Hubbles meager, tiny size? Well, I don't know yet. But I do know that I can launch 1000 satellites for under $1M, so maybe it's worth a test. Does this work for non-radio telescopy? My understanding was that this sort of thing works great for intereferometry at certain wavelengths, and basically not-at-all with others.
ianburrell 2y ago
Interferometry requires stable satellites and precise measurements of position. That require larger size for the stability and lots of sophisticated instruments. Lots of little telescopes cannot see dim objects. Notice how much more the JMST is seeing over Hubble because of the larger mirror. There is minimum sensitivity of sensor and need to give it more light from big mirror. 1m mirror will never see a faint galaxy even if there is a thousand of them. Also, 1m mirrors are not cheap. Mesh antenna would be useless. It needs to be a rigid dish of some size to reach across the Solar System. It also needs quite a bit of power to reach that far. Solar sails and rockets take up space, quite a lot of space compared to payload. Your thousands of hundred dollar probes would be hundreds of hundred dollar probes attached to thousand dolllar rockets. There are also scaling factors where thinks don't work beyond certain size. SpaceX costs less because of mass produced larger size. You are the one that brought up tons of little probes. Cheap access to space means lots of medium probes are feasible. But medium probes cost money which means less sensitive to cheap access to space. > Getting them up to speed of this object is beyond our technology. This post is about interstellar object. I wasn't sure if you meant Solar System probe, one going that speed, or one going interstellar distances.
- b112 2y ago
  What you're missing here is, the way you change all of your concerns, is to game alternative solutions at small size, and then test them. We literally could not cost effectively do so before. We can now. With weekly launches and vigorous testing, issues can be knocked down. Dev paths can be tried. Yet the perception I'm getting on this side of the screen is "we cannot do that, it's impossible to ever do that, don't even ever try" This is a recipe to halt all scientific progress. I don't think this is your intention, but that seems to be your argument. EG, you're arguing from "we can't do this because currently we don't know how to", so "oh well, that won't ever work".