Goregue t1_jaiepao wrote on March 1, 2023 at 5:40 PM

Reply to comment by New_Poet_338 in Satellite Constellations Are an Existential Threat for Astronomy by ChieftainMcLeland

"People like you...huh. That is a very loaded phrase. What kind of people are "like" me."

People that superficially like science, but in reality have no idea how it actually works behind the scenes. They only like to see the latest pictures and results from Hubble or JWST. They are a fan of Elon Musk and SpaceX just because they think it's cool. I am not saying you are like this, but this is the impression I get from these people that are blindly in favor of satellites constellations.

"Space telescopes are currently orders of magnitude more expensive. Where will they be in 30 years?"

Yes. Space materials are necessarily more expensive than material you can use on the ground. They need to survive much harsher conditions, under no maintenance, with limited possibilities to troubleshoot problems, and have stringent constraints on size and weight. Space telescopes will always be much more expensive than ground based telescopes.

"Nobody suggested to move all of astronomy to space (strawman alert). But if the article is right maybe a huge chunk has to."

"People" say all the time that we need to move astronomy to space. It doesn't matter if they mean 100% of telescopes, or 90%. The effect is the same, they are proposing a solution that is completely non viable.

"We are centuries away from any given technology? And you get these dates how?"

It took NASA 20 years to develop JWST. At a cost of 10 billion dollars. And this is a 6-meter diameter telescope. The next generation flagship space observatory is planned to be a 6 to 10-meter telescope that will launch in the mid 2040s at a cost similar to JWST. To rival the resolution capabilities of ground-based telescopes, we would need to build a 30-meter space telescope. Thinking that we are on the brink of achieving this is completely illusory.

New_Poet_338 t1_jaii5e9 wrote on March 1, 2023 at 6:02 PM

You have absolutely no idea who I am. Starlink is saving lives in Ukraine, providing high speed internet to native reservations in Canada, hooking up schools in Africa to the internet and provides a viable method for my local sugar shack to get faster than dialup speeds. So yeah, I am a fan. Constellations are going to happen so get over it. Your dislike of SpaceX seems to be motivated by Reddit Cool. SpaceX is taking humans to the moon for half the bid of their nearest competitor and are pushing spaceflight faster than any time since 1970. Starship has a 9 m diameter and can carry a 7 m mirror without the origami required for JW. The astronomy world is already looking at it. Lower cost to orbit and beyond will drop the price of space based instruments by an order of magnitude as mass stops being the constraining factor. There is zero chance it will take centuries to do anything short of FTL flight (which is probably impossible). In the last 120 years we moved from gliders to Artemis. It will not take centuries to take the next steps.

Goregue t1_jaimbad wrote on March 1, 2023 at 6:28 PM

"Starlink is saving lives in Ukraine, providing high speed internet to native reservations in Canada, hooking up schools in Africa to the internet and provides a viable method for my local sugar shack to get faster than dialup speeds."

Except for the first one, all of this can be done with fiber networks. Satellite internet should only be used for emergencies and extremely remote locations, it should be the exception rather than the norm.

"Your dislike of SpaceX seems to be motivated by Reddit Cool."

I dislike only Starlink, and that's because it is interfering with astronomical observations. I applaud SpaceX's efforts with reusable rockets, Starship, the dragon capsule.

"Starship has a 9 m diameter and can carry a 7 m mirror without the origami required for JW. The astronomy world is already looking at it."

Starship is still unproven. When (or if) it is operational, it will certainly be very useful to launch cheaper space telescopes, but this does not mean in any way that space telescopes will make ground-based observatories obsolete. Ground telescopes will always be cheaper and more convenient to operate and maintain.

And a 7m space mirror is not enough when ground telescopes are already at 30-40 meters. So "space origami" will still be necessary if we want to rival the resolution of ground-based telescopes.

"In the last 120 years we moved from gliders to Artemis. It will not take centuries to take the next steps."

And in the last 50 years we moved from crewed missions to the Moon to just now returning to crewed missions to the Moon. For the last 50 years a Mars crewed mission has always been just "20 years away". Progress is very slow with the level of funding we are seeing.

New_Poet_338 t1_jainozm wrote on March 1, 2023 at 6:36 PM

You obviously have never been outside an urban area. Nobody will be running fiberoptic cable into the Canadian hinterland. Or back country Africa. That is pure nonsense. It costs thousands for farmers to hook up the last mile. How much to hook up the last 500 miles? All of Canada outside the cities is extremely remote. I have driven much of it.