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The Billion-Dollar Telescope
dcmeserve writes "As in all science, astronomers are ever searching for better technology to aid in their task. But when it comes to telescopes, nothing beats sheer bulk of light-gathering capability. This article gives a brief overview of the top contenders for the next leap forward, including
a 100-meter behemoth that is expected to run $1 billion."
The NASA plan calls for a Hubble servicing mission in 2006, possibly followed by another one a few years later, that could keep the Hubble in space far beyond even the launch of the new James Webb Space Telescope in 2011.
But after the crash of the space shuttle Columbia in February, the shuttle program has come to a grinding halt. Without servicing by the space shuttle, the Hubble is living on borrowed time.
See more here.
Theoretical physicists do to. They use all kinds of computer programs to map and model possible situations. One of the biggest linux clusters in the world is being used by theoretical phycisists to try and model a fusion reaction.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
Am I just crazy to suggest such a thing?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Here's a "close together" example:m m981104.html
http://www.estec.esa.nl/conferences/FPD/info/tos-
Here's a short paper minus images on telescope arrays:t /bthomas_ska_site.html
http://www.atnf.csiro.au/technology/future/2001oc
"The maximum extent of LOFAR is 350 km"
It seems there are proprietary astronomers who like proprietary programmers always think bigger is better when in fact smaller, more spread out is the best choice.
In principle the resolving power of a telescope depends on its diameter -- a bigger one can see finer detail -- but in practice atmospheric turbulence, the same effect that makes stars appear to twinkle, blurs the stars and erases fine detail. This is why the Hubble, even though it is not large, only about 2.4 meters (96 inches), compared with the new giants on the ground, can do breathtaking work.
The proposals sport Brobdingnagian names like the California Extremely Large Telescope, or CELT; Giant Magellan; or the Overwhelming Large Telescope, OWL, a 100-meter-diameter behemoth being contemplated by a collaboration of European nations. And their proponents promise appropriately outsized scientific results.
If you're going to spend a $1B on a telescope, aren't you reaching the point where the money would be better spent to put one in space away from the atmosphere and associated debris rather than sticking it on terra firma?
No, putting a project into space something in space is like going for the "I'd like an inch-thick gold-plate finish with diamond encrusting" when purchasing a car. Consider this: the Hubble Space Telescope cost $1.5 billion in the 1980s, for a 2.4m diameter primary mirror. If we were to scale the cost based on the diameter of the mirror, then a 100m space telescope would cost $62.5 billion, over an order of magnitude more than the proposed ground-based facility.
And don't think that ground-based telescopes are the poor cousins of space-based ones. The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) can achieve resolutions better than Hubble, even if the latter had been built without the optical problems, and the VLT cost 1/10th of what Hubble did.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
These guys are all idiots.
They're wasting money and time spending "a billion" dollars on a telescope, and the guys in California are making one too.
They should spend it all on setting up a new MOON mission. And then build an el cheapo telescope there.
Cuz we all know that on the moon the atmosphere is minimal and it wouldn't obstruct astronomer's views much at all.
Radiation will be easy to block on the moon since it's so close. We can send hundreds of unmanned drones to drop off equipment (like LEAD) on to the surface of the moon. Setup small nuclear power plants like the one for Galena Alaska. The Toshiba Mini Nuke. This could run lighting for hydroponics, air recycling systems and water recycling systems inside the moon base for DECADES.
The base could grow their own food, heat up lead to fill up the base interior for radiation shielding and have a pretty darn neat setup.
Sure this may take about 10 years of planning and 20 years of actual implementation and the project cost of maybe 100 billion dollars.
But imagine the fact that the world has finally gotten off its ass to put a base on the frickin' moon!
oh, I might add that the low gravity of the moon would make the telescope portion of the base much cheaper to build, I mean damn man, it's not going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to make a computer-controlled support setup to prevent mirrors from sagging like an old pair of melons.
Time it takes to get it up there? Well shoot, NASA took how long to get a man in the moon in the first place?
Instead of using cutting edge designs, just settle with setting up a base. Then from there use the base as a staging point for planning and creation.
There are millions of people wanting to become astronauts! Sure not everyone can fly a space shuttle, but at least you can hire space construction workers or scientists. Have them enlist in a SPACE branch of the military service and pay them peanuts($0.23 an hour), if they don't make it through the training, send them back home with no ties to the military a-la washout lane from Starship Troopers.
Speaking of which, they had a whole lunar base made of a geosynchronous orbiting ring, I think that's a great project also, a little more expensive than possible, but it's cool!
Alright, so maybe 100 billion dollars is a little conservative, but right now we have the underlying technologies to setup any sort of venture we want to the moon. We can charge it on George W Bush's CEO American Express card. It has no limit! (as long as you pay it off in a month)
Our Deficit is big enough as it is, why not add another measely trillion dollars to it?
Mod parent up!
Even though I am not an astronomer, I can appreciate the effects of light pollution. After being shown a video on light pollution when visiting an observatory, I came to realize what a terrible problem this is for the urban and suburban areas of the world.
It became more apparent after visiting Kauai, HI for a week not long after seeing the video. The island is inhabited, but just barely, and is only supported by the tourist population. The island is composed mostly of small villages spaced roughly 15 miles apart. After 6pm, the entire island appears deserted, as the tourists return to their resorts, and the (few) locals go home. It was about 8 o'clock, and I was driving on the road. The first thing you notice is how DARK everything is. The sky really IS black and you can see all the stars (but not nearly as good as my other experience - see below). Anyhow, you could tell when you were approaching another car in the opposing direction about 5 minutes before you acutally passed it due to the change in color of the sky.
"Wow. It looks like there's a big village ahead. Maybe THAT one will have a supermarket..."
5 minutes later...
"Damn. It's just a BMW"
Last summer, for the first time in my life, I had the chance to view the milky way with my naked eyes for the first time in my life. It was in the middle of nowhere in upstate NY - at least 15 miles from the nearest trace of civilization, and is an experience I will keep with me for the rest of my life. It was the last day of a small trek with several of my friends, and the first day with no clouds in the sky. The magnificence of it is too great to describe with words. It is something which I believe that every person must experience at some time in his life. We stood there, silent for what seemed like an eternity and yet also like a fleeting moment. We would have laid down and slept atop the hill in the clearing had it not been for a pesky group of bears...
Go. Go outdoors. Get away into the mddle of nowhere. Spend some time. Get to know yourself. Look up.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
The article didn't even mention the 9.2-meter Hobby-Eberly Telescope in west Texas, which was built at a fraction of the cost required by other similarly-sized telescopes. (HET cost only $13.5 million.) The most notable cost-savings being that the telescope is always at a constant tilt, and is only configured for spectroscopy, not imaging. But for sheer size-of-light-bucket per dollar, such a design is hard to beat. There are also plans to build a much larger version of the HET --- I forgot how big and I have no URLs to share, but the new telescope would be at least as large as those mentioned in the article.