Antarctic Telescope?

angkor pastes "'A novel Antarctic telescope with 16-m diameter mirrors would far outperform the Hubble Space Telescope, and could be built at a tiny fraction of its cost, says a scientist from the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Sydney, Australia.'"

Comments

Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Anonymous Coward]

Even though the Hubble Space Telescope was expensive initially, you must admit that it has been cheap and easy to repair. This new telescope would be located all the way down in Antarctica. Has anyone priced flights to Antarctica lately? When there's a problem, it's not like you could just hop on the next Space Shuttle and slap another lens in. And plus it's COLD down there! It'd probably need some kind of heater or something. Think of the electric bills!

It's ridiculous how these "scientists" really don't think these things through. I expect more from people with fancy "college degrees" and smartypants names like "Will."

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[mikeeeeeee]

the hubble telescope is in space, which, last i checked was VERY cold

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Nos.]

Um, your logic here is that its cheaper to hop on the space shuttle to fix the hubble than it is to fly to Antarctica? Of course you could be joking, but currently this comment is moderated as interesting.

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Anonymous Coward]

whooooosh! /sound of hubble telescope passing over your head :)

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[tehshen]

I would presume that it is far warmer in Antarctica than in orbit... Anywhere on Earth is far more accessible and easier to get to than anywhere not on it.

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the moderators seemed to have accidentally missed the humor. The entire post was, of course, a joke. I didn't think it was too subtle for Slashdot, but perhaps it was. :)

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Anonymous Coward]

Those of us who got it probably let out a chuckle. Those that got it and read the replies to it let out a sad chuckle.

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

Does this explain the Userfriendly theme this last week?

btw. Their names are Sarah and Henry.

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you had your satire detector checked recently? I think yours is broken.

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Nofsck Ingcloo]

Whoosh! : The sound of a joke flying over your head.

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[theguyfromsaturn]

Yeah, but in orbit you only have to worry about radiated heat loss. You probably lose wayyyyy more heat by condution. That's why you drop things into water to cool them faster even than in air. The same goes for air versus vacuum. At least we won't depend on a shuttle to service it... though we'll need brave doggies to pull the sleighs all the way there.

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[table_62]

Maybe this is why we've been clearing out all that pesky ozone down there: the view is so much better now.

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Anonymous Coward]

That wasn't a joke. It was more of a "joke".

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Vihai]

Actually, the empty space does not have a temperature.

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, good thing outer space isn't a perfect vacuum then. /Counters pedants by being a pedant

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[sahonen]

Dear god, look at all the morons who took this post seriously. IT'S A JOKE, PEOPLE!

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Vihai]

In terms of temperature... the space is pretty much similar to the ideal empty space, otherwise it would be VERY HOT.

It's not a coincidence that when the density of the atmospfere increases the Shuttle becomes pretty warm :)

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a joke. The quy's name really is "Will." I checked.

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[HermanAB]

Yes, of course it is a joke, but the responses of these guys are waaay more funny...

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Anonymous Coward]

> It's ridiculous how these "scientists" really
> don't think these things through. I expect more
> from people with fancy "college degrees" and
> smartypants names like "Will."

You forgot that it's possible to get from the US to Antarctica pretty easily from the US. You just need to dial out to another world before getting there:
http://www.scifi.com/atlantis/

Who needs expensive planes paid for from research money when you can use government funding to pay for a much more expensive solution?;-)

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[aldoman]

But seriously - isn't the point of science to be able to do amazingly cool stuff and find out whatever we need?

Having 2x telescopes would be much better than one.

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[r_jensen11]

Yeah, imagine what we could do with two telescopes! We could have better 3d images!

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Nykon]

someone should tell NASA that http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/EP-177/c h4-6.html

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[silverpig]

Actually empty space has a temperature of 2.73 Kelvin.

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[CCIEwannabe]

the vies is so much better now...

So are the chances of getting skin cancer

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[table_62]

That's what SPF 600 is for, isn't it? Liquid Lead?

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Keith McClary]

If they go down to the bottom side of the earth, they'll fall off into space so they could fix the Shuttle on the same trip.
I'm not sure how they could get back, they could take parachutes, or maybe an inflatable life raft like James Bond used to land on Everest.

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[RsG]

And how much antarctic sunbathing do you do exactly? Was it that small before, or did it shrink?

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Anonymous Coward]

What crack are you on? The Shuttle becomes warm because it's going from 20 * the speed of sound to a dead stop and dumping that enery to the air around it.

Space is vary vary cold but the sun will heat one side of anything that it's light hit's. So if you have a reflective shield you can make your object cold or paint it black and get it vary hot it's up to you.

Re:Rather quite expensive in the long term

[Frizzle Fry]

Strictly speaking, if the space contains a telescope, then by definition it isn't "empty".

Press Release... funding

[BoldAC]

"A telescope there would perform as well as a much larger one anywhere else on Earth. It's nearly as good as being in space", said Dr. Will Saunders of the Anglo-Australian Observatory.

Nearly as good, nearly. I am still a huge fan of Hubble... so forgive me. :)

As someone who survives on research money for a living, I am sad to see what direction funding is going. Previously, those who had tbe best ideas would get the money.

Now, he who gets the press, gets the money.

This whole article is basically a press release by this guy. I'll summarize the article for you...

"Give me money because I _think_ I can build some cool stuff."

Re:Press Release... funding

[dnoyeb]

Yea, I heard this claim probably 6 months ago. 'Software' algorithms could compensate for the effects of the atmosphere. (probably by using data gather by Hubble)

I'd be more than willing to pay for this if they would offer a money back refund.

Re:Press Release... funding

[nwbvt]

""Give me money because I _think_ I can build some cool stuff.""

Yeah, NASA should sue him for infringing on their patent.

Re:Press Release... funding

[at_18]

'Software' algorithms could compensate for the effects of the atmosphere. (probably by using data gather by Hubble)

No, you use Adaptive optics. Antarctica is particolarly good because the atmosphere effects are small, so the adaptive optics works very well.

Re:Press Release... funding

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you close the control loop on for the adaptive optics? I don't see a provision in this Antarctic telescope for a large laser to generate a guide star. How do you generate the error signals to operate the adaptive optics system?

Re:Press Release... funding

[toxic666]

"As someone who survives on research money for a living, I am sad to see what direction funding is going. Previously, those who had tbe best ideas would get the money."

OK, I am going to get flamed by all of the /. "only the government has the resources to fund XXXYYYZZZ research but is wasting it in Iraq" types who are politicizing every article on this site, but surviving on government research money is quite different than doing corporate research in which some kind of measurable return on investment is expected. And even government research is not a bottomless source of funds that can go to any proposal, regardless of cost and merit.

This article is presented by a someone who has an idea about how to get excellent results for a fraction of the cost of Hubble or a successor.

Your post comes across as "I survive on research money and don't like it when someone out there comes up with more cost effective ideas because I am threatened by innovative ideas."

Re:Press Release... funding

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Yeah I agree... Sad really...

Re:Press Release... funding

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who survives on research money for a living, I am sad to see what direction funding is going. Previously, those who had tbe best ideas would get the money.
Now, he who gets the press, gets the money.

Be happy there is still SOME science behind it. At the rate things are going in the USA, it won't be long until the only science being funded is to prove that Jesus is our Lord and Savior.

Re:Press Release... funding

[IgnoramusMaximus]

This article is presented by a someone who has an idea about how to get excellent results for a fraction of the cost of Hubble or a successor.

Being a self-professed expert on corporate-funded research you should also be aware that old-folks homes are littered with people who lost all their money taking this sort of self-aggrandisig press-release cum "article" seriously. Corporate "research" is riddled with con-artists, greedy half-wits and outright lunatics who were laughed out of any peer-reviewed scientific arena. It is also, rarely, capable of producing some useful rip-off or elaboration on some academia-based discovery. What corporate "research" is very good at on the other hand, is taking credit for things (so that the owners/investors can look good and have basis for various legal wranglings), making wild announcements in the press aimed at luring venture capital and last, but not least, providing "scientific" justification for various rape-and-pillage type schemes in which various industries engage periodically.

I dare you to name any profound, completely corporately-funded discovery, which was not based wholly or in major parts on any prior research in public academia.

Re:Press Release... funding

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, I am going to get flamed by all of the /.

Bullshit detector full on.

That comment makes meaningless anything else you might have to say.

Re:Press Release... funding

[Dun Malg]

I dare you to name any profound, completely corporately-funded discovery, which was not based wholly or in major parts on any prior research in public academia.

Heh. Name the reverse. All research is a tangled mess of dependencies. Academia does not exist in a vacuum. To settle such an argument one must go all the back to the question of "which came first: commerce, or scholarly endeavors?" At that point, you're too far away from the present to clearly say whether one piggybacked more on the other.

Re:Press Release... funding

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Name the reverse

Pick any. They all are based on scientific process. We are talking science here, no? And a fundamental property of scientific process is free exchange of ideas. Peer-review being only a small part of it. No scientist in the world, at any time, is capable of functioning in a vacuum. All profound discoveries made by famous men and women are mere tips of mountains of thought that were built by other free thinkers who went before them. In essence, commerce is an anathema of science because of this simple fact: in commerce, secrecy is paramount in order to prevent competition from benefiting from research in progress. This puts any commercial "research" at a fatal disadvantage, cutting it of from the very bloodstream of science: the free exchange of ideas. That is how I can say with certainty that all profound discoveries were based on public (as in accessible to other scientists for review and discussion) research.

Re:Press Release... funding

[Agent Orange]

The same way other AO systems work - by using nearby bright stars. This is a 16m dish - there are quite a few things considered "bright" by those standards

Re:Press Release... funding

[toxic666]

Here is one that is near and dear to me: the Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter.

Before the GFCI, the primary electrical circuit protector was the circuit breaker. Does some nice things, but it is NOT good at detecting when current is leaking to ground, say, through your finger, arm chest, leg and foot to a puddle of water in the bathroom. Two companies realized the potentially beneficial (and hence lucrative) potential for such a device and independently developed it. It is known as the GFCI -- and not GFI -- because one company beat the other to market.

Oh, hey, what about that computer you typed your comment on? Did any corporate-funded research went into that?

Re:Press Release... funding

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter

GFCI is a mere device constructed out of existing electronic components, bringing no new scientific discoveries at all. It is merely an example of clever engineering, something commerce indeed can excel at.

Oh, hey, what about that computer you typed your comment on? Did any corporate-funded research went into that?

Here we go again. The PC is en exaple of engineering application of science, such as that of solid state physics, mathematics, binary logic, data structures, algorithms, etc. A clever use of public academic knowledge.

Re:Press Release... funding

[imsabbel]

another way often utilized is sending a pulsed laser beam up their line-of-sight (using a smaller telescope decrease divergence) and use it for calibrating. Because the ccds are just integrating, you can either discard those timeslots or the part of the spectrum the laser occupiers.... whatever is more suitable for the observation.

Re:Press Release... funding

[Agent Orange]

yes, but there are also problems with laser guide stars. Like they're hard to get working. Also, when you start adding multiple guide stars, as in Multi-conjugate AO (MCAO), you decrease the field-of-view (which on a large telescope is already pretty small) with every laser guide you use. There are trade-offs. You get excellent images, but only over a tiny area.

Laser systems are also extremely complex (and hence expensive). You'd need to make a pretty good science case for why they're necessary, especially given that the *median* seeing in the antarctic (dome C) is already as low as 0.27" (and less than 0.15" for 25% of the time). Compare this to mauna kea (the current best site in the world) which gets to 0.4-0.5" on a good night.

Also, I think you might have missed the point with CCDs. without closing the shutter, you can't just discard photons from a ccd one they're detected. since there's no time-tagging (as in, say, the FUSE UV detectors) you can't exclude photons after the fact - "discarding those timeslots" is a bit harder than it sounds.

Re:Press Release... funding

[Anonymous Coward]

"Now, he who gets the press, gets the money."

He needs it too. This is the same guy who decided it would be a good idea to write "NO WAR" on the Sydney Opera House, and now he has to repay the cost of the paint job.

Re:Press Release... funding

[RWerp]

I dare you to name any profound, completely corporately-funded discovery, which was not based wholly or in major parts on any prior research in public academia.

Heh. Since Newton was an academic, it is impossible by default. However, in times already gone, IBM and other companies funded some pure research. US military was also good at it (I remember reading some paper from fundamental quantum mechanics whose author thanked US Navy for funding).

Re:Press Release... funding

[register_ax]

In addition, he is obviously hesitant of the capabilities.

A novel Antarctic telescope with 16-m diameter mirrors would far outperform the Hubble Space Telescope, and could be built at a tiny fraction of its cost, says a scientist from the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Sydney, Australia.

But then is quoted as saying near the end of the article

"With this simple telescope you could do the exquisite imaging that the extremely large telescopes plan to do, at a fraction of their cost" Dr. Saunders said. "But, unlike them, this telescope would also be a great survey instrument, able to map the whole sky with Hubble-like clarity."

So I'm guessing the reporter was out at the bar with him and a few of his buddies the previous night and that's basically what the drunken banter amounted to ... Oh yah oughta see it mate, wicked fly it is. Far better than those American gahooneys at NASA can do ...

Re:Press Release... funding

[silverpig]

Yes, that does seem odd, but you have to take into account a number of factors. We have telescopes in Chile right now that can take clearer images than hubble in the IR range of the spectrum, but that changes as you go to shorter wavelengths. I'd imagine that this antarctic scope could greatly outperform hubble in the IR and perhaps optical, but maybe not the UV...

Re:Press Release... funding

[CodeMonkey4Hire]

Would Bell Labs suffice?

Bell Telephone Laboratories or Bell Labs was originally the research and development arm of the United States Bell System, and was the premier corporate facility of its type, developing a range of revolutionary technologies from telephone switches to specialized coverings for telephone cables, to the transistor.

Bell Labs was 50 percent owned by Western Electric, and 50 percent owned by AT&T.

Re:Press Release... funding

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I remember reading some paper from fundamental quantum mechanics whose author thanked US Navy for funding

That is merely public (military) or private funding for public academia (which I have no problem with as long as the results do not become someone's "private property"). What he was talking about is corporate, for profit research, where the results are the property of the corporation (otherwise there is little point to this from commercial perspective other then maybe good PR).

Re:Press Release... funding

[bitingduck]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned (maybe I didn't read deep enough) that it was just reported in Nature (and linked from /.) that Dome C has exceptional seeing.

That this came up in the press is no surprise-- some reporter put two and two together, and figured this would be good to highlight. Dome C is a good place to put a telescope. It's got great seeing, it's way cheaper than going to space, it's very dry (so you can see more in the IR). It also can only see the southern sky. The particular telescope proposed in the link may or may not be the best option, but it's a start.

It's also worth noting that a Hubble replacement doesn't have to cost nearly as much as Hubble. JWST isn't a replacement so much as a follow on-- it's a very different telescope, with very different capabilities and instruments. Building a "disposable" HST replacement (possibly even sent someplace nice like L2) could (and probably would) cost much less than HST did. Depending on the instrument suite it could be pretty competitive with launching a servicing mission to the aging HST.

Re:Press Release... funding

[RWerp]

Of course, pure research cannot be done on the profit basis. Otherwise it wouldn't be called 'pure', eh?

Re:Press Release... funding

[IgnoramusMaximus]

eveloping a range of revolutionary technologies from telephone switches to specialized coverings for telephone cables, to the transistor

Which is a bunch of hooya. If it were so, the transistor would be under patents till probably now (and subsequently half of the electronics/computer revolution) would be yet to come. Alas, transistor, was developed by academics John Bardeen (Princeton University), Walter Brattain (University of Oregon) with the help of William B. Shockley (MIT) (partially funded by AT&T but based on research of many, many people in academia, like Professor J.H. Van Vleck for example). AT&T tried to become the sole owner of the device, alas was apparently forced to licence it to anyone at $25k a pop, mainly due to the fact that the development was based on major academic input and substantial government funding.

None of these people could develop a fly-swatter, were it not for all the science that was made available to them by these academic institutions. If anything, this is an example of typical corporate power grab, whereby something they have only marginal imput in, is then with much yelling and screaming announced as "Ours!", "We did it!" etc. Followed by attempts at pissing on the subject at hand to mark corporate "ownership" very much the same way as dogs do.

I will not dwelve in taking apart "AT&T's" other discoveries one by one, suffice to say that all of them were made by academics, based on public academic research, academics whose personal greed made them hire themselves to the corporation and yet who were utterly dependant on free public knowledge. My personal opinion is that if this were to be truly attributed to "AT&T" they should have founded 100% all of the education in the world since its inception, to be able to claim any discovery as theirs. Hiring some scientists so that they can read public academic journals and then based on that develop something is merely a form of robbery from the public purse.

Re:Press Release... funding

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, i heard an interview with this guy the other day on newsradio's 'StarStuff', the episode of which can be found here: http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/star.htm
its probably best to hear it from the horses mouth, and perhaps it wont sound so much like a cry for money (although, i cant see what is wrong with a scientist trying to get funding (?)).

Re:Press Release... funding

[majid_aldo]

like digital zoom!

Re:Press Release... funding

[essreenim]

Previously, those who had tbe best ideas would get the money.
Ehhhh, hello?? I think if someone comes up with away to stop the pointless squandering of money down the toilet while people in the third world are dieing it IS the best idea is it not.... An observatory base in Antartica would go some (small) way to making use of the damage that has already been done to the Ozone layer.
As for your over paid "research" life, I find it hard to give you credibility when you are so eage to satisfy your own self indulgence ahead of the good of the world. I hope someone really does lanch you into orbit! ; )

Re:Press Release... funding

[mpe]

Like they're hard to get working. Also, when you start adding multiple guide stars, as in Multi-conjugate AO (MCAO), you decrease the field-of-view (which on a large telescope is already pretty small) with every laser guide you use.

It's also rather silly that having picked a good site without light pollution to then go and create light pollution of your own :)

Re:Press Release... funding

[JackCroww]

For obvious reasons, a telescope based in Antartica will only be able to map half of the sky. The only way a ground-based telescope would be able to map the entire sky would be for it to be located on the equator, and even then, you may have to wait six months for a particular target to come into view (assuming your telescope can be pointed near the horizon).

Hubble can image almost any celestial target every 97 minutes.

Re:Press Release... funding

[bitingduck]

None of these people could develop a fly-swatter, were it not for all the science that was made available to them by these academic institutions. If anything, this is an example of typical corporate power grab, whereby something they have only marginal imput in

You're taking a bit of an extreme view there. You named the schools where they were educated, rather than where they were financially supported when they did their work.

John Bardeen was educated at Princeton, but from what I can find was very much on staff at Bell Labs when the transistor was developed http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/l egacies/bardeen.html

I can't find much about Brattain, but it looks like he stayed in Murray Hill for most of his life.

Shockley was in industry for most of his career: first Bell Labs, then Beckman Instruments

Sure, they were all dependent on public knowledge, but the information they generated also became public. If it weren't for commercial interests and the recognition that they could sell you something made of transistors, you would have put your post on a paper bulletin board with a pin. Commercial interest has been very valuable in teh development of a lot of science and technology.

Beckman instruments, mentioned above, was created when someone asked Arnold Beckman if he could come up with a pH meter. Beckman was an instructor at Caltech, but he probably wouldn't have done it if a friend at the Fruit Growers Ass'n hadn't asked him for a way to measure acidity of juice.

Bednorz and Mueller (of high temp superconductivity) were both IBM Zurich staff. Mueller had spent his whole (long) career there, and Bednorz his post-PhD career up to that point.

Binnig and Rohrer (scanning tunneling microscope) were also career IBM researchers. Once they published that the STM was possible, everyone who wanted one was building their own.

I'll be the first to agree that they all depended on public knowledge to develop their inventions, but I also would point out that all the inventions above really did benefit very substantially from the support of companies that had commercial interest, and that probably none of the inventions above would have seen nearly the development that they did without it.

How many people do you know who go to the beach and start collecting sand when they want a new X GHz computer? Not many, because you can buy them commercially, even though all of the information required to build one is publicly available. If people hadn't seen commercial value in the transistor, everyone would have to build their own whenever they needed them (as is done with much of scientific instrumentation).

Re:Press Release... funding

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I'll be the first to agree that they all depended on public knowledge to develop their inventions, but I also would point out that all the inventions above really did benefit very substantially from the support of companies that had commercial interest, and that probably none of the inventions above would have seen nearly the development that they did without it.

The point is that corporate science, at least in its recent incarnation, is all about "owning information" instead of taking advantage of discoveries to make new product. All of the people we argue about here, are famous because their discoveries ended up public (as I feel they had to due to the massive dependance on public knowledge). Recently however, it is becoming more and more common for pundits of "Intellectual Property" to claim ownership of bits of science based on source of funding. Let me phrase it this way:

Commercial funding for public science, with commercial engineering benefits? No problem.

Commercial funding for "privately owned" science, whereby royalties are expected from each person who happens to take the same road independently? Fuck off corporate thieves!

I think this should clear things up.

Re:Press Release... funding

[Anonymous Coward]

From this and your responding comments, you are obivously in the research area, and probably the public scientific area. Yes, lots of great ideas and work came from there, but get off your high hobby horse how "radios came from electo-mag scientific blah blah" and such. Going by your own narcissism, you should just shut up since most of your prized research has been accomplished by individuals- Einstein, Maxwell, Newton, Schrodinger, Tesla- rather than any academic institute.

Re:Press Release... funding

[stonecypher]

Er. I'm not exactly a science historian, so maybe I'm missing something, but what about the transistor, the telegraph, medical magnetic location (Bell's device for the recently-shot president), machine gins, rifling, the mill, the planar, the lathe, alternating current, broadcast power, the internal combustion engine, recorded audio, the light bulb, tarmac, vulcanization, the concept of replacable parts, radio broadcast, literally hundreds of construction techniques and safety techniques, steel-frame buildings, practical techniques for giant magnetoresistance, MRI, PET, PMOS and CMOS, vacuum-packed, canned, frozen and freeze-dried foods, grounded power delivery, fuses, the vacuum tube, ore seperation, carbon button transmitters (early microphones,) the mimeograph, the digital scanner, thousands of concepts in medicine ranging from discovery to treatment, mechanical and chemical and occasionally biological, dozens of microfabrication technologies, and so on?

I mean, we're nerds. Have we never heard of PARC, PSC, Menlo Park? Just have a look at the histories of companies like IBM and Intel, GM and Ford, the Insurance Institute, the old gun industries, the birth of mass manufacturing, of land developers, basically any huge corporation making large-scale (billion dollar by modern dollar or above) effort, where research costs are lower than the savings would be. Granted, many - maybe even most - of the efforts on that scale are at least in part governmentally backed. That said, not all of them are.

Not based wholly or in major parts on any prior research in public academia? Well, that's sort of unfair. All research is dependant on earlier research. You could very easily claim that Intel's work is dependant on work done by Ben Franklin in discovering electricity, or by Da Vinci in improving metal alloys, or in fact by Confucious for popularizing the notion that abstract calculation is an important concept. It is frequently observed, in the historian's equivalent to Six Degrees of Kavin Bacon, that all of western science can be seen as a series of footnotes to Archimedes.

Here's another way to look at your claim. I dare you to name any profound, completely government-funded discovery, which was not based wholly or in major parts on any prior research derived from a war effort. When you're done with that, change the topic to the Ancient Greeks. When that's over, try the ancient Koreans (it turns out they're more difficult to seperate from today than the Greeks. Go Korea.) Oh, and if seeing it come from two ancient nations, war and academia isn't enough, here's the real slap in the face: show me a fundamental, ground breaking technology which cannot be traced in whole or in part to religion. This is stunningly difficult.

So no, I can't do it. The transistor comes damned close: you have to go either as far back as Franklin and claim that because the government supported his lifestyle as a Diplomat, that in some way it was knowingly funded research, or failing that, you need to go back to ancient times when kings deployed researchers into the early materials science of alchemy to get purer alloys for their coinage and to find pre-water-displacement methods to determine artifact purity ("Eureka!," etc.,) but sure enough, you can make that claim for pretty much anything I can think of. Vulcanized rubber wasn't really the auto manufacturers looking for better tires (tyres back then;) surely enough it's the New World era British and Portugese monarchies looking for ways to transport the fabulously profitable sap of the rubber tree without spoilage. Canned food wasn't Heinz looking to halt inventory decline; no no, it was the result of the money invested into WWI wartime ration research coming to a head five years later. The telegraph was tied to troop movements, the submarine and helicopter were originally speculative war machines in the renaissance, anti-lock brakes ... well, you'll have to figure out how they're not just insurance companies broadening margins by sav

Re:Press Release... funding

[IgnoramusMaximus]

The point is, claiming that corporate research is essentially parasitical because not all of its parents are also corporate is childish folly. Corporations aren't old enough to have original roots in science. This is like saying that a second generation immigrant isn't nationalized because they can't trace their roots back to the mayflower. Whether or not something's parents are corporate doesn't matter. Corporate science has generated a great many significant breakthroughs and has invested a great amount into research.

The difference is that unlike all who went before, corporations claim ownership of the ideas. This entire conversation is really about this. If you do fund public science and do not claim that the results are yours and only yours to use for however many (ever expanding) number of years, I have no problem. Unfortunately, the whole notion of "Intellectual Property" is what makes this thing so screwed up. If none of the science, being information, can be "property" (which is what I claim) then noone can "own" it and I have really no issue with corporate research. Conversely, if one can "own" pieces of scientific data, then corporations are abusing the priviledge of public information to achieve essentially a theft. Your example of an immigrant is a fallacy, since he does not claim the idea of being an immigrant and attempt to charge anyone for the priviledge, regardless if their family trees are only similiar to his. That is what a patent on an idea does.

Re:Press Release... funding

[stonecypher]

The difference is that unlike all who went before, corporations claim ownership of the ideas.

Um. Maybe I'm missing something here. Since when did universities not own what their students did? The discussion was between corporate research and public academic research.

Besides, it's temporary monopoly, not ownership. So the corporation gets to charge for it for twenty years to make its investment back. In the long run, why's that such a problem? Either the public pays for it and gets it immediately, or a private interest pays for it and the public gets it soon.

Conversely, if one can "own" pieces of scientific data

One cannot. Patents do not (currently) cover data in any way, though there's a really scary question about the copyrighting of databases - currently not possible, but the Supreme Court is being boneheaded lately.

Patents cover a method, nothing more.

then corporations are abusing the priviledge of public information to achieve essentially a theft.

This doesn't make any sense. If the corporation is discovering the knowledge, then putting it into the public domain by patenting it (instead of making it a trade secret,) then how are they not donating directly to the public, again?

Your example of an immigrant is a fallacy

Your argument would make it a falsehood, not a fallacy, though I don't see exactly what part of my argument relies on any claims made by the immigrant, and thusly also reject your argument. Please don't use the word fallacy again until you know what it means; it does not mean "incorrect end to a deductive tree" as you have used it.

Re:Press Release... funding

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Since when did universities not own what their students did?

Traditionally the discoveries were published and became part of common pool of knowledge. Parenting and copyrighting of data disovered by students/faculty is a recent (late 20th century) phenomenon.

So the corporation gets to charge for it for twenty years to make its investment back.

That is not right for many reasons. The corporation needs all of the other discoveries made before to make theirs (they do not pay for their use). The corporation while it might indeed invest some sum, is likely to make a windfall far greater then the investment at the expense of everyone, since the greed motivated research is conducted by corporations but they are quite happy to leave the even more expensive research that does not bring immediate commercial payoff to the taxpayers and wait until they can take that and use it for their benefit (and then charge the people who allowed them to get there - talk about laughing all the way to the bank!). This travesty continues in that as soon as the corporation manages to make some movement forward they patent it and then the same taxpayer funded research institutions which enabled that move in the first place are obstructed and barred from advancing for 20 years (or more if the corporation has clever lawyers/lobbysts). The nonsense expands in that other corporations, after making the same or greater amounts of investment are also left in the cold, and this of course makes the entire process incredibly inefficient and unfair to everyone but the winners of this patent casino. Note that the other corporations will have to recoup their costs and thus all the products from all firms (those who did or did not win the patent) must now be priced to recover the multiply over-priced cost of research - consumers/taxpayers get hit here from all directions.

One cannot. Patents do not (currently) cover data in any way, though there's a really scary question about the copyrighting of databases - currently not possible, but the Supreme Court is being boneheaded lately

All of the disoveries are information and thus "data". All the artificial hair-splitting into "patents" and "copyright" has to do with ways of applying greed not with the fundamental properties of what is being dealt with here, which is information.

If the corporation is discovering the knowledge, then putting it into the public domain by patenting it

Think this through in more detail: corporations are producing new pieces of information using a huge mountain of public knowledge. Their activity in essence is like a cutting a path in a jungle off of a network of roads built by others. The jungle (the total information about the universe) is not feasible to be owned by anyone anymore then the Sun is. In order to get to their little path (or more like a tiny step in a path for thats all they can do in one go) one has to traverse the highways and roads and tributaries made by all those generations before them. And what the corporations do after making this tiny step? They turn around and put a road block + tollbooth to charge anyone (including those who stand independently right behind them in that travel) a fee. In essence they are obstructionists who under a pretense of cutting the path are really after traveling it alone and owning as much of it as they can. Others are then forced to cut round-about ways to get around the roadblocks. This whole process in my view is becoming so overrun by thieves, crooks and opportunists that the feverish (and increasing) activity of building barriers and tollbooths has replaced the advance in pursuit of knowledge. The grease of greed is clogging the arteries of science.

Sure the roadblocks can be removed in some time (usually after so many round about ways have been cut around them as to render them meaningless) but this entire process is designed only to further greed under the guise of "motivating" progress. Many a study shows that the so called "incentiv

Despite the cost savings...

[HeelToe]

It may not be done because it's not as "cool" as having an earth orbiting telescope.

Re:Despite the cost savings...

[gl4ss]

it's much 'cooler'. cheaper, more effective, more accessible, longer usability...

Re:Despite the cost savings...

[Anonymous Coward]

You cynicism is unfounded, since there are other telescopes already in Antarctica. Some like AMANDA cost far more money.

Re:Despite the cost savings...

[Anonymous Coward]

AMANDA is a cosmic ray array detector, not an optical telescope.

Spaceflight?

[Zenmonkeycat]

Whoa... you mean we don't ever have to go into space again? Sucks to be Mars!

Re:Spaceflight?

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, i bet the martians are breathing a sigh of relief

Re:Spaceflight?

[Epistax]

Umm, actually I think Mars is quite happy with the prospect of not having us.

Re:Spaceflight?

[mikael]

We've got plenty of Earth orbiting telescopes. It's just for all but one of them, there's a rather large rocky planet in the way.

Error

[Zorilla]

Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

Anybody find it a bit ironic that I'm getting this message on an article about a telescope?

Re:Error

[stonecypher]

Not if they know what the word ironic means, they don't.

DUPE

[Anonymous Coward]

Exceptional Seeing At Dome C in Antarctica

I emailed "DaddyPants." Too bad they don't care. This story just quotes the other one.

Re:DUPE

[boutell]

No, this is not a dupe. It's more of a followup. Should have referenced the other story though.

Re:DUPE

[Anonymous Coward]

They primarily quoted the New South Wales study which was part of the original story. It's as much a follow-up as Slashdot's original story.

Ozone

[ThisNukes4u]

Looks like that hole in the Ozone over Antartica might actually be good for something, giving us a better look at the stars. All you people who are worried about global warming, don't worry, I see benefits on the horizon for all!

Re:Ozone

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Actually, the ozone hole is caused in spring when the stratospheric clouds form. That's one time when it probably makes very little sense to use a telescope.

idea

[Anonymous Coward]

that's neato, we can even get it powered by penguins! in more ways than one!

But...

[kdougherty]

Would this telescope be as beneficial as the Hubble considering the Hubble isn't attached to any surface and can freely move in space... This Antartic version would have limited viewing capabilities, so which would you rather have?

Re:But...

[renoX]

>so which would you rather have?

Well you forget something in the equation, the price!
Because if money is not in the equation, I would rather like to have a lunar based telescope, but it may be a 'little bit expensive'.

Re:But...

[3D Lover]

Yea. What if they want a picture of Polaris. Woops, there's a big rock in the way!!!

Re:But...

[nwbvt]

Yeah, what happens when we run out of space to explore within the Antarctic telescope's viewable area?

Seriously, how much freedom of movement does an orbiting telescope have? Unless the laws of gravity have changed since I took high school physics, an orbiting object cannot just stand up and walk over to whatever area it wants to be in.

Re:But...

[mlyle]

No, but it naturally circles the earth every 96 minutes or so, so there's no large portion of the sky which is continually in eclipse.

However, the price-performance of an antarctic scope is astounding, and in some ways the absolute performance could considerably surpass Hubble. So I'm all for an antarctic telescope.

Re:But...

[jdhutchins]

Hubble can't change its orbit, but it can point in different directions. Also, if a star you want to look at isn't visible immediately, just wait 45 minutes, and you'll be on the other side of the earth, and probably able to see it.

Re:But...

[nwbvt]

I hardly consider orbiting the Earth at a set rate "freedom of movement".

Re:But...

[nwbvt]

And one couldn't build an Earth based telescope that can point in different directions?

As for the "It can't see portions of the sky" argument; aside from my earlier objection that what is left is not exactly a small area to look at, couldn't one build another somewhere in Greenland or Alaska? The total cost (assuming the Northern telescope could be built for around the same amount) would still be a fraction of the cost as the Hubble, and would still be much easier to maintain.

Re:But...

[Dun Malg]

I hardly consider orbiting the Earth at a set rate "freedom of movement".

No, but it sure does render the issue moot. An orbiting telescope need only "freedom of movement" along a single axis in order to have complete coverage of the entirity of space. A 90-odd minute orbit creates the need for patience and planning, but any decent reasearch should have plenty of those anyway.

Re:But...

[nwbvt]

I think the fact that there is more than enough space in either direction to study, along with the fact that a second land based telescope could also be built in another area and still cost less than a space based scope, rendered the issue moot some time ago.

I was not complaining that the Hubble could not see some areas of the sky, rather I was correcting a statement that seemed to suggest the Hubble could just fly around space at the push of a button.

Re:But...

[mlyle]

Well, two telescopes at the poles does not get you the same amount of coverage as you get from a space telescope.

And who's to say the superb seeing that is available in the antarctic is also available in the far north? It's possible, perhaps even likely, but as yet unconfirmed.

Space based telescopes can do things that terrestial scopes can't-- but we'd be wise to do as much terrestially as we can, so we can make smarter use of the highly expensive space assets. Likewise, there are some types of observation where earth based scopes outperform space telescopes-- due to angular resolution (when observing in wavelengths where atmospheric degradation isn't so significant), operational characteristics (longer exposure times, greater ability to take successive observations), quick response, etc. Certainly, where terrestial telescopes can do the job, they win in price performance.

But I think it's silly to say space based scopes are worthless.

Re:But...

[nwbvt]

"But I think it's silly to say space based scopes are worthless."

Who said that? What is being questioned about them is when (if ever) they are worth the billions it takes to build and maintain them (and they don't have to be worthless in order for the answer to that question to be 'no'), especially considering other potential areas of research (including Earth based telescopes). Thats clearly a question that needs to be answered when discussing policies referring to funding NASA programs, and throwing around the /. party line of "Its science, give NASA all the money they want" does not satisfy it.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude. You start out with a reasonable point, but each time you are proved wrong you get more crazy. You have serious problems.

Re:But...

[6th time lucky]

"Why build one, when you can have two for twice the price?"

Re:But...

[mpe]

Would this telescope be as beneficial as the Hubble considering the Hubble isn't attached to any surface and can freely move in space...

Hubble cannot move "freely" in space. It's in low Earth orbit, changing the orbit requires use of the limited amount of fuel onboard the spacecraft.

This Antartic version would have limited viewing capabilities,

So does Hubble, given that there is a large planet in the way of part of it's field of view.

Re:But...

[mpe]

No, but it naturally circles the earth every 96 minutes or so, so there's no large portion of the sky which is continually in eclipse.

But not much use if you want to study a variable star with a period of less than the orbital period :)

Re:But...

[mpe]

What if they want a picture of Polaris. Woops, there's a big rock in the way!!!

Then put a telescope within the Artic circle. There must be plenty oof suitable sites within Northern Russia or Canada.

Re:But...

[l4m3z0r]

Hubble can't just fire its boosters and go around to where ever it wants. It orbits the earth and is forced to abide by that pattern. So its view of things gets blocked out by the earth periodically. Much like a land telescope. The space telescope is useful for other reasons, being unrestricted by the position of the earth is not one of them.

Personally I'd rather have a bunch of land telescopes rather than 1 space telescope. Many more researchers can get time on the scope and we won't have a bottle neck. Especially if the scopes are someplace like antartica where we don't have to worry as much about light pollution, and atmospheric influence.

Re:But...

[kdougherty]

"Personally I'd rather have a bunch of land telescopes rather than 1 space telescope." Okay, that sounds fair... but being that the Antarctic telescope is only usable six months out of the year, since it's at the end of the Earth and all... Also the Hubble is in constant use 24/7. I never said it could just "jet" it's way into space and get newer images. I simply stated it has a bigger field of view. So you'd rather have a bunch of telescopes placed around the Earth.. Don't we already have "a bunch" of telescopes around the Earth? Fine, but are you going to pay for all these new telescopes? Then you need to pay for the staff to man them, I'd rather just do it from one orbiting telescope and have NASA manage it. Anyway, good luck with your "bunch" of telescopes that you can't afford. :)

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

I concur with the other AC.
--
Sick of pompous windbags? Change "Karma Bonus" modifier (Preferences, Comment Options) to -1 penalty.

Re:But...

[mlyle]

Why not? The earth only eclipses stuff in a narrow set of planes; for instance, stuff that is in the "northern" or "southern" sky (100 degrees+ over the arctic/antarctic) is never eclipsed by earth. And stuff that is above middle latitudes is only eclipsed for short periods each orbit-- at worst, maybe 20 minutes of that 96 minutes. So it's certainly possible to take 35 observations 2 minutes apart, for instance. If there is not sufficient data in that, there are frequency domain techniques (fourier transforms with adapted windows) that can handle the few missing observations while in eclipse.

The hubble is able to slew independently of its orbital period, as long as it doesn't end up pointing at earth, the moon, or the sun.

Re:But...

[mlyle]

changing the orbit requires use of the limited amount of fuel onboard the spacecraft.

Hubble doesn't have any propellants/reboost capability-- as it'd contaminate the optics. Reboost only comes from Shuttle. (This is one reason why Hubble is in a maximum-performance-from-KSC 22.5 degree inclination).

So does Hubble, given that there is a large planet in the way of part of it's field of view.

And as we've discussed in another post, the fact that Hubble's orbiting the earth means that it has, over each orbit, capability to observe the entire sky (except where the Sun happens to be relative to earth at a given time of year)-- something that no earth based telescope has.

Maybe you want to learn what you're talking about before you spout crap mmkay?

Re:But...

[l4m3z0r]

but being that the Antarctic telescope is only usable six months out of the year

When its light out it can be looking at the sun studying sun spots or whatever. When its daylight at observatories the astronomers aren't sitting around going. ho hum nothing to do. Nope astronomers interested in studying our sun purchase up all daylight time on the big observatories so they can study the sun. Id suspect that most land observatories are in constant use as well.

Fine, but are you going to pay for all these new telescopes? Then you need to pay for the staff to man them, I'd rather just do it from one orbiting telescope and have NASA manage it. Anyway, good luck with your "bunch" of telescopes that you can't afford.

The point here is that for one space telescope I can build and maintain a number of land based ones. Including man them althought nothing says i have to man a land based telescope, there really isnt any reason to. I'm not sure how many land based telescopes we could have instead of Hubble, but I bet its a damn lot. Also recent backyard telescope observations have resulted in an important discovery(a new planet). Seems to me Hubble doesn't offer any huge signifigant advantage.

If you said you wanted to put a big refractor into space I'd be all for that as there is a physical limit to refractor lense size because of earths gravity. But no we instead get an overly pirced reflector thats hard to maintain, so hard in fact that NASA is afraid to send humans to maintain it. The one in antartica could be repaired easily with little risk.

Re:But...

[kdougherty]

Good points indeed... ;)

Now that we got rid of that pesky ozone

[Anonymous Coward]

It really is as good as being in space!

You Mean Dome C?

[BSDevil]

See more about this site (and the AASTINO, the Little Telescope That Could) at Wednesday's Story

Outperform?

[FiReaNGeL]

MAYBE it would outperform an orbital telescope... but th available sky to look at would be pretty limited, no? Being based in Antartic and all... I doubt too it would be easy to maintain in the winter, where there is NO light for 6 months, at minus 60 something Celcius...

And comparing a 16m telescope to a 2.4m one is not exactly comparing apples to apples either...

Re:Outperform?

[TykeClone]

Isn't "no light" what you want for looking through a telescope?

Re:Outperform?

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

The two problems are:

- the other 6 months (ok, less than that)
- the atmosphere in the 'good' 6 months. All that lovely snow to freeze the lens over.

Re:Outperform?

[TykeClone]

Does Antartica get that much snow - I always thought it was more of a desert. It doesn't snow much, but what's there doesn't melt.

Re:Outperform?

[wertarbyte]

at minus 60 something Celcius...

It's called "degrees"

Re:Outperform?

[Explo]

Yep, while Hubble definitely has limits where it can point at given time (not too close to the Sun etc), this thing would see only half of the sky at all.

Also, for half of the year, when the sun does not set at the pole area, this thing would be able to do very little...

That being said, if someone wishes to build it, I don't think it as useless idea; I just don't see it as a direct 1:1 replacement for a space-based telescope either.

Re:Outperform?

[Maxite]

You do want it to be dark for observing stars, so it would be perfectly dark for approximately 6 months. However, for the 6 months when there is nothing but sun, well, guess that's the time to study the results and make necessary repairs.

As for it being better, I doubt that. As people have said, limited access to view stars. It may be able to see stars better than the Hubble, but most likely in optical frequency, and maybe a few others like radio. Ultraviolet and X-rays will have trouble getting to that telescope, if at all.

Re:Outperform?

[EvanED]

I think it's actually dryer than the Sahara.

Though you might have a problem with snow blowing onto the lens, I think you're right in that falling snow probably won't be a worry.

Re:Outperform?

[djmurdoch]

The article from a few days ago about seeing at Dome C explains this: they get very, very little snowfall there. However, they do get blown ice crystals, but not very many at the proposed location. The linked article makes great reading.

Re:Outperform?

[rollingcalf]

"I doubt too it would be easy to maintain in the winter, where there is NO light for 6 months, at minus 60 something Celcius..."

In case you aren't aware, the temperature in space where the Hubble sits is colder than -200 Celsius.

Re:Outperform?

[dmadole]

In case you aren't aware, the temperature in space where the Hubble sits is colder than -200 Celsius.

In case you weren't aware, the temperature in space where the Hubble is not cold, nor is it hot, or even warm. Space is essentially a vacuum, and therefore has no temperature.

The temperature of Hubble is determined soley by how much it aborbs or radiates energy, since it's actually practically perfectly insulated by the vacuum. It has nothing to do with the temperature of its environment.

In fact, the exterior goes from hundreds of degrees below zero, when it's in the shadow of the earth, to hundreds of degrees above zero when it's in the sun. And it spends much more time in the sun.

Who ever started this "space is cold" idea anyway?

Re:Outperform?

[nwbvt]

"but th available sky to look at would be pretty limited, no? Being based in Antartic and all..."

Half the universe (ok, probably less than that) is a pretty big area to study. And I'm sure there would be benefits to having it in a set place as well. You wouldn't have to wait for the damn thing to move into the position you want it in.

"I doubt too it would be easy to maintain in the winter, where there is NO light for 6 months, at minus 60 something Celcius..."

Are you somehow under the impression that the Hubble (or any other hypothetical orbital telescope) is easy to maintain?

Re:Outperform?

[Daniel Ellard]

A 16M telescope has a surface approx 44 times larger than one of 2.4M (give or take whatever area is lost for various reasons), so I'd expect it to do better, even after taking into account the attenuation due to the atmosphere.

However, if we can build 16M mirrors, then maybe what we should do is put one of them in orbit. My guess is that a 16M orbital telescope (or even something a few meters larger than Hubble) would kick ass.

All we need is some way to get the thing into high orbit... Oh, never mind.

Re:Outperform?

[rollingcalf]

Cold is the absence of heat. So a vacuum can be cold.

Yes I know the temperature of the Hubble will vary wildly on both sides of zero degrees.

But you missed the point I was making, which is that 60 below in Antarctica is nothing compared to the sort of temperatures that have to be dealt with where the Hubble is.

Re:Outperform?

[jnicholson]

this thing would see only half of the sky at all

It's worse than that. You want to be pointing directly upwards as much as possible. Any sideways direction adds to the amount of atmosphere that you're trying to see through. Even at the poles, you probably want to keep it above 45 degrees above the horizon, or there's too much atmospheric interference to compensate for.

Re:Outperform?

[silverpig]

You'd need a rocket ship 16m wide to get a 16m mirror into orbit... :) How you can beat that though is have 2 say, 4m mirrors placed a few (hundred? thousand? million?) km apart to act as an interferometer. You'd get some crazy resolution with one of those, but the mechanics of setting up an interferometer are extremely difficult.

Re:Outperform?

[Daniel Ellard]

You'd need a rocket ship 16m wide to get a 16m mirror into orbit... :) Some assembly required, is all.

(Is someone actually building single-piece mirrors that big? The drawing looked more like a bunch of hexagonal mirrors lumped together.)

Re:Outperform?

[Peter Cooper]

Yep, while Hubble definitely has limits where it can point at given time (not too close to the Sun etc), this thing would see only half of the sky at all.

So let's build another one at the North Pole (okay, it might need wheels or a flotation device) and another one on Everest. Happy? ;-)

Re:Outperform?

[silverpig]

The flat mirror would be a number of smaller ones, but the main focusing mirror would probably be a single piece AFAIK. Considering that high precision mirrors are ground to within atoms of an ideal shape, I doubt that the main mirror of a multimillion dollar telescope would be segmented.

Re:Outperform?

[6th time lucky]

Forget rocket ship, you need a *boat* 16m wide to get the mirror to the antarctic. OK the ice-breakers are around 20m wide (beam), but you still need a door 16m wide to get it in the boat.

And as for plane? a C-141 holds only 3.1m so that really isnt an option unless it *is* a segmented mirror-and transported as segmented.

Think about it, 16m is around 6 lanes of a highway wide, or 4-5 storeys high. That is a *big* hunk of glass.

It would take you 1.8 seconds to hit the ground if you fell off the top of it!

Re:Outperform?

[silverpig]

No you wouldn't. Just stick the mirror in lengthwise. The ship would have to be 16m LONG and 16 m HIGH, but it need only be as wide as your mirror is THICK. Even still, a 16m wide boat is much easier to come by than a 16m wide rocketship.

How old is the hubble ?

[ThomasFlip]

The new telescope would be utilizing the technology of today as opposed to over 10 years ago. Now I think its safe to say that deep space observational technology doesn't grow at the pace of say microchips, but I don't think its much of a suprise that new terrestrial based technology can outperform hubble. I think the real question we should be asking is: antarctic telescope vs NEW orbital telescope. Also, why haven't scientists thought of going to the poles earlier ?

Re:How old is the hubble ?

[philipgar]

While it is highly likely that a new space telescope would give results superior to this proposed telescope the real question is "at what cost?" Like it or not, science always has been and always will be (at least for the forseeable future) limited by the cost of the project.

A new space telescope would be awesome to have, but if we can build something almost as good for say a quarter of the cost (probably less then that), and where the maintenance (even crossing the harsh tundra etc) is cheap in comparison to launching another space mission to fix one. But the real question comes here; is the difference in quality of a new ground based antarctica telescope vs a new orbital one worth a couple billion dollars?

Sure many astronomers would argue it is, but I'm sure scientists working at more immediately useful projects would argue that the money would be better spent on their projects. It all comes down to the almighty buck. Spend an extra couple billion dollars on a new telescope or hire a small army of ~50,000 grad students (assuming 2 billion dollar surplus with a grad student costing ~$40,000 a year after tuition and stipend and beaurocratic waste) to do research in other fields.

As I'm a computer engineering grad student, I can tell you where my vote lies.

Phil

Re:How old is the hubble ?

[lphuberdeau]

There is already an other space telescope on the way, it's called JWST. Of course it has a very high price, but isn't understanding the origins of the universe worth it?

I will always ask myself where the original matter is from and why was it there in the first place.

Re:How old is the hubble ?

[Anonymous Coward]

they don't like frostbite...

And I doubt how much time this telescope will be available to observers. The sun has to descend a fair amount under the horizon due to atmospheric refraction (18 degrees to be exact) before it can be called truly dark. At Antactica it doesn't get that far down often.

Then there irritating winter storms (windspeeds up to 200km/h), damn irritating aurora's (love the sight here, but here we see them 3 times every 11 year), next to impossible to do heavy maintenance when it goes dark...

Re:How old is the hubble ?

[stonecypher]

Now I think its safe to say that deep space observational technology doesn't grow at the pace of say microchips,

Actually, given that the images are taken, processed, stored and transmitted by microchips, it's not safe to say that at all. In fact, microchips, optics and hydraulics are about the only three technologies which are enablers to telescopes. Stabilization, atmospheric correction, location, resolution, and so on are all intimately tied to one or more of these three things.

Poster, repeat after me. Guessing is bad. Guessing makes me look stupid.

Moderators, repeat after me. Moderate up only when I know about the topic at hand. Only moderate down when I am an amateur.

Mod parent down.

Some limitations:

[Blackeagle_Falcon]

Not only are you limited to the southern sky, but you can't use it for months at a time (during the S. hemisphere summer). Compare that to Hubble which gets a look at the entire sky as it orbits the earth, and can operate 24/7.

Re:Some limitations:

[Michael Ashley]

When the sun is up (summertime) you can observe in the infrared and submillimeter. Hubble's observing efficiency is about 50% due to the requirement to avoid the Earth, the South Atlantic Anomaly, slew time, etc.

The limitation is sky coverage is not important for many astronomical programs. Important regions such as the Galactic Center, the Magellanic Clouds, and the South Galactic Pole, are all visible.

Re:Some limitations:

[Anonymous Coward]

There are tradeoffs.

Hubble is unable to look at most patches of sky for a full day because it orbits near the earth, whereas this telescope can sit and look at most anything in the southern sky for months at a time.

Hubble is also unable to look at that part of the sky which is near the sun. (Obviously this varies with the season).

Most of the observing done with Hubble is not really time critical... having two identical Hubbles that could only operate during six months of the year would be almost as good as having the actual Hubble which operates year round. Since this telescope is so much less expensive than Hubble, you could easily build two of it if its observing time is really that important.

Hubble is more versatile than this Antarcic telescope would be, but I'd say it's due more to atmospheric absorption. There are differences in observing constraints, but it's just not a huge deal.

Re:Some limitations:

[Threni]

> requirement to avoid ... the South Atlantic Anomaly

Thanks for that - I just looked it up and learned something. I especially liked:

> astronauts are also affected by this region which is said to be the cause of
> peculiar 'shooting stars' seen in the visual field of astronauts.

from http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q525.html

Re:Some limitations:

[Anonymous Coward]

Space based telescopes might be better, but this is cheaper. If a number of "cheap", earth-based telescopes can be used for, say, 80% of the observations scientists want, then the top of the line space telescopes can be used exclusively for the most demanding observations. .m

Re:Some limitations:

[Abcd1234]

I'd imagine there'd also still be issues with the atmosphere blocking or scattering interesting wavelengths. For example, one of the more interesting bands Hubble can observe in is the near-ultraviolet. Unfortunately, this range of the spectrum is unobservable from the ground due to atmospheric scattering. Incidentally, this is also a frequency range that the JWST can't detect in, despite it being billed as a replacement for the Hubble.

Re:Some limitations:

[TheOnlyJuztyn]

Hubble can't exactly operate 24/7.. I believe it orbits the earth at a fairly fast rate, and can only do work when it's out of direct sunlight. It can maybe operate 50% of the time.. 12 hours a day. Roughly the same as an earth based telescope.

Re:Some limitations:

[supernova87a]

actually, you might be surprised to know that the Hubble has very roughly the same operating restrictions as a ground-based telescope. It really can't look at the whole sky, because it needs to avoid the sun, earth, moon, and other bright things. For half of its 90 minute orbit, it is pointed in the wrong direction, so it cannot observe. And it passes through radation areas periodically, which causes tons of errors, so it does not observe.

Re:Some limitations:

[mlyle]

The observing efficiency is less than 50%, but not for the reason you state. The telescope is limited in how quickly it can slew to a new location, and large portions of the sky are eclipsed by earth. It also, of course, cannot point anywhere close to where the sun is.

If Hubble was limited to observing when it was out of the sun, it could only observe a tiny fraction of the time-- less than 20%, I believe, when the earth eclipses the sun from Hubble's vantage point.

It's worth noting that in the antarctic, the viewing conditions are unusual; in the winter, when they propose observing, there are several months of near continuous dark sky, enabling very long term observations that are not possible by any other means. Of course, an antarctic telescope cannot see large portions of the sky.

Re:Some limitations:

[wildsurf]

requirement to avoid ... the South Atlantic Anomaly

Fascinating. But on the subject, if Earth's magnetic polarity flips, would that create a North Atlantic Anomaly? Or, how about removing the Van Allen belts altogether?

Re:Some limitations:

[Threni]

Yeah, and will it mean that parts of the world at sea-level will temporarily be affected?

Re:Some limitations:

[silverpig]

Not only that, but you can put up some filters and observe the sun itself.

Re:Some limitations:

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you see this when you posted?

<URL:http://example.com/> will auto-link a URL (underneath the Submit and Preview buttons)

So, with just five extra characters, http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q525.html becomes http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q525.html!

Re:Some limitations:

[wildsurf]

Yeah, and will it mean that parts of the world at sea-level will temporarily be affected?

I doubt it; I'd guess that the atmosphere itself would prevent the Van Allen Belts' radiation from penetrating too far. Then again, at the South Pole, with no ozone layer, who knows what could get through?

Re:Some limitations:

[Threni]

Thanks for clearing that up! :)

Re:Some limitations:

[RichiH]

south atlantic anomaly? please explain, this sounds interesting galore.

It would NOT out-perform Hubble

[YetAnotherName]

The scientist is even quoted as saying so ... FTFA:

"... It's nearly as good as being in space."

Nearly as good, perhaps, but while you may have minimized light pollution by using the Antartic you still have the atmosphere diffusing incoming light. It's like a being a photojournalist with a sheet of fine tissue paper over your lens.

Built it on top of K2 or some other super-high peak if you want to keep it on earth, and only image things that are relatively perpindicular to minimize atmospheric distortion.

Re:It would NOT out-perform Hubble

[Anonymous Coward]

a) the atmosphere is thiner and dryer over antarctica

b) There are mountains there too

Re:It would NOT out-perform Hubble

[Anonymous Coward]

with all your talk of "TFA" you might want to read about the subject before you attempt to establish yourself as an authority. This is a moot point; we all know (as of Weds.) that Antarctica has the best seeing on the planet's surface.

Re:It would NOT out-perform Hubble

[Anonymous Coward]

a) the atmosphere is thiner and dryer over antarctica

b) There are mountains there too

The article says they want to put it at Dome C. It's more like a mountain of ice.

Re:It would NOT out-perform Hubble

[Jardine]

Nearly as good, perhaps, but while you may have minimized light pollution by using the Antartic you still have the atmosphere diffusing incoming light.

Wouldn't the other problem be the southern lights?

Re:It would NOT out-perform Hubble

[Lord Omlette]

What about the hole in the Ozone Layer? Would that mitigate some of the problems? (at least make it more effective than an earth based telescope elsewhere)

As long as they don't build it on top of any giant pyramids, they should be ok...

Re:It would NOT out-perform Hubble

[djmurdoch]

"... It's nearly as good as being in space."

Yes, it would be better to have a 16m telescope in space, but Hubble is only 2.4m.

Re:It would NOT out-perform Hubble

[linzeal]

I would love to see anything be built on K2 though. Than I can go visit it when I get older and be sure that it has a Denny's with a senior menu.

Haha

[nwbvt]

I get it. That was supposed to be a joke. You may want to make that clearer next time, a number of people took your post seriously.

Re:Haha

[Anonymous Coward]

So not worthy of a karma bonus.
--
Sick of pompous windbags? Change "Karma Bonus" modifier (Preferences, Comment Options) to -1 penalty.

Re:Haha

[Mysticalfruit]

Explaining satire ruins it. If people don't get it, it's not the fault of the poster...

Re:Haha

[nwbvt]

Point taken, but we must keep in mind many of the subtleties of our language are lost when expressed through a written post on /. compared to when they are presented orally or through a formal written work. Add to that, absurdly stupid posts on /. are not uncommon; I've actually seen a number of posts on this very discussion seriously arguing that the telescopes remote location would make maintenance difficult.

My favorite example took place on a Yahoo! discussion board in which someone argued that if technology exists, it will be used no matter what. I countered with what I considered a blatantly sarcastic post about how prominent nuclear weapons were during the Vietnam and Gulf wars. Some other guy (I think he was a Vietnam vet) took serious offense to that and demanded an apology from me, declaring "I was there and I can assure you no nuclear weapons were ever used in Vietnam". It took us several days to settle him down and convince him that I was being sarcastic.

Hubble Telescope: Maximum Science for your Buck?

[Anonymous Coward]

While it can't be argued that the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has been invaluable to science, we must question if another one would provide the same kind of results. Right now, the Paranal Observatory in Chile is being completed and will become the largest telescope cluster on Earth, putting the HST to shame. That's right, an Earth-bound telescope will provide much better observation than Hubble. Another limitation of Hubble is that it only provides images in the visible range, the least useful range for studying space bodies yet the one which produces the prettiest pictures.

The clever reader by now has already figured out that HST was a costly publicity stunt, providing limited scientific return that's "invaluable", but could be obtained in cheaper ways. I object to the space program's spending spree. I support that the space program should be stopped in favour of actual science being done. I wonder, how far could've gone if the space program's funds were applied more responsibly? Perhaps we could have intelligent robots already, doing our jobs so that we could better enjoy life. What do you rather have? Pretty pictures of faraway galaxies or a better life down here on Earth?

Obligatory Star Trek Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an old Klingon proverb that revenge is a dish that is best served cold. It is very cold... in space.

--Khan

Been done before...

[YorgleLlama]

I was working on the software side of the Spirex-Abu telescope at CARA... which no longer exists, as far as I know. (Spirex: South Pole InfraRed EXplorer, Abu was just the name of the IR CCD device.) http://pipe.cis.rit.edu

It was meant for doing Infrared astronomy, using an experimental IR sensor. (some pics on that link)

The thought was that due to the fact that it's so dry an cold down there, you could do IR astronomy similarly to an IR telescope in space. Results were pretty good too.

All observations were done over the Antarctic Winter, while the airport was colosed, since the sky was colder and there was less water vapor in the sky... and as you know, the less water vapor, the better the IR imaging capability, and the colder, the less background noise.

This function will be taken up by the new SOFIA platform, which we're also working on as well right now. I believe there have been /. articles about it, but in case you forgot, it's a 2.5m telescope in the back of a modified 747... also meant for IR astronomy.(at 40,000 feet up, you're above most of the water vapor in the air) SOFIA can be reconfigured after each landing.

Re:Been done before...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, I hung out with the CARA guys watching whatever that comet was that was all the rage hit jupipter.

The blokes manning the scope said the IR sensor was left over from the star wars program and that it originaly cost zillions of dollars because it was "man space ready" what ever that was.

Re:I imagine official NASA response would be:

[Gramie2]

Hubble, on the other hand, could just hang in one spot in space

You mean, like in orbit?

Catch-22

[Hao Wu]

Telescope does well high in mountains, where atmosphere is thin and free of distrotion. However, thin air causes dumbing down of scientits faculties and ability to think analytical. Their work become sloppy and tire easily when climbing stairway to the heavens.

Southern telescope may solve this problem.

Re:Catch-22

[andymar]

Remote Control.

Re:Catch-22

[Hao Wu]

Rather than build telescope on ice-land like antactica, why not have mobile platform such as on a very large boat? Move around the globe, view syy anyplace in the universe.

Re:Catch-22

[mark_osmd]

I wondered about this too, it would be expensive to setup an airlock system to actually pressurize the areas where the astronomers work to combat this fatigue issue. Part of the problem is you'd need air locks but also the buildings would have to be strengthen and mostly airtight (or at leak slowly enough so keeping it pumped up is not hard) But another way to reduce fatigue would be to enrich the oxygen percentage in their living and working areas at the same pressure. That would give the benefits of higher pressure but would be easier to do. But you'd need a machine that can take normal air and purify Oxygen from it and inject that into the buildings (skip the telescope room since that's too wide open to the sky and modern astronomers don't hang out near the scope too much anyway). I'm guessing liquid oxygen or tanks being shipped in would be too much expense or hassle. Mark

Re:Catch-22

[stonecypher]

1) Scientists operate telescopes with remote controls, and generally sit at reasonable altitudes.

2) Sports programs, especially track and field, have pressurized rooms for training. Space stations have them for relatively obvious reasons, as do submarines. Hell, some Southern California condominiums offer pressurization and oxygen control as a luxury. Telescope programs cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars - significantly more than the other four things mentioned. There's already fierce atmospheric control for an antarctic outpost; pressurizing it would be trivial. There is no reason that if the station needed such a thing it wouldn't get it. Mountain telescopes could get them if they needed them too (or at least oxygen bottles.) This is a myth.

Re:Catch-22

[Hao Wu]

Sports programs, especially track and field, have pressurized rooms for training.

They are very foolish, in my opinion. The best runners train in thin mountain air, like the indestructible Etheopian men of Boston races. They should instead design reverse-negative pressure buildings in order to suffocate they atheletes in training program.

Re:Catch-22

[stonecypher]

The pressurized rooms go in both directions. The best runners train at high altitude, sea leevel, and low altitude, in order to stress their lungs and to be able to handle oxygen-rich environments as well as oxygen-poor. This is one of the reasons why specifically Kenyans and Jamaicans have such good runners, as there's ready access to running paths that go from sea-level to extreme height in a single run.

Re:I imagine official NASA response would be:

[Anonymous Coward]

"hang in one spot in space"????

i hope you're joking. if it hangs around too long, it'll fall to earth. of course, you could establish a geo-stationary orbit, but you're still going to get a changing view.

Direction?

[EvanED]

What about taking a picture of something in the northern sky? The Hubble can swing around and take a picture of nearly everything, at least "AFAI can reason", but one mounted at the South Pole would only be able to take a picture of the southern sky. I mean, plenty of stuff going on down there, but seems like most of the research has been in the north.

(Which has it's ups and downs... more likely to discover something new, but can't follow up observations made up north.)

Re:Direction?

[Agent Orange]

errr...NO! this has been said elsewhere but...the southern hemisphere is the most interesting astronomically, because it has a larger portion of interesting objects to look at. Things such as the bulge of the milky way; the majority of the plane of the galaxy; the south galactic pole; the large and small magellanic clouds; the sagittarius dwarf galaxy which is currently being destroyed as it falls into the MW.

The southern/northern hemisphere thing has been way over-emphasized here. Every earth-based telescope has declination limits - you work around them.

And finally, many of the largest telescopes in the world are "down there". Just because you live in america, doesn't mean you're not allowed to look at the sky in the south. A lot of research is being done in the US and europe, and a lot of it concentrates on object and facillities accessible only in the southern hemisphere.

User Friendly

[earthforce_1]

Anybody checked out last weeks userfriendly? (www.userfriendly.org)

Now I know what the UF crew was really doing in Antartica!

Re:User Friendly

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably looking for a joke - They've tried everywhere else without luck.

Mod parent down...

[imsabbel]

not only is it old and tired propaganda, its also a repost from:
http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:KjFAHC Q2rK0J: www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/11/10/122655/89+The+cl ever+reader+by+now+has+already+figured+out+that+HS T+was+a+costly+publicity+stunt&hl=en&client=firefo x-a
original poster was a guy called "k5 troll authorithy", which should be enough to explain why it was written...

Apples and Oranges

[syousef]

Go and have a look at some of the images Hubble has become famous for. An instrument in space simply doesn't deal with any atmospheric interference. It doesn't compensate for it - its just not there. You could not capture images such as the Hubble deep fields using an antarctic telescope. Though you could get close I doubt you'd get anything as good as the Eagle Nebula starforming images we've all seen.

Re:Hubble Telescope: Maximum Science for your Buck

[julesh]

Another limitation of Hubble is that it only provides images in the visible range

Err... bollocks. Hubble includes at least IR and UV instruments, and I believe further instruments designed to operate at a wide variety of wavelengths.

The human cost

[Anonymous Coward]

This program is likely to have many fewer fatalities.

How do you ask an Astronaut to be the last Astronaut to die for a mistake?

Cool stuff??

[EmbeddedJanitor]

More like fscking cold stuff!

dupe de-de dupe dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

dupe dupe!

shit.slashdot.org

[Space cowboy]

Hmm - just been glancing at my weblogs for hostip.info and there's a shit.slashdot.org link in there - I get the same 'Nothing to see..' message when I click on it though...

Always nice to know what others think of you and the work you've done, even when it's not particularly complimentary....

Ok, this is weird - I've just previewed it and checked the 'shit' link, and it works now... most odd. Still, at least it shows they consider their own work at the same level as mine :-)

Simon

Re:shit.slashdot.org

[drinkypoo]

shit is one of the common things to change it.slashdot.org to in order to escape the worst. color. scheme. ever.

Why not

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not use a balloon? You can easily get above 99% of the atmosphere that way.

Re:Why not

[drinkypoo]

Because you need long exposures to record stellar phenomena and tying a telescope to a balloon does not lend itself to a steady image

I think there might be room for it...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

There are probably some limitations, but every telescope has limitations. I'm not sure what sweep angle range this would have and still be good, I don't expect 180 degrees, the farther from normal (straight up from horizontal ground), I bet the more atmospherics might cause problems.

Re:Hubble Telescope: Maximum Science for your Buck

[roadrunnerro]

I wanted to post the same reply - it's good that I looked down and saw yours. But he can have my bollocks anyway...

Correction

[jnicholson]

would far outperform the Hubble Space Telescope, and could be built at a tiny fraction of its cost, says a scientist from the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Sydney, Australia

That is not what he said. He said "a telescope there would perform as well as a much larger one anywhere else on Earth. It's nearly as good as being in space."

This time it isn't the /. editors at fault, though, but the spaceflight now editors.

Novel uses for it, too, I'll bet

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> 'A novel Antarctic telescope with 16-m
> diameter mirrors would far outperform the
> Hubble Space Telescope'

Scientist nerds were quick to point out that it probably wouldn't be good for spying in women's windows because there are no apartments in Antarctica, and even if that lone mildly cute intern does take a shower, the cold will make sure the window is frosted anyway. :(

Maybe in theory

[jeffkjo1]

Perhaps in theory a big telescope in Antartica is a good idea, but I've read some stories over the years that they get a fair amount of snow yearly that would maybe interfere with an exposed, outdoor telescope.

Re:Maybe in theory

[HermanAB]

Mountain telescopes get snow too - they already know how to handle that. Anyhoo, this won't be the first Antarctic telescope, nor the last. Every Antarctic base probably has at least one - of varying quality.

Re:Maybe in theory

[stevelinton]

The sites being proposed are far inland and several thousand meters up on the top of the domes of ice that make up the East antartic ice sheet. It hardly ever snows up there. It's too cold and too dry!

Re:Maybe in theory

[sholden]

It's a desert. The polar plateau gets gets less than an inch (water equivalent - 3 inches of snow) of snow fall a year.

Of course you gets lots of "snow sideways" - the wind blows the snow on the ground around which would have the same result telescope wise. And hence my pedantry is completely pointless.

Faster Update Cycles in Antarctica

[billstewart]

It's not just that newer terrestrial technology can beat older orbital technology. It's that any time you update terrestrial technology, you can go update the thing, whereas the Hubble and its successors only get a major refresh every decade or so. So maybe a new Hubble replacement could be better than a new Antarctic telescope, but five years from now, the ground-based system will have 10 times as much computer horsepower just from normal Moore's law effects, plus it'll be able to take advantage of new optical developments, and if you need to replace the Antarctic scope, you can park the new one next door to the old one, taking advantage of the infrastructure you've got instead of buying all new launch vehicles. Alternatively, you can park the new one up in the Arctic, getting a different view of the sky.

Re:Faster Update Cycles in Antarctica

[Minupla]

Having lived in the far north for 5 years, the problem with the north pole is that it's WET! Unlike antarctica, the north pole is an ocean, and as such is a lot more unstable then Antarctia. Not that the south pole is really that stable, you are still going to have to rebuild the thing every few years as it melts through the ice and sinks. Just have to do it more often in the Arctic. And well if it sinks too far there you'll need divers to get your data out :)

For crying out loud

[Space cowboy]

Perhaps the scientists (you know, the people who know ALL ABOUT how to get the best use from a telescope, the same people who designed it!) might just have taken that into account ?

The main constituent of atmospheric aberration is turbulence within the atmosphere. The atmosphere over the Antarctic is the thinnest in the world, it has far less turbulence because it's damn cold (heat = energy = motion of the gas), not to mention any massive heat 'spires' from human pollution.

You can use adaptive optics to characterise and therefore minimise the effects of the atmosphere - you shine a laser upwards, scatter off sodium atoms ~90km up, and use the measurements as inputs to actuators on the mirror segments approx 1000x per second. This can significantly remove the aberration if done correctly (you can use 2 adaptive systems, one natural, one artificial with a laser)

In any event, this is all old news, and there are existing telescopes using the technology. There have been arguments made before for the use of ground-based devices rather than space-based ones...

And yes, I do have an interest in astronomy, but of the radio kind rather than the optical variety - I picked all the above up from news channels...

Simon

Pros and cons

[Michael Woodhams]

I'm an ex-astronomer, so I'll comment on this.

The optical arangement is unlike any I've seen before or heard of. I don't have the expertise or the information to comment on whether it will really work. I'll just comment that making optically flat mirrors was very hard (much harder than the normal curved mirrors) last time I heard, but there might be new technology to help here.

There are basically three competing locations: space, Antarctica, somewhere else on Earth. There is an order of magnitude or more in accessibility and cost between each option.

Space:
Pro:
Access to the full range of wavelengths - no atmospheric absorption or emission. (Particularly useful in UV and IR.)
No atmospheric bluring - diffraction limited resolution at all wavelengths
Can observe almost any part of the sky at any time.
Con:
Hugely expensive
Very inaccessible - service missions are either impossible or cost hundreds of millions or more
Size limitations on launch - either the telescope is smallish (Hubble) or needs even more expense to 'unfold' in orbit (new generation space telescope).
Very hostile environment: cold on one side, hot on another, radiation belts, ...

Antarctica:
Pro:
Access to wavelengths difficult or impossible to access elsewhere on Earth (mostly mid to far IR. The ozone hole presumably helps out in UV also.)
Best seeing on the planet: very little atmospheric blur much of the time.
Con:
Can only ever view half the sky
Unusable during summer
Very expensive
Poor accesibility: Only during summer, only at great expense.
Hostile environment: extreme cold. Possible build up of ice by sublimation deposition.

Anywhere else:
Pro:
Cheapest
Daily access, can drive a truck up to the telescope
Can have astronomers on site, e.g. debugging new detectors
Can see the northern hemisphere
Con:
Poor seeing
Many interesting wavelengths inaccessible or hard to observe
Unusable during the day

We need all three - space for what we can't do on Earth, Antarctica for what we can't do elsewhere (except space, which costs more). Whether the telescope described (very briefly...) in the article is sensible I couldn't say, nor could I say whether it makes sense to use Dome C rather than the more accessible, and manned, south pole base.

Re:Pros and cons

[Michael Ashley]

Antarctica: Con: Can only ever view half the sky. Unusable during summer. Very expensive. Poor accesibility: Only during summer, only at great expense. Hostile environment: extreme cold. Possible build up of ice by sublimation deposition.

Viewing half the sky is not a problem for most astronomical projects, particularly since most of the interesting objects are in the Southern Hemisphere anyway!

In summer when the sun is up you just do IR/submillimeter astronomy.

Antarctica is not as expensive as you might think. The cost to get a telescope to Dome C is only US$3/kg. Overland traverses from the Antarctic coast can easily take hundreds of tonnes of equipment. And rather than driving a truck up to your door, at the South Pole you can land a Hercules aircraft right next to the observatory.

True, the stations are only accessible over summer, but it is not excessively expensive to get there

As for the extreme cold, this is something you have to put up with to have the best site for IR astronomy. Both the sky and the telescope emit in the infrared, so you want to have them as cold as possible to achieve the best performance. Existing observatories might have shirt-sleeve environments, but they have IR background levels that are between 10 and 100 times greater than in Antarctica.

Issues of ice build-up are understood through over a decade of work at the US South Pole station. Sub-millimeter telescopes are working there now, and IR telescopes (SPIREX) have done so in the past.

Re:Pros and cons

[ElAurian]

You can't use the South Pole base because it turns out to have too much thermal movement in the atmosphere over the base. (Not really a surprise, that's a big operation.)

Re:Pros and cons

[Michael Woodhams]

Doing IR/submillimetre during the summer: You can't let the sun fall on the mirrors (thermal warping, plus you really have to worry about where that image of the sun goes...). JCMT gets around this with a cover that is opaque to sunlight but transparent to submillimetre. I don't know if such a cover is available for far IR, and you'd still have to worry about the image of the sun. You also have a much smaller dish for your money than a dedicated submillimetre telescope would have.

Still, that is an interesting idea, and it would be worth crunching the numbers to see how much it would cost to adapt the telescope to daylight submillimetre observations, and how that compares to a dedicated telescope. (I did my PhD observations in submillimetre, at CSO.)

You're right: $3/kg is less than I expected. You do have extra costs beyond a normal observatory for automation and redundancy, because nobody is there to fix it.

Can you land a Hercules at Dome C? I'd expect the thin air to mean you'd have to land very fast, possibly too fast to be safe.

OK, I should have put 'extreme cold' under both pro (for IR, sub-mm, where it helps) and con (visual, UV, where it doesn't help, and causes problems).

Re:Pros and cons

[Michael Woodhams]

Yes, but you could put it a few km away from the pole.

Advantages: can be fixed/resupplied from base in winter, cheaper to ship stuff to, cheaper to build because housing for workers is already nearby.

Disadvantages: not such a good site: More atmosphere, not as cold (which is good for IR stuff.)

Re:Pros and cons

[ClippyHater]

Sorry for off-topic (and probably way too late for anyone to even read this), but:

I'm an ex-astronomer

Why ex? It's a field I've always been quite interested in joining, and was wondering if you'd be willing to say why you no longer consider yourself an astronomer.

Re:Pros and cons

[Michael Woodhams]

My PhD thesis took forever, and by the time it was finished, I wanted to run screaming from anything to do with it, so I never transfered the work into papers, and became a computer programmer.

Now I'm back in academia in bioinformatics.

Re:Pros and cons

[stevelinton]

It's not the base. The main wind in the antarctic away from the sea is what's called katabatic. Basically the ice is cooled by radiation and the air low down is cooled by contact with the ice. The cold air flows downhill making wind.

Dome C is the top of a hill (a big gentle one, that's what the "dome" refers to), so any katabatic flow would be away in all directions.

The South pole isn't on a hilltop so there's a constant turbulent low level cold wind flowing past it.

There's a possibly even better site called Dome A, which is a few hundred metres higher than Dome C. No one has ever actually been there though.

Haven't you forgotten something?

[hopethishelps]

This post is either ignorant or sarcastic. I'm not sure which. It costs about $500 million to launch a Shuttle. For that cost you could afford to purchase a 747, fly one mission a year down to Antarctica

How many runways are there in Antarctica capable of taking 747s?

Re:Haven't you forgotten something?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet the sea-ice runway at McMurdo could. It takes C-141 transports (also with wheeled landing gear) loaded with tons of people and equipment regularly during the height of the summer season. It's built on seasonal sea ice about six feet thick. Each year at the peak of summer the sea ice breaks up and they move operations two miles to the Ross Ice Shelf (too soft for wheels, requiring the lighter C-130's with skiis.) And each year in the spring they rebuild it on the new sea ice from last winter's freeze.

Re:Haven't you forgotten something?

[BlowChunx]

I picture big frickin' skis for landing gear... Then it could land pretty much where ever it wanted!

Hell, for $500,000,000 you could just crash it, then pay Australia to come pick you up!

Re:Haven't you forgotten something?

[Anonymous Coward]

you dont need a runway. havent you been listening? you just use the shuttle to fly down then hover!

Helllooooooo...?

Re:Haven't you forgotten something?

[bhima]

They don't use 747s they use modified Hercules LC-130 and they only go in the summer because it would freeze the hydraulics up in the winter.

oh... and with the skis they don't need a build-up runway just a groomed airstrip.

It's a dupe! First article was more informative...

[jjh37997]

The first article Slashdot posted about Dome C was more informative....

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09 /1 5/1953249&tid=160&tid=134&tid=126&tid= 14

So build another in the Arctic

[billstewart]

This one's in Antarctica because Australians have the silly idea that it's closer to them. Building in the Arctic gets you the other half of the year.

And the cost of building two of these things is much less than twice the cost of building a single one, because a large fraction of the cost is developing all the tools and technology to build it, and they can crank out two or three more for not much extra cost. (Obviously building the base and staffing it are duplicated costs.) By contrast, building all the launching systems for the Hubble is so expensive that you're not going to build a couple of clones and launch them, you're going to wait another decade and develop most of the system from scratch using the technology of the time again.

Re:So build another in the Arctic

[stevelinton]

There's mo site in the Arctic that's even nearly as good. You need stability, altitude, extreme cold, very still air at all levels... The Arctic proper is most sea ice, which is at low altitude and not a stable platform. There might be somewhere halfway decent in Greenland, but I haven't heard of it.

ESO's big telescope already in operation...

[SeniorDingDong]

The VLT and in particular VLTI http://www.eso.org/ (I for interferometry) have been up and running for a while. In fact here's a quote about adaptive optics from 2001

Normally, the achievable image sharpness of a ground-based telescope is limited by the effect of atmospheric turbulence. However, with the Adaptive Optics (AO) technique, this drawback can be overcome and the telescope produces images that are at the theoretical limit, i.e., as sharp as if it were in space.

The site at Paranal have 4 8.5 meter telescopes and interferometry can can equate their imaging to the distance they stand apart.

Re:ESO's big telescope already in operation...

[MightyYar]

I think that atmospheric turbulence is not the issue. I think that the issue is you cannot overcome atmospheric absorption from Earth.

Re:ESO's big telescope already in operation...

[SeniorDingDong]

The original slashdot Dome C thread (mentioned earlier) link to the article http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/nature/ that discusses the Antarctic project advantages in fact does state that better seeing due to greatly reduced turbulence is the main point. They do mention that the infrared night sky in Antartica is much darker in addition, however. They also dispute adaptive optics:

Can't adaptive optics improve the images from a mid-latitude observatory?

To some extent yes, but you will always win by starting with better natural seeing. Adaptive optics is a technique for cancelling out atmospheric turbulence by using deformable mirrors (i.e., mirrors that can change shape hundreds of times per second to compensate for the atmosphere). Adaptive optics allows you to extract the maximum performance from a given observing site. However, the technique has a number of problems: it only sharpens the image in the immediate vicinity of reference star(s) or laser beam(s), it is largely limited to infrared wavelengths, it leads to errors in measuring the brightness of stars, and it is very expensive. There are no realistic prospects for achieving significant adaptive optics correction at visible wavelengths at mid-latitude observatories.

However, ESO has in operation an optical AO telescope that improves seeing by a factor of 10 while the VLT is in fact an optical wavelength interferometer. Also they have plans for OWL with a resolution of .001 arcsecond (hubble is .05).

This isn't Everest, and astronomers are indoors

[billstewart]

Sure, above 7000 meters, it's nice to have oxygen tanks, and above 8000, it's really nasty not to have it, though a few people don't use it. But astronomers aren't likely to be that high up, and even if they are, they do most of their work indoors, and the buildings can have pressurized air or oxygen concentrators (plus the buildings can have heat, which is a real problem for mountain climbers.) Meanwhile, the telescope gets to look through all the lack of atmosphere above it.

Re:This isn't Everest, and astronomers are indoors

[Anonymous Coward]

Even at 10,000 feet most of the population would start to feel queezy and tired for at least a week before they started to get used to the altitude. Push that up to 14,000 feet in say the Peruvian highland and you're looking at well over 2 weeks where perhaps half of your scientists will never adapt, especially since scientists arn't well known for their physical abilities. 2 weeks is a long time to get very little science done, unless you had very long shifts at the observatory I.E. 6 month shifts.

Also heat is a big problem, but have you ever been at high altitude? It doesn't matter WHAT you do to try to keep warm the air just isn't thick enough to retain heat. Blankets don't insulate very well, coats seem to be transperant and even indoors it just has this 'cold' feeling from you losing heat into the thin air.

Re:This isn't Everest, and astronomers are indoors

[billstewart]

My family gets together in the Colorado mountains in the summer, at about 8300 feet. It does take me a day or so to acclimatize, if I haven't already been in Denver on business. My grandmother had to stop going in her early 90s because the air was a bit too thin, but she was in pretty good shape for her age. (Ok, she mostly sat around in her rocking chair, but by those years that was what she usually did back in Kansas City as well, and she liked the mountains better.) After a day at 8300, going up to 11000 feet is still hard to do much physical exertion without dizziness, but it's not bad. 14000 was a lot more trouble, but back when I was hiking at that altitude I was one of those "scientists not well known for their physical abilities"; now I'm in my late 40s instead of late 30s, but I was already fat by then :-) On the other hand, I've known a lot of scientists who are in much better physical condition, especially younger ones who haven't gotten fat. Some of the people I met while hiking out there lived at 10000 feet, so for them it was a piece of cake, and the ultramarathoners who I met halfway up the mountain (me going up, them coming down) had been around there training for a week. And the cold is partly from dryness - tweaking humidity helps a lot.

Where would you rather work?

[Handpaper]

Here or here?.

Ideally the answer would be "Wherever I can do the best work", but we're all human.

Some convincing to do

[HermanAB]

How are you ever going to convince the American Public that there are stars down there to look at - aren't all the stars up here???

Re:Some convincing to do

[roror]

you mean inside the flag?

Re:I imagine official NASA response would be:

[HermanAB]

Huh? Hubble rotates very fast around the earth. It probably passes through the earth's shadow every couple of hours. It is in low earth orbit - has to be since the shuttle cannot reach high orbits.

Re:I imagine official NASA response would be:

[Code Dark]

You mean, like in orbit?

I think he means that it would be the exact opposite of a TV satellite for example, in that it would constantly be over different parts of Earth in order to focus on one point in space... did that make any sense?

sure

[TheAxeMaster]

I think the point has been made that that is not the case. Antarctica provides the best seeing conditions (minus the weather, which may be better or worse than ours). BUT earth built telescopes need to be set on solid, unmoving ground and Antarctica is covered in at least a few thousand feet of snow which would probably be the most unperdictable surface you could try to build on.

Added to that the fact that you can only see half the sky. This is why the Keck array is built in Hawaii, you get ALL of the sky. And we can't build one in the south and one in the north, because the arctic circle is even more unpredictable than Antarctica. Space telescopes are the best solution, we just need a stronger presence in space i.e. lunar bases or even lunar based telescopes.

Re:sure

[sysjkb]

Antarctica is covered in at least a few thousand feet of snow which would probably be the most unperdictable surface you could try to build on

That several thousand feet is ice. Given the temperature, it's pretty stable. The Amundsen-Scott base is built on top of it.

Ice also doesn't cover the whole of Antarctica; if you're worried about ice you could build your telescope right on top of the permafrost. Some pictures of the "dry valleys" are here.

Yours truly,
Jeffrey Boulier

Re:sure

[simonktodd]

as opposed to building the world largest telescopes on a Volcano in Hawaii ?

Antartica is a nature preserve! KEEP OUT!

[Blymie]

Am I missing something, or do I recall everyone sitting down and deciding not to develop Antartica?

Sure, there have been exceptions made for scientific research _directly_ about Antartica. However, this has _nothing_ to do with Antartica at all! I'm sure there are quite a few other bits of scientific research that would benefit from the lack of population, nearby radio and thermal interference, and the like.

However, we don't see these things being built there either. Simply because something is scientific research, does not mean it has a free hand to be built in Antartica.

Next we'll be building genetic research labs, nanotech research facilities and the like in Antartica, because it's remote and the threat of contamination for the mainland is remote.

No, I am completely against any scientific research that is not STRICTLY about Antartica, and even that should be closely watched to prevent excesses!

Re:Antartica is a nature preserve! KEEP OUT!

[stealth.c]

They can point the telescope at polar bears once in a while, if that would be OK.

I'm surprised that you care so much about Antarctica. I'm all for responsibly maintaining the Earth, but I can't find a good reason to object to building one measley telescope. Especially if it will have such a great impact on astronomy.

Do you object solely on the principle that it was decreed to be a nature preserve, or is there a deeper conviction? Do you believe that a telescope would have a negative effect on the Antarctic environment?

Gyros and retros

[nn5ks]

I can just imagine the size of the gyros and retros we will need to rotate the planet so that this Antarctic telescope can view something interesting from the northern hemisphere.

--
What am I on?? I'm on poverty, it's like
life but with less money.

Re:Gyros and retros

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news...

Earth saved from impact with Planet Mungo, not because of a lowly football star called Flash Gorden, but because of the gyros and retros installed so the Antartic telescope can view the northern sky. Planet Mungo last reported to be headed tward the sun. Film at 11.

Re:Antartica is a nature preserve! KEEP OUT!

[boutell]

You are missing something. The Antarctic treaty encourages scientific research activities in Antarctica. There is not a single word in that treaty that even momentarily suggests that it would be an awful thing if the research was not expressly about Antarctica itself.

The later Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, established in 1991, goes into more detail about Antarctica's status as a nature preserve, "dedicated to peace and science." It specifically bans mining and similar activities, and makes clear that all activities in Antarctica must be compatible with scientific research and environmental research in particular.

But it definitely does not ban non-scientific activities, like tourism, as long as their environmental impact is addresses correctly. And it certainly doesn't ban astronomy (an awful, polluting activity, astronomy! Shudder!).

Mmmmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

Swell. But I hope that they don't have one in the open air as depicted. A few photons from a galaxy 100,000 ly away can't compete with moonlight scattering off of snow.

No danger of aberation

[catmistake]

At least there is no danger of a "mistake" at the mirror grinding factory causing a "myopia" in the telescope, because I think the Pentagon knows that it can't spy on Earth from Antarctica. However, there is some danger, in having mirrors exposed like that, to crazy Swedes shooting at dogs. Hopefully, MacReady got the damn Thing.

OT: Re:The human cost

[khallow]

How do you ask an Astronaut to be the last Astronaut to die for a mistake? I think it would go something like this.

"We need someone to go out there and be the last one to die for a mistake. You are our best choice. Will you do it?"

You could put this in a little cue card or something so that if the need arises they could just whip it out. It's short, but they probably ought to practice anyway.

The whole sky?

[jgoemat]

"But, unlike them, this telescope would also be a great survey instrument, able to map the whole sky with Hubble-like clarity."

This is far south enough that some of the northern sky will always be obscured by the earth.

Re:The whole sky?

[catmistake]

Totally... a good point. You are reminding me of that song "Southern Cross." Man, that band has never even seen the Southern Cross, neither has most of their "fans," and neither have I. I say fans in quotes because they are only fans in that they like the song and think it is some sort of tribute to a racially provoked sentiment. btw, if you ever find yourself in court in the South, it really is best to speak with a southern accent, even if it is fake as hell (and I happen to believe it is ALL fake).

Re:The whole sky?

[Anonymous Coward]

btw, if you ever find yourself in court in the South, it really is best to speak with a southern accent, even if it is fake as hell

No, if you find yourself in court anywhere, it's best to speak with a southern accent. That way they think you are just stupid poor trash that doesn't know any better.

Re:Antartica is a nature preserve! KEEP OUT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the coast lands... but except for microbes I highly doubt there is any life a few hundred miles in (such as dome c). Not to mention it's not like there would be anything left in a few decades if left unattended. And even Yellowstone, a nature preserve, has huge infrastructure. Lets worry about the more endangered nature preserves (Alaska) Before trying to save barren waste lands.

Re:Antartica is a nature preserve! KEEP OUT!

[Anonymous Coward]

But what about the penguins? Won't somebody please think of the penguins?

Re:Hubble Telescope: Maximum Science for your Buck

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty pictures, any day. You should know better than to think taking money from NASA would improve the quality of anyone's life.

Re:Antartica is a nature preserve! KEEP OUT!

[Forbman]

Sure, except polar bears are only found in the Arctic (i.e., north polar regions).

Maybe you really meant to say penguins instead?

Oh the irony if the control software for the telescope used Windows XP Embedded...

Mercury

[AndyChrist]

How about a mercury telescope? Does mercury remain reflective if it freezes? You could make the thing huge, comparatively cheap, and if it solidifies, you could even point it where you want it. -38.83C, sounds about right.

Re:Antartica is a nature preserve! KEEP OUT!

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to take a trip to bigdeadplace.com and get up to speed on that whole reality thing. The antarctic is a desert littered with military outposts that have been disguised as "science" . I'd neerly die of shock if they got something even remotely resembling real science going there.
Until then, the drunken louts at all these "science "outposts will keep stacking up garbage, empty bottles, leaking motor oil, fuel oil, and piss on that big ice cube. All while eating up that NSF funding.

Some comments

[mbrother]

A couple of people have mentioned that you can't work in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum without going to space. True, and critically important to some science. Also, from Antarctica, you can only see the southern sky, not the north, so this is another limitation.

These are not good reasons not to build this proposed telescope, just ways in which Hubble is still uniquely qualified.

Cleaning procedures

[tgrigsby]

"Ok, Bob, now you drew the short straw, so you'll have to go out there and clean the lens. Now here's how you do it: take this here high-tech, zero-loss, botanical fibre cleaning pad..."

"Um... isn't that a towel?"

"Well sure, to the untrained eye! Stay focused, Bob. Now, the first thing you'll want to do is gently blow the snow off. Then ... Bob, have you brushed your teeth since you last ate?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure."

"Floss?"

"Well... yeah."

"Gargle?"

"I don't think so... why?"

"Bob, you're going to want to gargle before you go out there, because the best cleaning solution we've been able to come up with is saliva."

"Yeah right! ... You're kidding, right?"

"Bob, do I look like I'm a kidding kind of guy?"

"..... No."

"Bob, you'll need to gargle with something to make sure there are absolutely no food particles in your saliva. You don't want someone to mistake a piece of Fruit Loops for a new moon around Jupiter, do ya?"

"Oh, heck no!"

"Good man. So be sure to get the saliva really clean. And your tongue."

"Well, yea, sure."

"Because the next thing you're going to do after blowing the snow off is to apply the saliva with your tongue."

"So, you mean, lick the lens?"

"That's right, Bab, lick the lens."

(an hour later)

"Stan, that was just mean."

"Hey, he's a noobie! Everyone gets their tongue frozen to the lens at least once. We'll give him about 5 more minutes, then we'll go out with a cup of hot water and free him."

I told them, but they wouldn't listen...

[fred3666]

I told those environmentalists that if you gave us enough time we'd find something useful about the hole in the ozone layer.

The cost isnt that cheap if...

[Anonymous Coward]

... if you consider the extra cost of paying staff to regularly scrub the frost off of the lens!

Re:transistor development driven by commerce

[bitingduck]

Transistors were probably developed with more commercial support than not (it's tough to do the accounting). It did benefit from the prior (academic) discovery/invention of quantum mechanics, but it's possible it would have been transistors could have been discovered anyway. I've known at least one person who argued that you could invent the transistor without quantum mechanics, though it certainly helps. Much (most?) of the subsequent development was driven by the very commercial interests of Bell Labs and TI. Bell Labs was very enlightened, and despite its commercial interests published a great deal of research, and supported a great deal that had no apparent commercial value (discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background).

Solid state physics continues to be motivated in many areas by commercial interests, but many of them recognize the value in publishing the basic research that leads to the development of useful devices, even if they prefer to keep the details of the devices (i.e. the engineering) themselves secret. Once the cat is out of the bag that something is possible, however, lots of other people will figure out how to do it themselves (either the same way or some other way).

I agree the people are getting pretty nuts about IP (applying for patents on things that are obvious or even already existed, and a lot of software IP is especially silly) but science and commerce have coexisted pretty well for quite a long time (astronomy was supported by the need for accurate navigation), and public funding of science is in part a bet that a reasonable fraction of the discoveries will turn out to be economically valuable. The hard part is that you can't know in advance where that will happen, so we pool our money and get the government to support the stuff that has no apparent immediate economic value (plus it's just cool to know new things).

Personally I think we should provide more support than we do to things that have little apparent economic value, but having worked both sides of the funding street, it's hard to say that commerce doesn't (or shouldn't) play a role.

propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

since the atmosphere blocks much of the signals from reaching the earth, this is just scientists trolling for money...

Re:transistor development driven by commerce

[Xilman]

Transistors were probably developed with more commercial support than not (it's tough to do the accounting). It did benefit from the prior (academic) discovery/invention of quantum mechanics, but it's possible it would have been transistors could have been discovered anyway. I've known at least one person who argued that you could invent the transistor without quantum mechanics, though it certainly helps.

The semiconductor diode was certainly invented without the benefit of quantum mechanics so it is not entirely unreasonable that transistors might have been.

Back when my grandfather was a young man (he was born in 1892) people would listen to radio broadcasts with a receiver built in part around what was then called a "crystal and cat's whisker". We now call such devices "point contact diodes". It is entirely reasonable, in my view, that transistors could have been developed following empirical investigations of the behaviour of point contact diodes and analogies drawn from thermionic triodes, which are only thermionic diodes with a controllable electric field between the anode and cathode.

Paul

We are go for launch.

[Charcharodon]

I say who cares. I want to see a real space program take off. If we keep doing the easy "cheap" way then how will that ever happen. Put more telescopes in orbit, or better yet put one on the moon or out in deep space.

Besides if we keep messing with the penguins, they'll eat our brains.

AO advantages at Dome C in Antarctica

[Random Walk]

Adaptive optics requires a guide star that you observe to know which corrections must be applied to the wavefront. Adaptive optics would have huge advantages at Dome C in Antarctica, for these reasons:

• The natural seeing is better, thus you need much less moveable elements / deformable mirrors for correcting
• The timescale for atmospheric turbulence is longer, and the isoplanatic angle (the angular region over which the correction is valid) is much larger. This means that you can correct a larger field, and need to correct less often (and therefore, can use larger exposure times for the guide star that is used for corrections).

The last point means that you can use much fainter guide stars,or guide stars that are farther away from the 'science target'. Thus, a much larger area of the sky is accessible for adaptive optics.

Re:'shooting stars'

[the_twisted_pair]

this region which is said to be the cause of > peculiar 'shooting stars' seen in the visual field of astronauts.

I'm damn sure I've seen these too. Probably only notice once or twice a year. Anybody comment? I'm in Southwest UK, BTW , have good eyesight and was given all clear again at last exam a few weeks ago.

invalid to compare to 1970s era telescope

[peter303]

The author is comparing apples and oranges. Serious design on the space telescope started in in the late 1970s for a mid-1980s launch. And the launch was delayed considerable, first by its own delays, then delays in the shuttle program and the first shuttle disaster. A 2005-2010 era space telescope would castly beat the Hubble and an Antarctica telescope.

er.. yeah

[stealth.c]

Polar Bear Penguins.

Perhaps you haven't heard of the species.

Related to the platypus, I hear.

Julius Lilienfeld

[sleepingsquirrel]

Let's not forget Julius Lilienfeld...

It was in December 1947 that John Bardeen and Walter Brattain working at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey, USA in a research team headed by William Shockley, demonstrated the first transistor, a semiconductor device based on germanium. However, the German scientist Julius E. Lilienfeld from New York had patented the first field-effect transistor in 1926. It was a patent on a 'Method and apparatus for controlling electric currents'...

Re:Julius Lilienfeld

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Let's not forget Julius Lilienfeld...

Yes indeed. This is a classic example of the nature of science. There are many many independent ways people discover things and all of it is based on the paths other people made before for you. The key is free exchange of data. It is unknowable at this point if Barden, Brattain and crew were aware of that data, but I would not be surprised. The whole point is that one cannot "own" science, and any attempts to do so are just another variation on the "Public Funding/Private Profits" theme, so dear to many right-wing activists.

Pointing at Polar Bears

[Anonymous Coward]

So why do you want to point it at the ground?

Re:transistor development driven by commerce

[IgnoramusMaximus]

it's hard to say that commerce doesn't (or shouldn't) play a role.

It is not a question of commerce playing a role or not. Commerce can provide funds for science, as it has many times in the past. What cannot co-exist with science is the corporatism and "Intellectual Property" crap that has been foisted on us for the last century. We are talking two different phenomena here. One where some commercially minded people fund science (like astronomy/navigation deal) but that science is done by academics and publicly available, process itself is open to peer review etc. On the other hand (and this is what gets my goat) is the "Its all mine!" type of jerkiness whereby some poeople attempt to take advantage of public knowledge and then block roads to some discoveries with signs marked "I got here first, fuck off suckers for 20 years".

I also object to the idea of being able to develop things meaningfully without prior public science and your idea of private labs being "enlightened" is laughable. They inevietably must leak all their basic science out because the process of developing it depended on peer-review and contacts throughout scientific world. That is how they become "enlightened", the cat is out of the bag for years before the "discovery". Yet the trend is that more and more of them in spite of it attempt to patent/copyright the crap out of the research. This brave new world of greed and all of the science being someone's property is really irking me.

Re:transistor development driven by commerce

[IgnoramusMaximus]

"crystal and cat's whisker"

And only to get it working one had to have radio, based on decades of research of electromagnetism, in turn based on reseach of electricity, based on research of physics... etc etc etc.

Re:transistor development driven by commerce

[Xilman]

And only to get it working one had to have radio, based on decades of research of electromagnetism, in turn based on reseach of electricity, based on research of physics... etc etc etc.

Completely correct. But no quantum mechanics, which is the point under discussion. Radio, in the form of the spark transmitter at least, long predates Bohr's quantum theory let alone quantum mechanics. I don't know exactly when the point contact diode was invented but it certainly predates the work of Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Dirac, et al.

Paul

Re:transistor development driven by commerce

[IgnoramusMaximus]

But no quantum mechanics

This discussion wasn't about quantum mechanics but about corporations funding bits of research and then claiming it as their "property", copyrighting public data so that one has to pay perpetual rent on it and in general thieving and profiteering in countless ways at the expense of general public. You know: public resources for private profit. "Intellectual Property". Righteous "self-made" men claiming spoils of war. Stolen fair and square.

Re:I imagine official NASA response would be:

[Gramie2]

Actually, my intent was to point out that something in orbit would be continuously moving, not perfectly still. It is impossible to "hang in one spot in space."

Of course, they can (and probably do) stabilize things so that they always point in the same direction, but that's not the same thing.