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New Method Discovered For Making Telescopes On the Moon
NASA scientists have discovered a way to craft very large mirrors using carbon nanotubes, some epoxy, a little bit of aluminum, and large quantities of lunar dust. They say the technique will allow the construction of massive telescopes on the moon without the expense and risk of transporting the mirrors from Earth. Douglas Rabin of the Goddard Space Flight Center is quoted saying, "Our method could be scaled-up on the moon, using the ubiquitous lunar dust, to create giant telescope mirrors up to 50 meters in diameter." While this breakthrough was relatively cheap, NASA is currently offering up to $10 million for other good lunar research projects.
Heck, the first thing that came to my mind was "When did NASA hire MacGyver?" :-) Anyway, the process sounds quite reasonable. And Moon would make a wonderful observatory. I have been dreaming about lunar observatories since I was a kid quarter a century ago (at that time, I stumbled upon books written by a well-known local popular science writer).
No atmosphere, sixth the gravity, little need for compensating the structure deformations? Sounds good. The question is how heavy the manufacturing equipment would be. And there might more problems at least with optical telescopers - I recently stumbled upon a nice article on this topic.
Ezekiel 23:20
Not really.
Actually, there are static electric potentials set up as the moon passes through Earth's magnetotail and also as the terminator passes over the surface. These are believed to kick dust up -- we have some evidence from equipment left by Apollo astronauts. To be honest, we won't know for certain until we go back and look.
Astronaut 1} "OK, you stand there and tell me what happens."
Astronaut 2} "Ok..."
Astronaut 1 runs away
Astronaut 2} "Hey, where are you going???"
Kzzzrrtt
Astronaut 2} "You asshole. That hurt! And now I'm all covered in dust..."
Astronaut 1 is heard laughing.