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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.
...cannot wait to see some mad scientist use this technology to turn the moon into one giant magnifying mirror and having a nice game of "ants on the sidewalk." (And of course, the obligatory welcome to our new super-reflective overlords. Sigh.)
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If Americans were willing to grind mirrors for fifty cents an hour in hard vacuum, we wouldn't need to use lunar immigrants for the jobs.
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It takes forever to count out 6857 grains of salt as well. I suspect they'll just write down "one cup of nanotubes" and be done with it.
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"That's no space station. It's a moon!"