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NASA Ponders What To Do With a Pair of Free Space Telescopes
scibri writes "A few months ago, the secretive National Reconnaissance Office gave NASA two Hubble-sized space telescopes that it didn't want anymore. Now the space agency has to figure out what to do with them, and whether it can afford it. The leading candidate to use one of the telescopes is the the proposed Wide-Field Infrared Space Telescope (WFIRST), which would search for the imprint of dark energy, find exoplanets and study star-forming regions of the Galaxy. The NRO telescope could speed up the mission, but may end up costing more in the long run."
A few issues with re-purposing the NRO satellite: higher launch costs because it's bigger, it can't see as far or as much IR (but it can see fainter objects, and could be used in planet detection), and the need for a bigger camera.
above and below the galactic disk...
Getting time on the big telescopes has always been a bit of a trial since they are a limited resource and there are a lot of people who want to use them.
These telescopes do not need some special unique mission/purpose.. just having more capacity and schedule time for a wider group of scientists would be worthwhile right there, at least to the people who get time on them.
I mean an Astronomer with a job is a rare thing.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Make the first set of space binoculars
Gotta wonder what they are flying now. Keep in mind that these huge telescopes are not pointed at the cosmos.
by stacking the telescopes one in front of the other.
I always found it funny how NASA used the picture-taking satellites as telescopes, while the NRO and DoD uses them more like microscopes.
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I have a cute neighbor...
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Take a googletour of the newer ground-based visible-spectrum telescopes. Replete w/ new mirror technology and advance adaptive optic systems, these outperform any telescope that can be put into space -- but just in the visible.
The only good reason to launch a telescope is to do IR and UV work, i.e. wavelengths that are significantly absorbed by the atmosphere.
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Always money for bombing and keeping down the brown man,
increasing Mankind's' understanding of the universe gets the table scraps.
eBay them of course
Easy. Just borrow more from China, or just do another round of "Quantitative Easing" (just print the money), or just raise taxes... taxpayers have infinite money, when you consider the sum total of all future contributions from all taxpayers until the end of time.
At least, this is how government thinks.
Can't have enough stuff looking for possible collision sources, can we?
Or am I just another paranoid, SysFy Channel watching meat bag?
dreaded scurrilous bit-twiddler from Oklahoma
How come I never seem to find anything cool when I go to a yard sale.
and use the money to build something you really want. Has nobody here gotten useless (to you) tech from a relative for your birthday? Stick those puppies on ebay and go get some real space science stuff.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Or is that the wrong technology?
Best wishes,
Bob
I say allow the Open community to use them to create an Open Space Exploration Foundation....
Depth Perception
Binocular galactic vision!
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
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A few issues with re-purposing the NRO satellite: higher launch costs because it's bigger...
Wait a sec. The free satellites are sitting on Earth? I thought they were already in orbit. If they are on the ground, NASA might as well remove the classified bits and send them to a museum.
Make high resolution pictures of the planet that's closest to the telescopes (look behind you) and put them in World Wind and the public domain.
Matched pair of shooting stars?
>> They're both still on the ground, dumbass.
Nevermind. Sell them to China or Russian and then use the money for general funding.
Dear NASA, Regarding the two satellites that the NRO wants to give you. Please take them and sell them to Google. Then use that money to get a working space program together.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
While NASA literally struggled to raise funds to build one Hubble, the NRO had the funds to build many more than three "Hubbles."
(The NRO showed two completed and parts for a third, imagine how many others actually went into space)
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
WTF. Science has one Hubble and spying has *two extra* that they didn't want. This is seriously messed up.
Turn them back towards earth and get some super awesome pictures of topless French beachers. Duh.
that was the most insightful thing i've read on /. in some time. but i have to mod points (thus is life)
Telescopes designed to take images of things really far away are very different from telescopes designed to make things on the ground look bigger.
Either the NRO has satellites designed to look in deep space, or NASA is getting two satellites designed to look closely at things on the ground.
Why would the NRO need to look in deep space, and why would NASA need to look closely at the ground?
The answer is obvious: 3D!
Just shows the difference between the level and scrutiny of funding between the military/intelligence sector and the civilian sector. NASA has to go through a long period of request and debate to get a space telescope, while the military just builds a few too many with no comment from anyone.
Form a space based VLT telescope that is compatible with Hubble.
How about Nasa and Google ( or another interested business/third party) come together and make a complete, consistent, as-detailed-as-hubble map of the sky? Like Google Sky, but with consistent snaps of the quality that would surpass any ground based telescope? After the first run, do a second and third scan, with perhaps a year or two between runs. With a bit of analysis - software or otherwise - it should be possible to develop a detailed _dynamic_ picture at various scales. This would essentially present a huge opportunity for both, professional and amateur astronomers. Almost like everybody having their own hubble?
Maybe Planetary Resources could buy them to map asteroids for mining.
The Sloan Sky Survey has been doing this for a decade, on its 7th(?) round of mapping the whole sky. The Dark Energy Survey just recorded its test images (first light). At the end of the decade the Synoptic survey will map the sky every week recording petabytes a year. Much of this data will be available to public who may have time to look at things the professionals miss. (I probably overlooked a few projects too).
I am surprised how many have been funded in the past decade. Many of these approach a billion dollars each. Not only do you include construction costs, but operational costs of at least 10% of its construction cost a year. In the current economic climate, not only are good ideas not being built, but some of the older scopes are being de-funded.
Politicians are undependable. Why not tap their space exploration / science supporters directly?
NASA could retrofit those satellites and do a more extensive map of the earth or resale the map information
From the article: "One way to reduce the cost of the NRO-WFIRST mission for NASA's astrophysics division would be to launch it on one of the new fleet of rockets that NASA will be eager to test at the end of the decade as it moves beyond the now-grounded space shuttles. But that would involve NASA's human space programme, an option that the science-definition team has been asked to consider. It could mean moving the mission from its intended orbit around the Sun -- at a dynamically stable spot known as a Lagrangian point some 1.5 million kilometers beyond Earth's orbit -- to a geostationary orbit about 36,000 kilometers above Earth (still much further out than Hubble). The geostationary option would be within reach of a wider variety of rockets -- and of potential servicing missions by astronauts."
Bad news. NASA's "new fleet of rockets" may never happen. They're not funded, and every new NASA booster program since the Shuttle has failed. Just launch the thing on a Space-X Falcon Heavy.
My first reaction to this article was 'wow NASA is getting two space telescopes', but immediately after that was realization of how ridiculous our military budget is.
Question is, how do we reduce it to a sane level without seriously harming the economy due to an influx of unskilled soldiers?
So, someone setup a crowd-tilt campaign or something to get together the money to get these things launched.
I am John Hurt.
I don't think it's the soldiers who are the big expense in the military budget.
I think it's the "military-industrial complex" which sells lots of obscenely overpriced kit to the military.
If it were possible to cut back the military budget (unlikely), you would see a few unemployed engineers (who could probably easily find civilian jobs). You'd also see a drop in profits for all of the military contractors.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?