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.

Comments

Re:send them..

[tysonedwards]

Do you have any idea how many millennia it would take to send these "above and below the galactic disk"?
Let alone the strength of a transmitter that would be necessary to facilitate data transmissions of the imagery collected from such a location?
Or the ability to operate when sufficiently removed from a star to facilitate energy collection?
Not to say that it wouldn't be a particularly cool idea, but wildly impractical with our current state of technology.

Wider Access

[jythie]

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.

Re:Wider Access

[guruevi]

That would be a colossal waste of money. Everybody knows there is no such thing as intelligent life in Congress.

Re:Wider Access

[icebike]

And in order to lift those scopes to their viewing points, you've got to have a solid business plan that shows how these users will be committed enough to justify the investment.

Business plan?

What part of Astronomy is based on business plans?
Even if someone is willing to pay to use a telescope somewhere, it's always with grant money. There is no market at work here, its pure science, with little hope of any gain other than knowledge for knowledge's sake.

Re:Wider Access

[RoboRay]

Wait. weren't these designed for terrestrial observation?

This is answered in the article.

How can we be sure these things are even suitable for deep space imaging?

This is answered in the article.

Do they have the proper stabilization and aiming capabilities?

This is answered in the article.

Will the NRO allow them to be used for their original purpose (earth observation), or would that reveal too much about current capabilities?

This is answered in the article.

If they would allow earth observation, wouldn't NOAA or Dept of Interior or Agriculture be a better candidate agencies? What about Google Earth?

This is answered in the article.

Can they be maintained in space for years and years without service?

This is answered in the article.

Can they be remotely serviced and refueled?

This is answered in the article.

Could you send them to Mars?

OK, now, this is just getting silly.

Hire two more astronomers.

[jellomizer]

I mean an Astronomer with a job is a rare thing.

Easy.

[ddd0004]

Make the first set of space binoculars

Telescopes/Microscopes

[Tator Tot]

I always found it funny how NASA used the picture-taking satellites as telescopes, while the NRO and DoD uses them more like microscopes.

Neighbor

[MyLongNickName]

I have a cute neighbor...

Re:Neighbor

[Baloroth]

I have a cute neighbor...

I think NASA has a slightly different idea of what kind of "heavenly body" they want to study.

No IR? not worth it

[cellocgw]

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.

Re:No IR? not worth it

[Strider-]

Space based telescopes also have one other important advantage over their earth-bound siblings, namely the ability to image a target for extremely long periods of time. Except for the polar regions, telescopes on earth realistically only have 4 to 6 hours of useable imaging time per night. The rest of the time is spent waiting for it to get dark. A telescope in orbit, on the other hand, can stay pointed on a target for days, weeks or months at a time.

Canada's "Humble" space telescope (MOST), for example, stared at a patch of the sky for 5 years straight. Its mission is to continually watch a group of stars, watching for subtle variations in their brightness which could a) indicate the transit of extra-solar planets and b) help determine the composition of these stars.

near asteroid discovery

[DECula]

    Can't have enough stuff looking for possible collision sources, can we?
    Or am I just another paranoid, SysFy Channel watching meat bag?

Re:How to pay for it?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, government thinks as follows: "I need to perform legislative and administrative acts to favour the people who regularly donate to my campaign or promise me a cushy consultancy after I leave government."

Anything else is incidental.

Yard Sale

[senorpoco]

How come I never seem to find anything cool when I go to a yard sale.

Sell them to the highest bidder

[Overzeetop]

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.

Obligatory XKCD

[scorp1us]

Depth Perception

Binocular galactic vision!

Re:eBay

[ddd0004]

Let me guess, local pickup only.

Dear NASA

[camperdave]

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.

Interesting choice of priorities

[TheDarkMaster]

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)

Re:Interesting choice of priorities

[Mt._Honkey]

At least 17, from a quick Wikipedia search: KH-11, and Misty

Re:It's obvious what needs to be done.

[Shadowmist]

Turn them back towards earth and get some super awesome pictures of topless French beachers. Duh.

They're not in space, they are air force satelites that were never launched.

Areceibo was originally an Air Force experiment that got turned over to NASA. They had to do a major workover on it though to get it useful for radio astronomy.

Re:Increase the magnification

[vlm]

Interferometer side by side, seriously. Takes a bit of additional support hardware of course.