/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12102202
you can make a bigger scope you pussy. Flagship scopes are made to push limits.

>>11633761
>>>New ISS in an equitorial orbit with starship sized, possibly inflatable modules
shit
>>lunar gateway station in that orbit
marginally not shit, but still shit. Only reason it's marginally not shit is because the gateway is flexible to the nasa funding cycle where the next president gets in and changes nasa's focus. Moon, asteroids, Mars, the gateway is equally terrible at all of them, but better than nothing. The entire situation is shit. It allows NASA to work on fuel depots though
>>starship module sized orbital fuel depot full of methane and oxygen
shit
>>>station in low lunar orbit
complete shit. There are no stable lunar orbits
>>>South pole lunar base
if it doesn't do ISRU I don't give a fuck
>massive telescope in creator on far side of moon
it'd be a radio telescope, which is sort of cool, but is shit compared to optical telescopes.

you forgot the best option:
>MASSSIVE in space assembled telescope

>>11411930
Then support the construction of big fucking telescopes. With in space assembly we could make huge telescopes.

>>10863930
>robotic assembly
Is much closer than people realize. You don't even need fancy manipulation capability to do it. Much of the hardware necessary to do so has already been demonstrated in space.
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/internal_resources/914/
Oceaneering's also got ROVs here on the ground that can be operated to manipulate stuff with 1 second time lags, so event if autonomy fails we should still be able to fix things.

Antares Cygnus launch wednesday 4:46 PM EST my dudes!
>>10555917
>>monolithic mirrors
nice meme. Even telescopes on earth no longer user monolithic mirrors because they're just so hard to move. Pic related can be scaled to kilometer apertures. It's possible with space assembly robots.

>>10354646
the amount of mass we're able to shoot into orbit is improving, robotics is getting to the point where it can be used to assemble all that launched mass into FUCKING HUGE telescopes. Putting telescopes in space removes the atmosphere, but more importantly it means the telescope no longer needs to support its own weight. Hundred meter apertures and bigger are possible.
>>10354799
>>poles of the moon
you are thinking too small

>>10061442
If we build a big fucking telescope where we can get spectra of planet's atmospheres we could detect atmospheric constituents that would indicate intelligent life. If we can make a telescope big enough to take multipixel images of exoplanets we could resolve city lights. We might be able to do so within 20-30 years. Space launch is getting cheaper, robotics is getting better, and optics is getting better. These trends could converge to enable MASSIVE space telescopes.