Just to add, radio telescopes easily have diameters of several 10 to several 100 meters, you won’t put that easily in space. And even if you do, maybe one, not tens of them. And these are often used in network as well for interferometry to have higher spatial resolution, so that would be gone as well.
A couple of satellites can make a larger telescope than we could ever build on earth, and you avoid the natural interference as well as the the interference from other satellites (star link isn’t the only source of interference…).
The vlbi has dozens of 20m dishes, they have satellites with 10m diameters and Orion is thought to have 100m diameter. We’ve launched larger into space already, and the VLBI has used space telescopes to increase its size already as well.
So to claim we can’t sensibly launch any, when we have them up there already is plain wrong.
Yes, I just wrote about that above. It’s just the difference in cost between the two. How many large space observatories were there altogether? In the order of dozens maybe?
Not easily, perhaps. But it’s certainly possibly. We already have space technology for unfolding small packages into large sheets. Not to mention, you don’t need a single 100m collection surface when you can accomplish similar things with many smaller surfaces spaced apart. See the Very Large Array.
The scale at which we build radio telescopes on the ground simply isn’t possible in space.
Just to add, radio telescopes easily have diameters of several 10 to several 100 meters, you won’t put that easily in space. And even if you do, maybe one, not tens of them. And these are often used in network as well for interferometry to have higher spatial resolution, so that would be gone as well.
A couple of satellites can make a larger telescope than we could ever build on earth, and you avoid the natural interference as well as the the interference from other satellites (star link isn’t the only source of interference…).
Yes, and we are already doing that, VLBI uses dozens of telescopes, each of them larger that we could sensibly launch to space
The vlbi has dozens of 20m dishes, they have satellites with 10m diameters and Orion is thought to have 100m diameter. We’ve launched larger into space already, and the VLBI has used space telescopes to increase its size already as well.
So to claim we can’t sensibly launch any, when we have them up there already is plain wrong.
Yes, I just wrote about that above. It’s just the difference in cost between the two. How many large space observatories were there altogether? In the order of dozens maybe?
Why can’t we use the satellites for interferometry, too?
Not with that attitude.
Or altitude.
Not easily, perhaps. But it’s certainly possibly. We already have space technology for unfolding small packages into large sheets. Not to mention, you don’t need a single 100m collection surface when you can accomplish similar things with many smaller surfaces spaced apart. See the Very Large Array.