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That’s a mighty nice field of study you have there. It would be a shame if something happened to it

by electric_mayhem 5d ago

db48x 5d ago
[flagged]
- defrost 5d ago
  Ground constellations (eg: SKA in radio astronomy) are still vastly cheaper than orbiting arrays, also easier wrt incremental upgrade via physical visits, etc.
  - db48x 5d ago
    Upgrades are overrated. Stick your telescope in sun–synchronous orbit and leave it there. Launch a better one every year or three. After a few launches your undergrads will still be excited to use that first telescope, your PhD students will use the next several, and your faculty will all be drooling over the latest. Upgrades don’t increase capacity. Oh, and we’ve got universities spending billions of taxpayer money to carve up mountains in Peru to build telescopes on top. Those are not cheaper than space telescopes would be.
    - defrost 5d ago
      Again: Radio astronomy. > universities spending billions of taxpayer money to carve up mountains in Peru to build telescopes on top Which university and telescope are you talking about? > Those are not cheaper than space telescopes would be. In general, they are - take a ground based telescopes costs, now harden it for space (extra cost), now "do the right stuff" to ensure it will work in isolation (more cost), and now package it it and launch it (more cost again).
- Dracophoenix 5d ago
  An endowment isn't free money and launching a telescope into space remains a costlier venture than plopping a few arrays on mountains like Mauna Kea or atop the Chilean Andes. Contrary to your imagination, radio telescopes aren't that cheap either. The Smithsonian and NASA fund most of the construction, operation, and maintenance of Harvard's telescopes rather than the university. Suffice it to say, it's unlikely an academic institution will find an economically viable route to launching space telescopes any earlier than twenty years from now.
  - db48x 5d ago
    Sure, sure. The endowment generates revenue which is then spent on stuff. Harvard spends billions every year on stuff. A small slice of that spending over the last decade could have gotten them a huge scientific and prestige boon: the first major private telescope in space. (Cubesats don’t count.) Government subsidies might explain it though. Why should Harvard spend their own money when they can spend mine?
    - pclmulqdq 5d ago
      Cubesats can’t take very good pictures. You need a big mirror to get really clear imagery and you can’t cram one of those in a cubesat. Space telescopes are by nature massive, heavy satellites unless they aren’t intended to look very far or see very much. The other option is to cheaply build something absolutely massive on Earth.
      - db48x 5d ago
        I know, that’s why I said that cubesats don’t count. There are already lots of cubesats with telescopes in orbit, but they don’t count because you couldn’t do good astronomy with them.
    - Dracophoenix 5d ago
      What you call "the endowment " doesn't exist in any monolithic sense. "The endowment" is a disparate collection of donations from alumni such as scholarships, artwork, buildings, etc., governed by their respective, specifically-worded contracts. Many of these gifts aren't easily convertible to cash. In fact, a large cash gift is rarely offered at all and rarer still would any such gift come unconditionally. > Government subsidies might explain it though. Why should Harvard spend their own money when they can spend mine? The government's justification has historically been that the research value gained by putting the brightest minds to work at the frontier of academic science is worth the allocation of necessary monies. Whether that is (or has been) true is obviously debatable.

That’s a mighty nice field of study you have there. It would be a shame if something happened to it

db48x 5d ago

[flagged]

defrost 5d ago
Ground constellations (eg: SKA in radio astronomy) are still vastly cheaper than orbiting arrays, also easier wrt incremental upgrade via physical visits, etc.
- db48x 5d ago
  Upgrades are overrated. Stick your telescope in sun–synchronous orbit and leave it there. Launch a better one every year or three. After a few launches your undergrads will still be excited to use that first telescope, your PhD students will use the next several, and your faculty will all be drooling over the latest. Upgrades don’t increase capacity. Oh, and we’ve got universities spending billions of taxpayer money to carve up mountains in Peru to build telescopes on top. Those are not cheaper than space telescopes would be.
  - defrost 5d ago
    Again: Radio astronomy. > universities spending billions of taxpayer money to carve up mountains in Peru to build telescopes on top Which university and telescope are you talking about? > Those are not cheaper than space telescopes would be. In general, they are - take a ground based telescopes costs, now harden it for space (extra cost), now "do the right stuff" to ensure it will work in isolation (more cost), and now package it it and launch it (more cost again).
Dracophoenix 5d ago
An endowment isn't free money and launching a telescope into space remains a costlier venture than plopping a few arrays on mountains like Mauna Kea or atop the Chilean Andes. Contrary to your imagination, radio telescopes aren't that cheap either. The Smithsonian and NASA fund most of the construction, operation, and maintenance of Harvard's telescopes rather than the university. Suffice it to say, it's unlikely an academic institution will find an economically viable route to launching space telescopes any earlier than twenty years from now.
- db48x 5d ago
  Sure, sure. The endowment generates revenue which is then spent on stuff. Harvard spends billions every year on stuff. A small slice of that spending over the last decade could have gotten them a huge scientific and prestige boon: the first major private telescope in space. (Cubesats don’t count.) Government subsidies might explain it though. Why should Harvard spend their own money when they can spend mine?
  - pclmulqdq 5d ago
    Cubesats can’t take very good pictures. You need a big mirror to get really clear imagery and you can’t cram one of those in a cubesat. Space telescopes are by nature massive, heavy satellites unless they aren’t intended to look very far or see very much. The other option is to cheaply build something absolutely massive on Earth.
    - db48x 5d ago
      I know, that’s why I said that cubesats don’t count. There are already lots of cubesats with telescopes in orbit, but they don’t count because you couldn’t do good astronomy with them.
  - Dracophoenix 5d ago
    What you call "the endowment " doesn't exist in any monolithic sense. "The endowment" is a disparate collection of donations from alumni such as scholarships, artwork, buildings, etc., governed by their respective, specifically-worded contracts. Many of these gifts aren't easily convertible to cash. In fact, a large cash gift is rarely offered at all and rarer still would any such gift come unconditionally. > Government subsidies might explain it though. Why should Harvard spend their own money when they can spend mine? The government's justification has historically been that the research value gained by putting the brightest minds to work at the frontier of academic science is worth the allocation of necessary monies. Whether that is (or has been) true is obviously debatable.