Post by swamprat on Mar 20, 2017 14:55:56 GMT -6
This project has about as much chance of getting approved during Trump's administration as I do of winning the Power Ball Lottery..... Scientists like to dream.
For comparison, the Hubble has a 2.4 meter mirror; the James Webb scope, slated for launch next year, has a 6.5 meter segmented mirror.
A Vision That Could Supercharge NASA
by Marc Kaufman
Posted on 2017-03-15
An artist rendering of an approximately 16-meter telescope in space. This image was created for an earlier large space telescope feasibility project called ATLAST, but it is similar to what is being discussed inside and outside of NASA as a possible great observatory after the James Webb Space Telescope and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope. Advocates say such a large space telescope would revolutionize the search for life on exoplanets, as well as providing the greatest observing ever for general astrophysics. (NASA)
Let your mind wander for a moment and let it land on the most exciting and meaningful NASA mission that you can imagine. An undertaking, perhaps, that would send astronauts into deep space, that would require enormous technological innovation, and that would have ever-lasting science returns.
Many will no doubt think of Mars and the dream of sending astronauts there to explore. Others might imagine setting up a colony on that planet, or perhaps in the nearer term establishing a human colony on the moon. And now that we know there’s a rocky exoplanet orbiting Proxima Centauri — the star closest to our sun — it’s tempting to wish for a major robotic or, someday, human mission headed there to search for life.
All are dream-worthy space projects for sure. But some visionary scientists (and most especially one well-known former astronaut) have been working for some time on another potential grand endeavor — one that you probably have not heard or thought about, yet might be the most compelling and achievable of them all.
It would return astronauts to deep space and it would have them doing the kind of very difficult but essential work needed for space exploration in the far future. It would use the very costly and very powerful Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule being built now by NASA and Lockheed Martin respectively. Most important, it would almost certainly revolutionize our understanding of the cosmos near and far.
At a recent meeting of the House Science Committee, chairman Lamar Smith, said of the hearing’s purpose that, “Presidential transitions offer the opportunities to reinvigorate national goals. They bring fresh perspectives and new ideas that energize our efforts.”
That said, here’s the seemingly feasible project that fires my imagination the most.
It has been quietly but with persistence promoted most visibly by John Grunsfeld, the former astronaut who flew to the Hubble Space Telescope three times to fix and upgrade it, who has spent 58 hours on spacewalks outside the Shuttle, and towards the end of his 40 years with the agency ultimately became an associate administrator and head of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate.
A visualization of the assembly in space of a large segmented telescope, with work being done by astronauts and robots. The honeycomb blocks are parts of the mirror, and the grey cylinders on the right are habitats for astronauts. (NASA)
His plan: Build a segmented space telescope mirror that is 16 meters (52 feet) in diameter or larger, package it into one or several payload fairings and launch it into deep space. Accompanying astronauts would put it together either at its final destination or at a closer point where it could then be propelled to that destination.
This would provide invaluable humans-in-space experience, would put the Orion and SLS to very good use in advance of a projected human mission to Mars, and would deploy the most penetrating telescope observing ever. By far.
No mirror with a diameter greater than 3.5 meters (11.5 feet) has ever been deployed in space, although the the James Webb Space Telescope mirror will be substantially larger at 6.5 meters (21 feet) when launched in 2018. The largest ground telescopes are in the 10-meter (33 foot) range.
What Grunsfeld’s space behemoth would provide is an unprecedented power and resolution to see back to the earliest point possible in the history of the universe, and doing that in the ultraviolet and visible wavelengths. But perhaps more significantly and revolutionary, it would supercharge the agency’s ability to search for life beyond Earth.
Like nothing else currently in use or development, it would provide a real chance to answer what is arguably humanity’s most fundamental question: Are we alone in the universe?
Grunsfeld has been introducing people to the project/vision inside NASA for some time. He also told me that he has spoken with many members of Congress about it, and that most have been quite supportive. Now he’s starting to make the case to the public.
“We need our leaders to be bold if we want to stay in the forefront of science and engineering,” he said. “Assembling a 16-meter telescope in space would not be easy by any means. But we can do it and — this is the key — it would be transformational. It’s a rational thing to do.”
His confidence in the possibility of launching the segmented mirror parts and having astronauts assemble them in space comes, he says, from experience. Not only has he flown on the space shuttle five times and has his three very close encounters with the Hubble, but he has also overseen the difficult process of getting the JWST project — with its pioneering segmented, folding mirror — back on track after large budget overruns and delays. He’s also trained in astrophysics and is enamored of exoplanets.
“If your goal is to search for inhabited planets, you just have to go up to the 16-meter range for the primary telescope mirror,” he said.
“Think about it: if we sent up something smaller, it will give us important and potentially very intriguing information about what planets might be habitable, that could potentially support life. But then we’d have to send up a bigger mirror later to actually make any detection. Why not just go to the 16-meter now?”
The strongest driver on the size of the LUVOIR telescope is the desire to have a large sample of exoEarth candidates to study. This figure shows the real stars in the sky for which a planet in the habitable zone can be observed. The color coding shows the probability of observing an exoEarth candidate if it’s present around that star (green is a high probability, red is a low one). This is a visualization of the work of Chris Stark at Space Telescope Science Institute, who created an advanced code to calculate yields of exoplanet observations with different facilities. (C. Stark and J. Tumlinson, STScI)
While all this may sound to many like science fiction, NASA actually has a team in place studying the science and technology involved with a very large space telescope, and has funded studies of in-space assembly as well.
www.manyworlds.space/index.php/2017/03/15/a-vision-that-could-supercharge-nasa/
For comparison, the Hubble has a 2.4 meter mirror; the James Webb scope, slated for launch next year, has a 6.5 meter segmented mirror.
A Vision That Could Supercharge NASA
by Marc Kaufman
Posted on 2017-03-15
An artist rendering of an approximately 16-meter telescope in space. This image was created for an earlier large space telescope feasibility project called ATLAST, but it is similar to what is being discussed inside and outside of NASA as a possible great observatory after the James Webb Space Telescope and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope. Advocates say such a large space telescope would revolutionize the search for life on exoplanets, as well as providing the greatest observing ever for general astrophysics. (NASA)
Let your mind wander for a moment and let it land on the most exciting and meaningful NASA mission that you can imagine. An undertaking, perhaps, that would send astronauts into deep space, that would require enormous technological innovation, and that would have ever-lasting science returns.
Many will no doubt think of Mars and the dream of sending astronauts there to explore. Others might imagine setting up a colony on that planet, or perhaps in the nearer term establishing a human colony on the moon. And now that we know there’s a rocky exoplanet orbiting Proxima Centauri — the star closest to our sun — it’s tempting to wish for a major robotic or, someday, human mission headed there to search for life.
All are dream-worthy space projects for sure. But some visionary scientists (and most especially one well-known former astronaut) have been working for some time on another potential grand endeavor — one that you probably have not heard or thought about, yet might be the most compelling and achievable of them all.
It would return astronauts to deep space and it would have them doing the kind of very difficult but essential work needed for space exploration in the far future. It would use the very costly and very powerful Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule being built now by NASA and Lockheed Martin respectively. Most important, it would almost certainly revolutionize our understanding of the cosmos near and far.
At a recent meeting of the House Science Committee, chairman Lamar Smith, said of the hearing’s purpose that, “Presidential transitions offer the opportunities to reinvigorate national goals. They bring fresh perspectives and new ideas that energize our efforts.”
That said, here’s the seemingly feasible project that fires my imagination the most.
It has been quietly but with persistence promoted most visibly by John Grunsfeld, the former astronaut who flew to the Hubble Space Telescope three times to fix and upgrade it, who has spent 58 hours on spacewalks outside the Shuttle, and towards the end of his 40 years with the agency ultimately became an associate administrator and head of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate.
A visualization of the assembly in space of a large segmented telescope, with work being done by astronauts and robots. The honeycomb blocks are parts of the mirror, and the grey cylinders on the right are habitats for astronauts. (NASA)
His plan: Build a segmented space telescope mirror that is 16 meters (52 feet) in diameter or larger, package it into one or several payload fairings and launch it into deep space. Accompanying astronauts would put it together either at its final destination or at a closer point where it could then be propelled to that destination.
This would provide invaluable humans-in-space experience, would put the Orion and SLS to very good use in advance of a projected human mission to Mars, and would deploy the most penetrating telescope observing ever. By far.
No mirror with a diameter greater than 3.5 meters (11.5 feet) has ever been deployed in space, although the the James Webb Space Telescope mirror will be substantially larger at 6.5 meters (21 feet) when launched in 2018. The largest ground telescopes are in the 10-meter (33 foot) range.
What Grunsfeld’s space behemoth would provide is an unprecedented power and resolution to see back to the earliest point possible in the history of the universe, and doing that in the ultraviolet and visible wavelengths. But perhaps more significantly and revolutionary, it would supercharge the agency’s ability to search for life beyond Earth.
Like nothing else currently in use or development, it would provide a real chance to answer what is arguably humanity’s most fundamental question: Are we alone in the universe?
Grunsfeld has been introducing people to the project/vision inside NASA for some time. He also told me that he has spoken with many members of Congress about it, and that most have been quite supportive. Now he’s starting to make the case to the public.
“We need our leaders to be bold if we want to stay in the forefront of science and engineering,” he said. “Assembling a 16-meter telescope in space would not be easy by any means. But we can do it and — this is the key — it would be transformational. It’s a rational thing to do.”
His confidence in the possibility of launching the segmented mirror parts and having astronauts assemble them in space comes, he says, from experience. Not only has he flown on the space shuttle five times and has his three very close encounters with the Hubble, but he has also overseen the difficult process of getting the JWST project — with its pioneering segmented, folding mirror — back on track after large budget overruns and delays. He’s also trained in astrophysics and is enamored of exoplanets.
“If your goal is to search for inhabited planets, you just have to go up to the 16-meter range for the primary telescope mirror,” he said.
“Think about it: if we sent up something smaller, it will give us important and potentially very intriguing information about what planets might be habitable, that could potentially support life. But then we’d have to send up a bigger mirror later to actually make any detection. Why not just go to the 16-meter now?”
The strongest driver on the size of the LUVOIR telescope is the desire to have a large sample of exoEarth candidates to study. This figure shows the real stars in the sky for which a planet in the habitable zone can be observed. The color coding shows the probability of observing an exoEarth candidate if it’s present around that star (green is a high probability, red is a low one). This is a visualization of the work of Chris Stark at Space Telescope Science Institute, who created an advanced code to calculate yields of exoplanet observations with different facilities. (C. Stark and J. Tumlinson, STScI)
While all this may sound to many like science fiction, NASA actually has a team in place studying the science and technology involved with a very large space telescope, and has funded studies of in-space assembly as well.
www.manyworlds.space/index.php/2017/03/15/a-vision-that-could-supercharge-nasa/