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posted by CoolHand on Monday July 24 2017, @06:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the primo-glass dept.

NASA is considering four proposed space telescopes and will likely launch one of them in the 2030s as a flagship mission, like the Hubble Space Telescope or the James Webb Space Telescope:

  • Large Ultraviolet/Optical/Infrared Surveyor (LUVOIR), a multipurpose follow-up mission to the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope with a 8-16 meter (26-52 foot) primary mirror that would make discoveries on exoplanets, dark matter, star formation, the earliest galaxies of the universe, and within our own solar system.
  • Habitable Exoplanet Imaging Mission (HabEx), a smaller telescope than LUVOIR with a 4-8 meter (13-26 foot) primary mirror and instruments sensitive to ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared light to find worlds outside our solar system that could harbor life. HabEx could fly with a coronagraph, a component inside the telescope to mask starlight and reveal faint reflections from planets, or a starshade, a separate vehicle flying in formation with the telescope to blot out starlight.
  • Origins Space Telescope, a far-infrared surveyor with a primary mirror up to 9 meters (30 feet) in diameter that would be a successor to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory. The Origins Space Telescope will investigate how galaxies, stars and planets form, search for water and greenhouse gases on exoplanets, and study interstellar dust.
  • The Lynx X-ray telescope, following in the footsteps of NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton mission, will study the dawn of the first black holes, and the epoch of reionization, when the first galaxies and light sources emerged after the Big Bang.

The LUVOIR space telescope would be the closest to a successor of Hubble, covering a similar range of wavelengths. It is also similar in size to two recent proposals: the High Definition Space Telescope (HDST) and the Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope (ATLAST).

The JWST was not designed to be serviceable and will likely only last for 5-10 years after its planned launch in October 2018. It has a 6.5 meter primary mirror. Hubble has been operating since 1990 but only has a 2.4 meter primary mirror.

The Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope will launch in the 2020s.


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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday July 24 2017, @07:08PM (5 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Monday July 24 2017, @07:08PM (#543840)

    Remind me which "advanced navy" the US has fought since WW2, and how many times the availability of 10 Nimitz carriers was proven necessary.
    The US is regularly using overwhelming force against gnats, while constantly preparing for a two-fronts world war that cannot happen. Regular exercises and estimates indicate that major opponents are stocking weapons to deny aircraft carriers access to places where they would need to be to be used in a major conflict. Until the latest laser defense systems are proven to work reliably against swarms of sea-skimming hypersonic missiles and fast torpedoes, the aircraft carrier is just a big target. Which makes it useless against major powers. And you don't need 10 against Afghanistan.

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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday July 24 2017, @07:14PM (4 children)

    by frojack (1554) on Monday July 24 2017, @07:14PM (#543845) Journal

    You would rather use matched forces, and take you chances with the luck of the draw?

    In one sentence you predict massive losses, and in the next you say we don't need 10.
    Go back to your bathtub toy boats Bob, and let the navy handle this.

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    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Monday July 24 2017, @07:23PM (1 child)

      by Arik (4543) on Monday July 24 2017, @07:23PM (#543852) Journal
      The thing is it may sound inconsistent but it makes perfect sense.

      Ten isn't enough, long term, if you accept as untouchable the goal of militarily dominating China in the south China sea. That goal in itself is so ambitious that it can justify any and every military expenditure we could possibly make. It just isn't realistic.

      But it's also not necessary. Quite frankly, it's foolish, it would be silly were the consequences not so grave.

      Drop that goal and a few other similar ones and there would no longer be any need for these enormously expensive floating airfields, and the enormous amounts of money spent building and operating them could be used on more productive things.
      --
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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @10:46PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @10:46PM (#543921)

        Exactly. More aircraft carriers.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Monday July 24 2017, @09:19PM (1 child)

      by bob_super (1357) on Monday July 24 2017, @09:19PM (#543880)

      > In one sentence you predict massive losses, and in the next you say we don't need 10.

      My bathtub toys tell me that either
      1) your weak opponents can't touch them, and you therefore only need a few (2 or 3 in operation, one rotating in/out, 1 in maintenance).
      2) your strong opponents can spam-sink 5 of them, and you'd be really dumb to say "wait, I've got 5 more a the second wave", so you keep them all home and blow shit up with submarines, planes, and cheaper cruise missile ships.

      Missiles are cheap, carriers are really slow to build. The difference between having 5 or 10 is how much you waste, because there is not rational reason for the hundreds-of-foreign-bases US to put 8 carriers in play at once. Heck, even to invade Saddam, how many carriers were used? There's a reason very few navies bother to have a carrier, and almost none have more than one.
      That's not even touching the big issue that most nations able to sink US carriers also have nukes.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @10:49PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @10:49PM (#543923)

        Yeah but who would waste a $10M nuke to sink a $2B aircraft carrier, if their national security depended on it? Burn's on you bro.