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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday May 11 2022, @06:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the my-sights-adjusted-and-my-telescope-aimed dept.

Distant galaxies, dark matter, dark energy and the origin and evolution of the universe itself are some of the many scientific goals of China's newly announced space telescope. If all goes according to plan, the China Space Station Telescope (CSST) will blast off atop a Long March 5B rocket sometime in late 2023. Once in a safe orbit, CSST should begin observations in 2024. Judging by these research topics, it looks like the Chinese Academy of Sciences is throwing down an impressive scientific gauntlet for itself and its astronomers.

Given the potential scientific rewards, it's not surprising that China is joining the "big space telescope club." It's also a source of national pride, especially if they can "out-Hubble Hubble." For example, once CSST is operational, Chinese scientists hope to survey the sky and observe more than 1 billion galaxies. Their instruments should let them get highly precise measurements of galaxy shapes, positions and brightness. They'll use the telescope to go after exoplanets, star birth regions, and other distant objects, gathering incredible amounts of high-resolution data.

Phys.org

[Also Covered By]: Universe Today

[Source]: Chinese Academy of Sciences

[Presentation]: Chinese Survey Space Telescope Technical Presentation (2021) (PDF)


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2022, @11:25PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2022, @11:25PM (#1244204)

    It wouldn't surprise me if something was planned, and set up to a certain extent, because that all happened at the time of the International Geophysical Year [wikipedia.org], which really was a remarkable time. We would really do well if we could have another one of those celebrations now. I can guarantee that if something was set up, it wasn't with a comparable budget as Apollo. That really was a big chunk of discretionary spending, so much so that the program was cancelled largely on budgetary reasons.

    Since I was a kid, I've always wondered why we haven't done settlements under the sea. My guess is that there wasn't a pressing need coupled with the issues of maintaining long-term structures in an ocean environment. Space is a lot more sexy, I think, from a PR perspective. Maybe if Sea Hunt captured the TV audience like Star Trek, that maybe we'd have undersea labs and habitats today.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 12 2022, @01:05AM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday May 12 2022, @01:05AM (#1244233)

    Space isn't just sexier, it's much lower cost. Maintenance in space is a tiny fraction of ocean operations. Line of sight applications from orbit have tremendous ROI (unless you really botch the business plan and timing like Iridium). In the ocean you have to deal with salt corrosion, storms, waves on the surface, tremendous pressure differentials at depth, etc. Ocean craft are cheaper to launch, but otherwise they are much more expensive to build and maintain.

    The ocean colonization study results I have seen basically found no ROI or sustainability for long term ocean operations. Obviously there are exceptions for oil extraction, fishing, and a few other things that are basically exploiting natural resources much faster than they replenish. And special cases like extending Manhattan island into the Hudson river can occasionally make economic sense, but those are extreme edge cases.

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  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday May 12 2022, @03:19PM

    by Freeman (732) on Thursday May 12 2022, @03:19PM (#1244426) Journal

    https://slate.com/technology/2013/09/sea-vs-space-which-is-the-real-final-frontier.html [slate.com]

    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—NASA’s soggy counterpart

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