Space Telescopes & Bang for Buck

Whilst listening to the weekly space hangout with Fraser Cain, Morgan Rehnberg & Paul M Sutter on the train to work today, i cant help but share their concern that all the existing space based telescopes are shutting down without view for replacement.

And i would agree with comments made, if every country on earth offered up a project, we could replace this existing "space fleet" very cheaply.

However, we all know, governments flip flop on budgets, but i see a second option.

I see no reason, why in this present age of commercial space flight that is about to explode through the likes of SpaceX, Blue Origin and to a lesser extent Vector (for small payloads) private enterprise, could not step up to the table and in very rapid order, with no nonsense, get things sky high.

I am a little bit controversial in regards to my space science and astronomy views, i am known for that, personally, i go on the record as saying focusing on colonization of others worlds is a wasted effort, we are genetically and biologically bound to a certain climate and it seems far more practical long term, to focus on developing space station technology, to a fully sustainable, livable, earth climate level, which we could place in orbit around planets with harvest-able resources, rather than colonization, though, i respect the efforts of others.

While i think we should, and must, look far a-field to get a greater understanding of our universe, to be honest with you, with current technological limitations, i think science, research and money would be better spent, studying our own back-yard, the solar system.

I am all for everything else, please don't mistake that, but i think you have to have full mastery of the shoreline before you can head off into the ocean, if you get the metaphor.

Now if your just a layperson who knows about space, you might think we have a good handle on whats happening in the solar system, its a common assumption, let me tell, you, we have no freaking idea, for context, the only thing we have ever sent to Uranus was Voyager 2, built in 1977 and arrived on a flyby in 1986.

That's it, and the same can be said for many other celestial objects.

Now at the times and places i understand why, but i think when moving into this current iteration there is a lot more potential for the private sector to shake ground, cost effectively.

We all marvel and wait in anticipation of the JWST, and i wish them the best of luck, but one commentary i often hear, is how many Hubble's could we have built for that, how many ground arrays? hand on heart, i wish JWST the best of luck, i just like all of us want those solar shields to open and everything to work out, but i have to be honest with you, so much, could go wrong, in my mind, its one of the biggest gambles on tax-payer money i have ever seen.

And i say that, because if it fails, what do you all think will happen to government approval of projects moving forward? they will have a dam hard time convincing the public of budgetary spending moving forward.

Look at this simple page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_telescopes

A List of previously launched and some now dated space based telescopes.

I am all for innovation, but i am also about scale.

Take the Hubble Space Telescope, when it launched in 1990 the project cost 1.5 Billion USD, though, with all the legwork done, how much do you think it would take to rebuild today?

Sure the tech is old, but its still the best optical space based telescope we have, PHD Student would lose their mind just for a few hours of time.

So take the blueprints, strip it down, don't do anything fancy, don't try and be the next since sliced bread, do, what you know you can do, make it CHEAPER and do it WELL, so, obviously, upgrade dated circuitry with modern equivalent, but don't deviate to far from the blueprint.

Does anyone really think it would cost 1.5 Billion again? nonsense

Assuming you get it cheaper, i propose, Launch one, in orbit, around every planet of this solar system.

Its possible if you consider the works of SpaceX.

Or, it doesnt even have to be a Hubble, strip it down, go back to the Blueprints of previous, cheaper now that dated optical space telescopes.

So often it seems we are focused on building the next, the biggest the best, innovation, i think there is merit in that, but we build things, time passes, it performs good results, and then we just forget about it.

Take Kepler and how frigging amazing it was, even as a device running on half mast, we could produce that for half the cost, these days.

I know WHY we improve on these iterations, but with the technological advances we have already made since the 70's in space telemetry, i feel we are just ignoring old designs.

I watched Cassini, plow into Saturn live, i tracked the data and was with it every step of the way until it hit the atmosphere and burnt up.

Any, astronomer, will tell you, as dated as it was, it was still amazing.

So how much, would it cost today, to build Cassini, just - dont get complicated, dont worry about the nonsense, just "Play it again Sam" and blast it out.

Not as much i am sure, we already did the legwork.

I know on face value, this seems counter-intuitive but if you pause for more than a second - if you took, something as old, and antiquated as the Proton 1 developed by the USSR and threw a shitty optical camera on it, and blasted it to the planets in a stationary orbit and changed NOTHING, there would be astronomers lined up out the hallway to use it.

For now, i think we need to look to our past, and the private sector, for use of low-tech, low cost, technology, as opposed to placing all our eggs in one basket on these lofty "world wonder" missions.

Like all of you are tax-payers reading this, what do you want? something simple, but useful, cheap, for tax payer dollars around all planets and moons, or some multi trillion dollar piece of tech.

Sure, the latter is cool, but does anyone else hear me when it just seems to me like we are forgetting what we already have?

Think about this, if you built a super, super solid cubesat, like fit for deep space travel, and threw an iPhone on it, you would have more CPU power than Voyager 2 around Uranus.

I think we, the taxpayer are getting dupped, Lords & Ladies, i love future tech, lets put our dollars to that as a progression, but to use a metaphor, we can pick up a bunch of Pentium II's and throw them into orbit and learn amazing things for next to nothing this day and age.

The Kashmir_Z space fleet, take the cheapest of the cheap, upgrade it without affecting cost, motherboards cpu etc, and just throw it out there, fast and efficient.

Give me a modified Hipparcos any day.