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"It will never work! An idea that changed infrared astronomy from space"

A decade before the Spitzer infrared telescope and twenty years before the expected launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, a small band of European and American astronomers proposed a large-aperture, very lightweight radiatively cooled infrared telescope operating at the Sun-Earth L2 point The story of how a radical new way to do infrared astronomy from space was conceived, and refused to go away, is a lesson for anyone who seeks to buck conventional wisdom and struggles to persuade others to think "outside the box". (credit: Rutherford Appleton Laboratory)

1 posted on 08/21/2006 9:20:33 AM PDT by SunkenCiv

To: tricky_k_1972; KevinDavis

2 posted on 08/21/2006 9:20:58 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (updated my FR profile on Thursday, August 10, 2006. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)

Cool things like this makes me wish I'd gone into astrophysics.

3 posted on 08/21/2006 9:22:16 AM PDT by JamesP81 ("Never let your schooling interfere with your education" --Mark Twain)

James Webb Space Telescope

Jack Webb could put up the money.

4 posted on 08/21/2006 10:43:13 AM PDT by carumba (The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made. Groucho)

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