Technical Advances Excite Astronomers

Aviation Week and Space Technology ^ | 1/19/2010 | Frank Morring, Jr.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Heavy-lift launch vehicles of the type many believe will be a part of President Barack Obama’s long-awaited space policy — and in-space assembly techniques based on lessons from the Hubble Space Telescope — could enable NASA to deploy telescopes large enough to answer the eternal question “Are we alone?” in the coming decades.

Matt Mountain, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), and John Grunsfeld, his newly named deputy and a three-time Hubble-servicing astronaut, told the Space Transportation Association Jan. 15 that astronomers are on the cusp of technical advances that will cast their view back — literally — to the dawn of time.

“From our perspective the actual future of space astrophysics is linked to NASA’s future,” Mountain said.

A heavy-lift launch vehicle with the capability of the Ares V NASA has in the early stages of development — about 150 metric tons to low Earth orbit — would be powerful enough to launch even the largest ground-based telescopes on the drawing board today, and certainly much larger lightweight optics designed for space, Mountain noted. Light-collecting mirrors that large and unobscured by the atmosphere will be necessary not just to see the earliest stars and galaxies — a process already started with the most recent set of upgrades to the Hubble — but to find the signatures of life on Earth-like planets circling them, he said.

To get to that point, the International Space Station can be a valuable stepping stone, according to Grunsfeld. Hubble program engineers already are developing a station payload to demonstrate robotic in-space refueling of satellites not designed to be refueled (Aerospace DAILY, Jan. 12). Used as a base for other engineering testbeds, the ISS could lower the risk for the technologies and techniques necessary

[mhx]

So if we find out we’re alone can we get the tax money back? :-)

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

I think it will be a while before we have an answer to that question.

[ari-freedom]

this ‘alone’ business is just hype but in science, spending a millions of dollars only to discover that all your cherished theories are bunk...is progress.

[Does so]

So if we find out we’re alone can we get the tax money back? :-)

If you follow the incredible evolution of our solar system, you'd judge that answer soon enough. Even if we did have company, one or the other would be gone before we could do anything about it.

(Like the tax money expended on "Climate Change", it's all money down the rathole that could be used to defend our shores).

[SunkenCiv]

A heavy-lift launch vehicle with the capability of the Ares V NASA has in the early stages of development -- about 150 metric tons to low Earth orbit -- would be powerful enough to launch even the largest ground-based telescopes on the drawing board today, and certainly much larger lightweight optics designed for space...

Thanks sonofstrangelove.

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[LiberConservative]

I hope we are looking for Pandora. I want to meet those smokin’ hot, 10’ tall, lean, mean, blue-skinned, dragon-riding alien babes. Oh, and I almost forgot. They have tails. Grrrrrowllll.