Posted on 04/14/2013 8:36:59 PM PDT by Jyotishi
The massive Thirty Meter Telescope will be able to image objects 13 billion light years away, near the beginning of time.
Set atop Mauna Kea, the Thirty Meter Telescope will be able to observe planets outside our solar system. (Credit: Courtesy TMT Observatory Corporation)
If you love eye-popping images of space, here's welcome news: the Hawaiian Board of Land and Natural Resources has backed building what's to be the world's largest, most powerful optical telescope above the clouds atop the volcano Mauna Kea.
The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will have a primary mirror of 492 segments measuring some 100 feet across, giving it the power to image objects 13 billion light years away, near the beginning of the universe.
It may also photograph planets outside our solar system with unprecedented detail.
The focus of a collaboration among scientists in California, Canada, Japan, China, and India, the instrument will have 144 times the light-collecting area of the Hubble Space Telescope and nearly 10 times that of one of the Keck telescopes.
Despite opposition from some environmentalists and native Hawaiian groups, construction of the next-generation observatory will begin in a year and is expected to cost over $1 billion. The TMT is slated to begin scientific studies in 2021.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.cnet.com ...
HST has very sophisticated thermal control. Of course this can be done on a larger scale, but it can’t be done for $1 billion.
Launching 492 pieces would require hundreds of launches. Probably $100 billion. Not to mention the structure that holds them all together.
Then you have the issue on on-orbit assembly, which would make the launch issue seem like child’s play and pocket change.
Next comes the issue of a spacecraft to control the telescope. More on-orbit assembly, and lots of complexity. The angular momentum of such a large spacecraft would require unprecedented slewing mechanisms.
We might be able to put a 100 meter telescope into orbit, but look for a 10 year time frame and at least $1 trillion.
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