I wonder how big you could get the mirror if you did it James Webb style in starship.
Presumably 7x ~8m hexagons folded up?
That is a good point though. And if one were to design a “budget” 9m space telescope, they could amortize the R&D dramatically by launching the same design many times, perhaps with different sensors for different purposes? Amortization is why the Falcon Heavy and such are so cheap, and why the Space Shuttle and JWST are obscenely expensive.
Ya, that would get costs down further if they were able to amortize it over a larger quantity.
We could also get them pretty far out with starship refuelling, but refuelling a starship back to full capacity to then go somewhere would raise the cost a lot. But imagine a 7x 8m folded hexagon one sent out into deep space. That would be super expensive though, we wouldn’t get a lot of those haha.
This is all a massive big IF though. Starship being fully reusable like they think is still very far from a given, so none of this might come true in our lifetimes.
Yeah. I prefer the idea of a bunch of 9-meters unless they can really perfect a cheap folding mirror to mass produce.
A small upper stage, an ion drive or something could get them to deep space. It’s not worth flying a whole Starship out there and burning more fuel to get it back; the return trip only makes sense for LEO.
Presumably 7x ~8m hexagons folded up?
That is a good point though. And if one were to design a “budget” 9m space telescope, they could amortize the R&D dramatically by launching the same design many times, perhaps with different sensors for different purposes? Amortization is why the Falcon Heavy and such are so cheap, and why the Space Shuttle and JWST are obscenely expensive.
Okay, you’ve sold me. I hope this does happen.
Ya, that would get costs down further if they were able to amortize it over a larger quantity.
We could also get them pretty far out with starship refuelling, but refuelling a starship back to full capacity to then go somewhere would raise the cost a lot. But imagine a 7x 8m folded hexagon one sent out into deep space. That would be super expensive though, we wouldn’t get a lot of those haha.
This is all a massive big IF though. Starship being fully reusable like they think is still very far from a given, so none of this might come true in our lifetimes.
Yeah. I prefer the idea of a bunch of 9-meters unless they can really perfect a cheap folding mirror to mass produce.
A small upper stage, an ion drive or something could get them to deep space. It’s not worth flying a whole Starship out there and burning more fuel to get it back; the return trip only makes sense for LEO.