Texas astronomers revive idea for 'Ultimately Large Telescope' on the moon

Re:Texas astronomers revive idea for 'Ultimately Large Teles... by inglor_cz on Tuesday November 17, 2020 @12:39PM (#25126731)

There is a saying that once you reach the orbit (here, on Earth), you are halfway to anywhere.

Lifting objects from Earth's gravity well is expensive. There would be a better case for building extensive industrial base on the Moon, with its 0.16g gravity, and supplying all the distant bases from there.

You can, for example, plausibly build a space elevator on the Moon [1] with contemporary materials (even Kevlar would suffice), thus lowering the price tag enormously.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_space_elevator

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Re:Texas astronomers revive idea for 'Ultimately Large Teles... by travisoneill1 on Tuesday November 17, 2020 @01:24PM (#25127492)

Doesn't really change anything because you are pretty much out of the Earth's gravity well by the time you get to the moon.

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Re:Texas astronomers revive idea for 'Ultimately Large Teles... by ben_w on Tuesday November 17, 2020 @04:35PM (#25130209)

Sure it does — you shuttle humans up to LEO at the current SpaceX Dragon cost, and instead of docking to the ISS they dock to the full-size replica of the Enterprise that an eccentric billionaire 3D printed out of Moon rock and filled with space-grown food, plants, and spandex costumes.

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