Either one has nothing to do with the Mars society. They are not a government body, have never received (or even applied for) funding from any nation state.
We should leave Mars red and only set up scientific research stations there, like Antarctica, while we set up living spaces in large spinning space stations. That is the technology we need to develop.
What you described sounded a bit like Babylon 5, so I felt the need to reply with a quote from one of its more famous denizens, Vorlon Ambassador Kosh.
The Moon acts as a physical shield that isolates a far-side lunar-surface telescope from radio interference from sources on the Earth’s surface, the ionosphere, Earth-orbiting satellites, and the Sun’s radio emission during the lunar night.
I’m also not sure it would be that much more effort. Economically speaking, most of the cost probably comes from rocket launches, which are roughly similar for Moon missions and other far-out space missions. Construction on the Moon has unique challenges (sharp regolith, temperatures), but you get a supporting base for free. If you had to supply and launch support structures, it might be more costly overal.
You don’t need any supporting base when floating around. But you absolutely need to deal with the gravity there. Also, since you don’t just have to reach but land on the moon too, I assume it absolutely takes a lot more effort per mass. Unless you can impact the moon at full speed.
You don’t need any supporting base when floating around.
Not to resist gravity, yes. But you need some supporting structure to keep things apart which are meant to be apart, and keep things together so they don’t drift away into space. The general frame of the object, so to say. If you don’t use a natural crater to support your telescope, you need to create some kind of structure to do that job for you.
since you don’t just have to reach but land on the moon too, I assume it absolutely takes a lot more effort per mass. Unless you can impact the moon at full speed.
A similar thing is true for any point in empty space. It’s not enough to get there, you need to decelerate to come to rest when you reached the destination. Yes, when landing on the Moon you need to additionally fight it’s gravity. I still think the energy required to leave Earth vastly outweights the energy required for the final approach. After checking [The Tyranny of the Rocket Equation (NASA)] it seems my estimation was exaggerated, but still right in principle. The most energy will be spent on reaching LEO, and landing on the Moon instead of going to a cis-lunar destination is a difference of 11.5 or 14 (total trip costs) compared to 8 for the initial lift. Numbers from the first table.
Either way, this is amateurs arguing what experts should do. The better approach is probably to dive into their documents to understand their reasoning. Even if we’d agree they should build their telescope in space, that would maybe rather hint at us missing some insight.
Your don’t decelerate to come to rest. You essentially accelerate until you reach the desired height of your orbit, then accelerate some more to turn the elliptical orbit into whichever shape your want it to be. This is as efficient as it gets.
Also, since there is only micro gravity, there is no need for a good structural support. When it can withstand the launch, it is already way overkill for microgravity, at least the systems we currently use. There is a lot of improvement to be made.
Reading through the description of this makes me wonder if the technique could ever be used to pinpoint the ‘origin’ of the big bang? If we knew where the boundaries of the universe were at we could roughly pinpoint the center, but that still assumes the universe is expanding at equal speeds in all directions. Still, knowing the origin point would probably help pinpoint our own location within the universe and provide better measurements for the age of the things we see in every direction.
There was no origin point. The universe was infinite with no edges when the big bang occurred, just like now. It just inflated in every direction to be a bigger infinity.
The universe was infinite with no edges when the big bang occurred, just like now.
We don’t know that. Here is a depiction of infinite inflation, the most popular version of the standard model, spawning pocket universes with boundaries.
Well no, we don't know that. But that's the current scientific consensus. Wouldn't make much sense to lay out every theory currently not disproven to answer a simple question though.
Edit: and to respond to your pocket universe theory, if our universe is infinite, as current scientific consensus indicates, there are no boundaries. That doesn't mean there can't be other universes though. Our universe being infinite and expanding without boundaries doesn't argue other universes can't exist. They just would take place outside our spacetime and we'd never be able to interact with or see them, and therefore can't prove or disprove their existence.
It’s not a consensus at all. The reason why the FLRW model does not include modelling boundaries is because it is very hard to model boundaries, not because they are unlikely.
Assuming a finite universe, the universe can either have an edge or no edge. Many finite mathematical spaces, e.g., a disc, have an edge or boundary. Spaces that have an edge are difficult to treat, both conceptually and mathematically. Namely, it is very difficult to state what would happen at the edge of such a universe. For this reason, spaces that have an edge are typically excluded from consideration.
to respond to your pocket universe theory,
It’s not my “pocket universe theory”. It is the theory of Infinite Inflation, the most popular version of the standard model.
That doesn’t mean there can’t be other universes though.
Those “pocket universes” are not really other universes. They are physically connected to our universe. They are called pocket universes because they are too far away to communicated with. The depiction I showed you is not an abstraction, it is what is believed to be the actual geometric shape.
if the technique could ever be used to pinpoint the ‘origin’ of the big bang?
There probably was no “origin point” because there was no singularity at the beginning of the big bang. The full universe may have been huge or even been infinite in size and even the observable universe had a significant size. There perhaps was a geographic center though, then and now.
Still, knowing the origin point would probably help pinpoint our own location within the universe and provide better measurements for the age of the things we see in every direction.
That would be the least of it. Knowing where a geographic center or boundary was would allow us to track absolute and not just relative motion. Then we could see what if any special properties apply to an absolute frame of reference.
But the existence of a "geometric center" breaks several of the base assumptions of astrophysics. If there were a geometric center as you say, then there would have to be "edges" of the universe, or the inflation would need a center.
Both of which we think are not the case, due to lots of battle tested theories that tell us space is generally of flat curvature and homogenous, meaning one random chunk of space (the actual stuff of space, not like looking at stars and other structures of the universe) should be indistinguishable from another.
These days those assumptions are considered pretty fundamental to any understanding of space itself and the universe at large that we have.
These days those assumptions are considered pretty fundamental
Nope. The reason why the FLRW model does not include modelling boundaries is because it is very hard to model boundaries, not because they are unlikely.
[Many finite mathematical spaces, e.g., a disc, have an edge or boundary. Spaces that have an edge are difficult to treat, both conceptually and mathematically. Namely, it is very difficult to state what would happen at the edge of such a universe. For this reason, spaces that have an edge are typically excluded from consideration.]
Conclusion: The primary reason why an apparent “flat” universe could still have boundaries is because the FLRW model is either incomplete or possibly even not the right model.
meaning one random chunk of space (the actual stuff of space, not like looking at stars and other structures of the universe) should be indistinguishable from another.
It also makes no sense to invoke the cosmological principal to “prove” there are no boundaries. The philosophical cosmological principal simply says that since we don’t see boundaries they must not exist anywhere. That makes no sense because we would expect any boundaries to only exist in a very small percent of the total volume of space.
I feel like this question is another possible route for how Nomai got sucked into the search for the Eye of the Universe
btw if anyone hasn’t played The Outer Wilds please don’t look up anything and play it for yourself whenever you can afford it. It’s a game you’ll probably wish you could wipe your mind in order to experience it for the first time again
That’s a neat correlation between a galaxy’s smbh mass and total gc mass - about the same. Also interesting to see that the stars in a cluster don’t have to be related in age or composition at all.
If you don’t know, GCs can be faintly visible with “normal” binoculars. 7x35, 8x42, and 10x50s are popular handheld choices. 20x50s aren’t good at night. The Hercules Cluster is a good one right now so check it out this month when you have clear skies. The Wild Duck cluster is more open but looking towards the core is always a treat. The Lagoon nebula is close to there. Definitely look for the Orion Nebula in his sword sometime this winter. Check star maps/apps if you’re in the southern hemisphere since I’m in the northern and not sure what carries over. Light pollution sucks but at least by me, suburbs more than 10 miles out of an interstate/highway corridor tend to be dark enough. There’s light pollution maps for that too
I find it very interesting and I want to do one with my kids. The guide is good from a step by step point of view about how to make one, but I think a couple of examples about what kind of data can someone get with it and what can someone expect to “view” could be very helpfull too
sounds like a resonable ask. Every mission relies on the DSN, or one other countries run, and i know we are only going to want increasing range and data rates in the future.
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