Q&A 43: Will New Telescopes Challenge The Big Bang and More...
In this week's questions show, Fraser is excited to see the southern hemisphere night sky, considers how the next generation of telescopes will change our understanding of the Big Bang, and suggests what you should look at with a new telescope.
Q&A 43: Will New Telescopes Challenge The Big Bang and More... (YouTube)
Comments (12)
Hey Fraser, I randomly met you in the Minneapolis airport on my way to Whistler last summer. My main question is why are big telescopes so expensive? Is there anyone out there trying to reduce the costs by orders of magnitude like Spacex is trying to do with launch costs? Are there any proposed ways to make these big projects much cheaper? Are there any proposed projects that have an incredible science bang for the buck? P.S. I made it down to see the Falcon Heavy launch last week - my first ever launch. It was a pretty cool day.
Wow, congrats on seeing the launch! I'm jealous. :-) Telescopes are just exponential in price. The bigger they are, the more expensive they become. You have to use more and more elaborate techniques to keep a bigger telescope aligned to produce a clear image.
This was a great Q&A, Mr Cain. Thanks for posting, as always. I’ve got a question for you, that I think I probably know the answer to, but thought that you answering this could help clear some things up for other with similar thoughts. So, if the Andromeda galaxy just blew up and dispersed by some event or a type 3 civilization, would we still see Andromeda completely intact until the light can reach us?
Thanks, great question, I'm queuing this up for the next questions show.
The far future of Earth seems to be fairly understood - we're toast - but what about the gas giants? Will they be unaffected by the Sun's red giant phase and continue on for many billions of years?
They'll be largely unaffected, but they'll shift around a little as the Sun loses mass. Also, when the Sun's a red giant, their moons might melt.
Fraser, you can see all of the Southern constellations from Costa Rica, you just have to be there at the right time/season. I've been able to see the Wolf, Alpha Centauri / the Centaur, & the Southern Cross among others from places like Belize & the Dominican Republic in Feb - April. Of course, the further South you go, the more/more often you can see the more Southern stars, just as the further North you go the higher up Ursa Major, Draco & the rest of the Northern constellations are. All of which is just to say "I'm jealous of you going to the continent w/ALL the hazardous life forms." ~_^ I expect pictures, lol.
Oh, there'll definitely be pictures. :-)
Seems like you have a genuine passion for the work you do here. Thanks.
Absolutely, I've been doing it for almost 20 years now. :-)
Why has no one developed a Single-Stage-To-Orbit spaceplane for delivering people and cargo to low earth orbit? It seems like that's what they were going for as much as was possible at the time with the Space Shuttle, but the technology wasn't quite there. Is it just that it's too hard to do still with current technology? Or is there some other reason it doesn't make as much sense as a Space-X style reusable rocket?
The biggest single problem is that as an SSTO craft you're essentially lugging the weight of empty fuel tanks to space at the expense of whatever fuel you might still have left. We'll either need to find a very different kind of super-energy-dense fuel to use, or else find a clever combination of existing tech to beat this problem, but it's definitely not an easy one. Personally, I'm a fan of the orbital ring & launch loop concepts which basically provide the power you need _at launch_ to carry you to orbit & beyond, while leaving your ship fully loaded w/fuel. Then that fuel can be reserved for return, landing, & what have you, but those will take serious improvements in ground-based power to pull off though, I think.