Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Build astronomical observatories on the Moon?

I've been thinking of this for a long time.
SDF — (archived)

The moon is only good as a base if it is cheaper to manufacture things there than to launch it from the Earth. That might be a telescope if it involves gigantic numbers of components, like a big interferometer array of a thousand 3-meter mirrors for planet imaging. Or it might be millions of mirrors for a giant solar powerplant. Obviously it would be cheaper to launch them from the moon than from Earth.

Mostly the justification would be purely cost. I haven't heard anything that, on any conventional scale, would be better to do on the moon rather than Earth. This arguement is kindof like the justification for the ISS, where everyone was saying "There's all kinds of things that are better if they are manufactured in microgravity". We just haven't seen that happen. Maybe it's because it's taken forever to build the ISS, but maybe not, I don't know. I wonder if anyone knows after waiting so long and nothing is happening.

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