NASA funds study on SpaceX BFR as option for massive space telescope launch

[Flyaway]

After JWST what could possibly go wrong. Actually you’d hope they’d learn from the JWST for any future similar telescope.

Speaking at the Exoplanets II conference in Cambridge, UK July 6th, geophysicist and exoplanet hunter Dr. Debra Fischer briefly revealed that NASA had funded a study that would examine SpaceX’s next-gen BFR rocket as an option for launching LUVOIR, a massive space telescope expected to take the reigns of exoplanet research in the 2030s.

https://www.teslarati.com/nasa-spacex-bfr-study-space-telescope-luvoir/

 

[sferrin]

Because doing something as complex as JWST, for the first time, is easy right?

 

[Byeman]

Actually you’d hope they’d learn from the JWST for any future similar telescope.

Learn what?

Please inform us less knowledgable on what could be learned from JWST? And please leave out the urban and myths of the uninformed.

 

[Flyaway]

Actually you’d hope they’d learn from the JWST for any future similar telescope.

Learn what?

Please inform us less knowledgable on what could be learned from JWST? And please leave out the urban and myths of the uninformed.

Well the fact that LUVOIR is JWST’s big brother. Half the issue with the JWST is the fact that it has been pioneering a whole host of cutting edge technologies. That means that hopefully that when it comes to LUVOIR things will be easier a second time around.

 

[Byeman]

duplicate

 

[Byeman]

Well the fact that LUVOIR is JWST’s big brother. Half the issue with the JWST is the fact that it has been pioneering a whole host of cutting edge technologies. That means that hopefully that when it comes to LUVOIR things will be easier a second time around.

Those technologies have nothing to do with LUVOIR. Most of JWST cutting edge technologies have to do with viewing the IR spectrum and not the telescope design

 

[Archibald]

To be fully honest: so far BFR/BFS is unproven, and mostly a paper project. Meanwhile NASA spent a crapload on money of JWST, WFIRST is threatened, so LUVOIR won't happen for a loooooong time.

Then, if BFR/BFS ever lives to its promises, it could indeed lower the cost of launch, including for science payloads. It would be a welcome news, as NASA science budget is stretched thin, not only because current space launch is expensive, but also for many other reasons. One of them is that space telescopes and observatories are becoming more and more complex, and more and more expensive. whatever the launcher, LUVOIR is so huge, it will be insanely expensive, billions and billions (to spoof Carson and Sagan).

I would say that NASA is cautious about spaceX, they go the opportunistic, pragmatic way. "Let's see where that Musk go, if that BFS/BFS ever flies, and lives to his promises, good. It is fails, forget it. Paper studies of LUVOIR on BFR/BFSS don't cost much."

 

[FighterJock]

Just found NASA's official LUVOIR site through a Google search. I thought it might be of interest.

https://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/luvoir/