The resolution of JWST is about 0.1 arcseconds. At 4 lightyears, that means it can resolve only objects larger than about 0.17 AU in diameter. So the difference between this planet on one side of its orbit around Proxima and the other would be less than one pixel in a JWST image. To directly resolve this world, you'd need an optical interferometer with a 25 km baseline. The best we currently have is a 300m baseline.
Across the high frontier: a Big Gemini space TL
- Thread starter Archibald
- Start date
Thanks for info, e of pi
Is there any agency planning an optical interferometer with a 25 km baseline ?
Archibald
Banned
What we need is Darwin (ESA) or Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF). I never understood why these projects were stopped in 2007
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(spacecraft)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial_Planet_Finder
And even more ambitious, Antoine Labeyrie hypertelescope(s)
https://www.college-de-france.fr/media/antoine-labeyrie/UPL23916_q5.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(spacecraft)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial_Planet_Finder
And even more ambitious, Antoine Labeyrie hypertelescope(s)
https://www.college-de-france.fr/media/antoine-labeyrie/UPL23916_q5.pdf
No. There's not even one planned in the range of 1 km. There's a limit on how much error there can be in the timing of data arriving from the separated instruments, related to the wavelength of the signals being integrated. Since radio wavelengths are three to six orders of magnitude longer, they're a lot easier to integrate over hundreds or thousands of km, while optical struggles to even get 300m. Beyond that, the phase data from multiple units can't be timed to arrive correctly for integration. Is it unsolvable? No, I don't think so. But it's a technical challenge on the level of the leap from monolithic to segmented mirrors with adaptive optics for telescopes--one which can't just be solved by writing a check, but which takes research and development and painful experimentation.
Both have baselines not much larger than current planet-side interferometers. And while the Labeyrie concept is interesting, I'm not sure it's proposal for a 150 km diameter array of free-flying telescopes acting as an interferometer is anything more than a sketch when it comes to the actual technical challenges of integrating the data.
Archibald
Banned
Who needs a 6.5 m diameter Webb telescope when the Large Deployable Reflector is three times as big ? http://opticalengineering.spiedigitallibrary.org/article.aspx?articleid=1222558
Considering that JWST already cost $8b, probably those of us with budgets?
CHAPTER 4
Archibald
Banned
Part I
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/explorers-ad-astra.366697/
Part II
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/explorers-ad-astra.366697/page-3#post-11382151
Part III
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/explorers-ad-astra.366697/page-6#post-11510915
Onwards to Part IV, the longuest in the story !
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/explorers-ad-astra.366697/
Part II
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/explorers-ad-astra.366697/page-3#post-11382151
Part III
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/explorers-ad-astra.366697/page-6#post-11510915
Onwards to Part IV, the longuest in the story !
Last edited:
I updated the Wiki page on new Parts structure
http://wiki.alternatehistory.com/doku.php?id=timelines:explorers_ad_astra
http://wiki.alternatehistory.com/doku.php?id=timelines:explorers_ad_astra
Supposedly, there's an exoplanet imaging mission that's in NASA's long-term plans (at least, that's what I heard at the NExSS workshop last month), though there's no timeline or set design attached to it yet.
Archibald
Banned
What a strange signature. Carl Sagan has some cameos ITTL
I looked at ESA unmanned since projects of the 70's and hoped the lack of Spacelab would free funding for more ambitious unmanned spaceflight missions. Well, it appears that IOTL Spacelab-related science missions (mostly astronomy) quickly died in infancy - none survived past 1977.
It is pretty hard to come with a better ESA unmanned spaceflight program even without the shuttle or Spacelab.
There are heavyweight missions that can't be changed easily.
- NASA/ ESA Out of the Ecliptic mission (later cancelled)
- ESA participation in Hubble
- Giotto
- Hipparcos
- ISO (infrared telescope)
Last edited:
Not funny. Not the end of the world, but I started the day with a loud "Damm!" SpaceX is one of the few programs that give me a glimpse a hope in todays spaceflight.
Seems the Lox tank again...
This time some were at liquid oxygen Fueling system happen a explosion
This time some were at liquid oxygen Fueling system happen a explosion
Space station Liberty (1)
Archibald
Banned
Back to business !
Saturn V Apollo 17 terrific launch movie
(at 2:40 listen to the happy guy shouting "OH MY GOD" before the Saturn V crush the soundtrack with its enormous noise)
The soundtrack that fit it like a glove
"Smoke on the water, and fire in the sky..."
(Deep Purple)
...
November 14, 1979*
"One minute it was Florida night, with doors closed, windows locked, the streets lights on, children sleeping in their beds, tired and drunk and rejoiced party goers returning their homes, police cars patrolling the empty streets.
And then a kind of shock wave crossed the small town. A moving pillar of light illuminated the sky, casting shadows like an artificial sun; it seemed as if someone had turned the day on. The earth pulsed among the cottages and bushes and children. The darkness receded, then briefly vanished. The doors flew open. The windows flew up. The children and parents rushed out to see what happened. Cars stopped, their lights off. People gathered on green lawns, all pointing their fingers to a point of the sky, blazing yellow-white.
Rocket daylight.
The words passed among the people in the open, airing houses.
Rocket daylight.
The rocket light illuminated the windows from outside, erasing the night and sleep, the light poles and laps suddenly useless. The stars that usually shone in the sky over the town lost their glare.
Rocket daylight.
People leaned from their dripping porches and watched the yellowing sky.
The Saturn took off in the winter night, shaking earth with every breath of its mighty exhausts; it rushed out of its launch gantry, blowing out an immense, half-a-mile long tong of fire. The Saturn turned the night into the day, and for a brief moment it was as if a man-made earthquake shook the whole Florida peninsula, and beyond..."
(Ray Bradbury impression over Apollo 17 night launch in 1972 - adapted from his own 1947 fictional short story - Rocket Summer set in the Martian Chronicles universe)
(* the exact day my girlfriend was born - to you, darling)
Saturn V Apollo 17 terrific launch movie
(at 2:40 listen to the happy guy shouting "OH MY GOD" before the Saturn V crush the soundtrack with its enormous noise)
The soundtrack that fit it like a glove
"Smoke on the water, and fire in the sky..."
(Deep Purple)
...
November 14, 1979*
"One minute it was Florida night, with doors closed, windows locked, the streets lights on, children sleeping in their beds, tired and drunk and rejoiced party goers returning their homes, police cars patrolling the empty streets.
And then a kind of shock wave crossed the small town. A moving pillar of light illuminated the sky, casting shadows like an artificial sun; it seemed as if someone had turned the day on. The earth pulsed among the cottages and bushes and children. The darkness receded, then briefly vanished. The doors flew open. The windows flew up. The children and parents rushed out to see what happened. Cars stopped, their lights off. People gathered on green lawns, all pointing their fingers to a point of the sky, blazing yellow-white.
Rocket daylight.
The words passed among the people in the open, airing houses.
Rocket daylight.
The rocket light illuminated the windows from outside, erasing the night and sleep, the light poles and laps suddenly useless. The stars that usually shone in the sky over the town lost their glare.
Rocket daylight.
People leaned from their dripping porches and watched the yellowing sky.
The Saturn took off in the winter night, shaking earth with every breath of its mighty exhausts; it rushed out of its launch gantry, blowing out an immense, half-a-mile long tong of fire. The Saturn turned the night into the day, and for a brief moment it was as if a man-made earthquake shook the whole Florida peninsula, and beyond..."
(Ray Bradbury impression over Apollo 17 night launch in 1972 - adapted from his own 1947 fictional short story - Rocket Summer set in the Martian Chronicles universe)
(* the exact day my girlfriend was born - to you, darling)
Space station Liberty (2)
Archibald
Banned
October 12, 1979
Music: AC/DC, Welcome to the Jungle
The astronaut was looking into the eye of a monster - from above. Space station Enterprise was sailing over the Pacific, most exactly over an immense storm which size, even from orbit 200 miles high, boggled the mind. Typhoon Tip was, by itself, as large as half of the United States; a 1400 miles wide hurricane, the largest ever seen. The most striking feature was the storm colour, a pure white. He shivered. Somewhere in the inferno below he knew that a crew from the Air Force hurricane hunters - the 54th Weather squadron, flying modified Hercules military transports - was trying to penetrate the storm eye. The eye: he could see it as a remote grey spot, an oasis of quietness rounded with 200 miles per hour winds. It was like some monster devouring the planet below; it was as if Enterprise was going to be sucked into hell.
Far above his head, somewhere in their polar orbits the militay and civilian weather satellites were capturing data. Enterprise for its part was in a less favourable orbit, although Tip size was such there would be a reasonable number of overflights. Enterprise featured Seasat spare synthetic apperture radar and a powerful multispectral camera. That, and the handheld Hasselblads - he already had superb shots of the storm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Tip
Music: AC/DC, Welcome to the Jungle
The astronaut was looking into the eye of a monster - from above. Space station Enterprise was sailing over the Pacific, most exactly over an immense storm which size, even from orbit 200 miles high, boggled the mind. Typhoon Tip was, by itself, as large as half of the United States; a 1400 miles wide hurricane, the largest ever seen. The most striking feature was the storm colour, a pure white. He shivered. Somewhere in the inferno below he knew that a crew from the Air Force hurricane hunters - the 54th Weather squadron, flying modified Hercules military transports - was trying to penetrate the storm eye. The eye: he could see it as a remote grey spot, an oasis of quietness rounded with 200 miles per hour winds. It was like some monster devouring the planet below; it was as if Enterprise was going to be sucked into hell.
Far above his head, somewhere in their polar orbits the militay and civilian weather satellites were capturing data. Enterprise for its part was in a less favourable orbit, although Tip size was such there would be a reasonable number of overflights. Enterprise featured Seasat spare synthetic apperture radar and a powerful multispectral camera. That, and the handheld Hasselblads - he already had superb shots of the storm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Tip
Archibald
Banned
Yes, definitively. I did a lot of research for the TL. Reading from the ISS I realized a space station is a pretty good place to observe Earth. I researched some OTL geological and weather events (things that won't be changed by a different space program, obviously) and connected them to space station Liberty. Typhoon Tip was one of them.
And there will be another one like this within the next updates (hint: a volcano to erupt by June 1980. Guess which ?)
And there will be another one like this within the next updates (hint: a volcano to erupt by June 1980. Guess which ?)