Let me ask you then. Where are the telescope(s) blueprints? Does it exist even in plans? Is it sanctionned by the astrophysics/astronomy community? Were they involved in this presentation? If you only answer 1 “no” then you know that this is all hmm paper-telescope as much as Ares V was a paper rocket. Feel good kind of stuff put quickly together to try and save a doomed program. I read a lot of “would” in the text. They can come up with how many astronauts and EVAs would be required for a non existing telescope???

Maybe I am wrong, am I ?

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2010/01/manned-mission-to-construct-huge-geo-and-deep-space-telescopes-proposed/

The study that was already completed at NASA mentioned the use of Ares V launchers to assemble those scopes. I’m no major tom and I haven’t done an analysis myself. Maybe I should!

Perhaps we’re not in a cold war with china, but then why are they building hypersonic missiles to destroy our aircraft carriers?

I don’t think its the national security concerns that keep the nukes off the spaceship. Its the complexity and radiation problems. There is also a stigma about nukes that make them unpopular for civilian tech, but antimatter catalyzed reactions aren’t so dangerous. antimatter isn’t radioactive and either is hydrogen. Deuterium is nasty, but would be present in much smaller amounts if you can nix the uranium. We’re in the radio-active days of nukes in which an accident would be much more deadly.

I could not care less about China in that matter. Why would you? I am tired of the Cold War mentality, we should focus on more pressing matter at hands.

Heavy mirrors might require an HLV but do you know for sure the requirements for such HLV? Did you run an anlysis? Do you know that Ares or any SD_HLV would work? Okay then. Heavy is not all that counts, size matters as well. And more. But if the cost of developing, building and launching an HLV is vastly superior to that of even building the telescope then what do you think would happen? What should happen?

How would you feel if Beijing had a bomb that could unleash 20 megatons in a capsule the size of a hand grenade?

And

Heavy mirrors for exoplanet discoveries require a heavy launchers unless they make those mirrors in very small segments, which would require more assembly. I’ll leave it to NASA engineers to decide what is the better way to go. Your right, I shouldn’t be presuming requirements for an HLV for such hardware, but mirrors are heavy aren’t they? Or could they use mylar? I don’t think so.

Maybe, just maybe, we are talking past each other. Could be my fault. I am not saying, quite the contrary, that DOE may not have some real exotic stuff for exploration. I am all in favor of cross pollination. BUT if those technologies are of national security concerns they may never see the light of day in a civilian exploration program.

But where I get all “worked up” if you will is when people mention Shuttle derived anything as the solution to anything. It is not, never was and never will be. Requirements dictate your LV not the other way around. OR you’d have to accomodate for what you get, which was not the Constellation way.

If I were King (lovely thought), I would forget about the nano bacteria and just build an Ares V or Shuttle derived HLV to get those heavy mirrors to the Lagrange points, and spend the rest of the money at the DOE/Airforce on ICF and Antimatter. Of course the cosmic rays must be brutal, especially out side the heliopause, so keep the Space Station up indefinitely, or until we figure out the radiation problems, and tug some water over to ISS from those comets. Then give the rest to Musk. Poor little nano bacteria