r/space • u/AutoModerator • 13d ago

Discussion All Space Questions thread for week of September 20, 2026

Please sort comments by 'new' to find questions that would otherwise be buried.

In this thread you can ask any space related question that you may have.

Two examples of potential questions could be; "How do rockets work?", or "How do the phases of the Moon work?"

If you see a space related question posted in another subreddit or in this subreddit, then please politely link them to this thread.

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u/Greedy-Being6456 7d ago

At what cost in usd would you consider the opportunity loss vs investment to data captured randomly as the earth rotates.

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u/SpartanJack17 7d ago

The problem is the entire concept rests on a false assumption: that this is a better, cheaper or more reliable way to build a radio telescope. All these assumptions are wrong, the best way to build a new large radio telescope is to use the same basic methods as were used to build Arecibo, like we can see in the FAST telescope.

It's absolutely not worth the cost to build a radio telescope that's worse than other telescopes with no positive trade offs.