>>12248097First Hubble is the only one of its kinds. We have instruments in orbit but they have specialized uses as does Hubble. For example we have a special probe that only observes the sun. Point Hubble qt the son and it’ll fry the optics. If they wanted to do it fast I bet they could do it 10-30 times faster. But we take it slow and steady. We can’t just take some of the best minds off of things that they are currently working on to take on another project. Plus there are things like funding and many many reviews and feasibility studies by many experts from NASA or ESA before anyone starts building anything. This stuff doesn’t happen over night. Also when we launched Hubble shit was messed up and we had to send astronauts to fix it, twice I think. Before we could use it. Hubble is kind of on its last legs but expected to last until 2030 or so. I believe they said in 2021 or 2022 your pic related will go up in space so that’s going to welcoming. I think that design looks really wack but the capabilities will allow us to see farther than Hubble could theoretically. Why not just scale up Hubble?
Also I think Hubble has like all but 2 of its maneuvering thrusters (out of compressed air whatever) so as soon as possible those stop working we can’t point Hubble at anything and then it won’t be able to correct itself and fall and burn up in the atmosphere. Hubble is unironically a really based because we learned a ton from the data it gave us and it also showed us it’s limitations so I his new one and the ones after it will have accounted for that. I look forward to seeing what new pics this will bring but NASA or whoever else will sit on the data before releasing it in sections every 1 or 2 years like they do with all their other instruments.
I think the statistical nature of these observations are fascinating. I read one thing that for 5 months straight it will look at each portion in 90 second intervals before moving to the next.
