[extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble

[Robert J. Bradbury]

On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> I doubt the feds would go for this. Supposedly a few of the more recent
> KH spy sats have extremely similar architecture to the Hubble. If a
> Hubble can image a galaxy 13 billion light years away, think about what
> one with slightly different optics can see here on earth.

Perhaps true, but the sales contract could prohibit pointing the telescope
toward the Earth.  It would be rather easy for astronomers to detect the
use of the telescope for such purposes simply by looking at the schedule
for observations.  In addition, I would suspect some combination of optical,
radar and laser reflections from the scope could easily tell whether
the prohibitions are being violated.  "They" can look down but we can
also look up.

Robert