From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4@msn.com)
Date: Fri May 10 2002 - 06:52:55 PDT
ORBITAL TELESCOPE PLATFORM PROPOSED FOR SETI, ASTEROID WATCH DUTIES
>From Space.com, 8 May 2002
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/submillimetron_020508-1.html
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
The International Space Station may be port of call for a free-flying
telescope capable of not only probing the depths of the Universe, but also
listening for the chatter of other civilizations and spotting
Earth-threatening asteroids.
The Submillimetron Project is underway by a team of researchers from Sweden,
Finland and Russia. This new telescope would be home-based at the Russian
segment of the International Space Station (ISS). When periodically docked
to the orbiting outpost, this astronomical tool can be serviced by a crew
and then dispatched to continue its research work.
Designed to operate at super-cold temperatures, the telescope permits
astronomical peeks at the Cosmos in unprecedented wavelengths. The primary
goal is to conduct a submillimeter wave, full sky survey.
Objects of interest by the Submillimetron telescope include the "cold"
components of matter left over from the Big Bang. Furthermore, the
instrument can reveal remote galaxies now unseen by current technology. A
significant majority of detected objects would be luminous, high redshift
galaxies. These objects emit most of their light in the submillimeter range.
High sensitivity of the telescope to cold bodies permits it to detect
asteroids at a distance far beyond Jupiter's orbit. So along with the
Submillimetron Project's astrophysics and cosmology agenda, suggests the
scientific team promoting the telescope, the space-based eye can provide
early warning to Earth of menacing asteroids.
Voice of the sky
The Submillimetron operates at a terahertz waveband, at a boundary between
infrared rays and microwave frequency, explained Vladimir Gromov, an
astronomer at the Astro Space Center in Moscow, one of the organizations
working on the concept.
Playing the role of a supersensitive "ear", the telescope also makes use of
supersensitive arrays and radio electronics. These can hear the "voice of
the sky at a new bandwidth", and are capable of eavesdropping on an
extraterrestrial civilization.
"With the help of this device [the Submillimetron], the astronomers and
physicists will be able to answer the questions they are not even thinking
about yet. Probably, they will hear the voice of an extraterrestrial
civilization. Or perhaps they will discover something absolutely new, for
instance, a type of substance previously unknown," explains a release on the
project.
Gromov told SPACE.com that the Submillimetron is specially intended to look
for objects billions of light years distant from Earth. "The goal is to
detect more than a million such objects," he said.
No space, ground-based or balloon instruments planned for this decade can
fulfill the task feasible with the Submillimetron, claim supporters of the
project.
Using the telescope to look for other star folk is a task readily handled by
the Submillimetron.
Gromov said that the telescope could detect so-called Dyson Spheres, a
manifestation of a developed civilization. "No real need for some
civilization to send informative signals through space. But any civilization
must consume energy and, as a result, dissipates heat, and therefore
generates infrared radiation," he said.
Nobody knows the spectrum of Dyson Sphere radiation, Gromov said. "Probably
it's absolutely different from that of other astronomical objects. We plan
to analyze detected sources of this subject," he added.
Sight and sound chores
"It has been approved for flight to the Russian segment," Gromov said, but
gaining the financial wherewithal to keep scientific instruments for the
telescope moving forward is an issue.
The Russian Academy of Sciences supports bringing the project to fruition. A
feasibility study of the Submillimetron was undertaken by the S.P. Korolev
Rocket Space Corporation Energia, and approved by the Russian Space Agency
for flight to the ISS after the 2004-2005 time period.
A preliminary estimate of building the scientific space platform (SSP),
replete with the Submillimetron, is less than $150 million.
The free-flying SSP is based on a modified Russian Progress cargo craft.
First, the SSP-carried Submillimetron would be lofted and docked to the
International Space Station. An ISS crew could final check the equipment
prior to release.
Set loose, the platform-carried telescope would be maneuvered far away from
the space station, perhaps to a higher orbit. Once the telescope is in
position, super-cold liquid helium is used to chill sky-scanning equipment,
thereby increasing the sensitivity of the Submillimetron's telescopic gear.
At mission end -- which could be years in the making -- the platform is
brought back to the space station. After redocking to the ISS, the scope's
instruments undergo a Hubble Space Telescope-like maintenance job. Thus,
replacement of old equipment with new technology is made feasible. There is
significant volume onboard the SSP for it to carry a bevy of other studies.
Another goal of the project is to provide a test bed for a variety of
technological experiments, to help seed the development of follow-on
projects.
Once checked-out and its cryogen topped off, the Submillimetron is
re-launched from the ISS - picking-up where its sight and sound chores last
left off.
Valery Altunin, a researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in
Pasadena, California, said the proposed telescope offers good science, as
well as helping in other, "political" issues. "There are not too many
astronomy experiments yet proposed to be deployed on the ISS," he said.
The projected sensitivity of the space telescope assumes the use of new type
of sensors. "Although a lot of work was done, this new technology is not
mature yet," Altunin said. Moving the Submillimetron project ahead needs
strong partnerships with scientists from multiple nations, including the
United States.
"The overall assessment is that the project may succeed...but it is a long
road to success," Altunin said.
Copyright 2002, Space.com
(5) HOW NOT TO WORRY ABOUT EXPLODING STARS & MASS EXTINCTIONS
>From http://www.hotbitscafe.com/go/maitreya/hp-type.html
Type I, II, III Civilizations
An excerpt from the book of Michio Kaku: Visions : How Science Will
Revolutionize the 21st Century (1998)
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