indeed, I hope this will boost our efforts to launch second generation planet finder after Kepler loses it's ability to maintain the direction of vision. So that we could have direct measurements of near by planets. There are currently no ongoing projects, however space exploration might get very soon cheeper.
SpaceX has already accomplished one order of magnitude decrease in launch costs due to new manufacturing methods that ongoing third industrial revolution has already brought. Digital manufacturing might advance still of that what SpaceX currently utilises and this would translate into further lowering of costs of manufacturing rockets. Therefore I would think that Antoine Labeyrie's idea could be economically feasible. Of course it will still cost big, but the pay-off would be huge! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertelescope#Labeyrie.27s_hypertelescope ―Jouni On Oct 18, 2012, at 12:59 AM, Patrick Ellul <[email protected]> wrote: > that is so close to us, astronomically speaking! > > On Thu, Oct 18, 2012 at 5:11 AM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: >> They're finding planets everywhere! See: >> >> http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/lava-world-orbits-nearby-star/2012/10/16/cc75de44-17db-11e2-a55c-39408fbe6a4b_story.html >
