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arXiv 1608.01004astro-ph.IMastro-ph.EP
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太空资源能为天文学和行星科学做些什么?

What can Space Resources do for Astronomy and Planetary Science?

Martin Elvis

摘要:

旗舰空间飞行任务的成本迅速增长,给天文学和行星科学造成了危机。我们遇到了资金瓶颈。在过去的30年里,科学家们不必过多考虑航天技术在他们的计划范围内会发生什么变化。然而,这一次空间基础设施能力的巨大改善,特别是大型空间望远镜20年的酝酿期可能会带来成本的巨大改善。到21世纪20年代初,商业太空将大大降低发射和航天器的成本,实现具有成本效益的在轨服务,廉价的月球着陆器和行星际立方体卫星。旗舰产品上市率翻倍并非不可能。在更长的时间尺度上,它将使大型结构能够在太空中组装和建造。这些发展将改变我们计划和设计任务的方式。

英文摘要:

The rapid cost growth of flagship space missions has created a crisis for astronomy and planetary science. We have hit the funding wall. For the past 3 decades scientists have not had to think much about how space technology would change within their planning horizon. However, this time around enormous improvements in space infrastructure capabilities and, especially, costs are likely on the 20-year gestation periods for large space telescopes. Commercial space will lower launch and spacecraft costs substantially, enable cost-effective on-orbit servicing, cheap lunar landers and interplanetary cubesats by the early 2020s. A doubling of flagship launch rates is not implausible. On a longer timescale it will enable large structures to be assembled and constructed in space. These developments will change how we plan and design missions.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

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