> commercial launch engineers are optimizing for the lucrative satellite business, not larger and higher payloads

Commercial satellites are getting bigger and heavier. Launch that can put big and heavy in LEO can put big and slightly less heavy higher up. Add to that things like in-orbit propellant transfer and there is a good chance astronomy sees a golden age in the coming decades (in countries with space access).

I’m not dismissing the problem. Just this analysis as meriting any conclusions. It’s a start. But it’s only part of a full model of how these changes would affect astronomy.

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Teever an hour ago | parent [-]

I get where you're coming from but we haven't really seen any sort of space based telescope designs that take advantage of the Falcon launch paradigm of cheap and reliable launches.

Some sort of modular telescope array that could be launched in pieces and self-assemble in orbit. Something that improves in capacity as more pieces are added.

Everything seems to have stalled in this field, as if it's just waiting for a Starship which may never come.

	▲	JumpCrisscross an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> we haven't really seen any sort of space based telescope designs We’re only starting to truly mass manufacture satellites. A world with millions of satellites means one with lots of satellite production and design economies of scale. (Same for all manner of sensors and optics.) > as if it's just waiting for a Starship which may never come Or it may. We’ll know in a couple years. Building a scaling production system for Falcon right now would be silly. And if Starship never works out, we probably don’t see millions of satellites. It’s a fundamentally tied problem, which is why I say the analysis is incomplete.