Russian scientists are jubilant at news that the Spektr-R, a powerful space telescope conceived in the depths of the cold war, was finally lofted into orbit aboard a Zenit rocket Monday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Once it is fully operational, the new radio telescope will sync up with ground-based observatories to form the biggest telescope ever built. It will be known as RadioAstron, with a "dish" spanning 30 times the Earth's diameter. Experts say it will be able to deliver images from the remote corners of the universe at 10,000 times the resolution of the US Hubble Space Telescope.
"We've been waiting for this day for such a long time," says Nikolai Podorvanyuk, a researcher at the official Institute of Astronomy in Moscow.
Imagine a telescope with 10,000 times the resolution of the Hubble. Well, the Russians just did it. Meanwhile, Obama has effectively scuttled what's left of the US manned space program, and the US successor to Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, appears to be dead in the water. This is a national catastrophe, IMO. To read the rest of the article, click here.