Revolutionary 100-Kilometer Space Telescope [NIAC 2023] 

Fraser, you're such a good interviewer! I've been following your channel for several years now, and you never cease to impress with your ability to ask relevant and interesting follow up questions. Thanks for the the consistently high quality content!

I love the idea, and this part from NASA's website really sold it for me: "Failure tolerance: Because of the scale of these constellations, a single spacecraft is no longer mission critical. Not only are failures tolerated, they are expected and built into calculations. This fail fast, fail cheap approach is a drastic departure from traditional practices." Thanks Mary for coming on!!!

Brilliant. This is overdue, we've known for a long time how important our magnetosphere is to life on Earth.

You can also consider using the Lagrange points of multiple planets as opposed to 1, 2 or 3 of Earth alone.

Fantastic idea Very thoughtful concept. Great interview 👍

This is my favorite kind of show. So much to learn from this type of discussion. Thanks for all your hard work!

a HUNDRED KILOMETER telescope?!, I think my heart just skipped a beat..

Sounds like LOFAR, the Low Frequency Array, the new European radio telescope constructed by ASTRON in the Netherlands, operating in the largely unexplored frequency range between 10 and 240 MHz.

Jus tlove interviewees like her. She's brilliant and all her answers are unambiguous and exactly on the topics asked, not less not more.

What a great interview!

Wonderful interview with very interesting questions and clear answers with a very articulate and clearly knowledgeable Dr Mary Knapp. Looking forward to a follow-up with her and what her team is doing. It would be cool if there was a way to utilize some time and array testing using Starlink Satellites, as they're already over 3,000 in orbit, and the communications part of the equation would be essentially done. Elon might get on board. 🤷‍♀

When this is a 3D array in space, it can measure anything within it's capabilities in any direction. Almost in all directions at the same time - but you mentioned it: The bottlenecks are the computational power at the array or nearby - and the transmission rate, the bandwidth to bring that data back to Earth. When they bring back the raw data of each and every antenna in that array, they can do calculations at home on Earth for any object in any direction. But it requires an enormous bandwidth between Earth and this satellite array at L4 or L5 (or both) that is not available. Or let computers in that array in space do the calculations, but the computers there might be small and might be a compromise to bring the computers up to L4 or L5 and they can't be upgraded like on Earth. So the computers in that array (or near that array) would be programmed to calculate the combination of the signals only for specific directions one at a time. And then they send only the result for this one direction (or just a few directions at once) back to Earth. Every other measurements are lost. They cannot be transmitted as raw data to Earth. They need to find a doable compromise, wow, a difficult work to do...

At this point, he has so much general knowledge of various areas of astronomy, he is very well suited for coming up with interested ideas nobody else can see.

Fraser, Great interview on interesting topic. It reminds me of a book I read back in 1960: "Venus Equilateral". IIRC the author was George O,. Smith ( an electrical engineer who worked on radar during WWII). The premise of the book was that knowledge and technology had not progressed from the 1940's but we had found propulsion technology on Mars that allowed us to colonize the inner solar system. It is a bit juvenile, but a great read nonetheless. Also, back in the 1980's, I was giving a lecture at the University of New Mexico and was invited to tour the Very Large Array. Another convolution of modern technology and the Old West. After the VLA was built, they had to tear up all the roads used in its construction for fear of cattle rustlers. Don Ziesig

How amazing is Mary Knapp? She is super cute to me😊 watching her animations when she is excited about the subject she is discussing captivate me. Super cool Ms Knapp keep up the good work! And thank you for the type of work you do it's so important to me and all of us i believe. Crushing hard on Mary Knapp❤😊

This interview is So Freaking Good. 2023 space new slaps.

Loved this interview! The dispersed architecture seems smart for longevity of the array because you can trickle in more elements to replace old ones, and update the instrumentation and data processing to take advantage of new tech, or new missions. It makes so much sense. But I'm also excited to see the local neighborhood in a new wavelength. I expect it to be a bit mind blowing.

Really, really interesting project indeed! 😃 Thanks for the interview, Fraser!!! My only question is about a radio telescope in the far side of the Moon... Couldn't it be built in the same way? (Not using solar power for the operation, of course, but either way...) Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

14:05 - 14:22 As a comsat guy, I'm leery of the difficulty of getting large amounts of data back from large numbers of randomly oriented, "tumbling" satellites, but other than that this sounds like a great idea. =) Given the sheer number of smaller payloads this system would use, it sounds like a payload appropriate to just a launch or three of SpaceX's Starship.

I'm glad Fraser Cain proposed to use both L4 and L5. That would of course be my first thought : I wanna hear those alien radio-talk shows, when they are stuck in the transit around Tau Ceti.

This is perhaps THE MOST exciting projects I've heard of. You absolutely NEVER hear anyone discussing the interstellar Plasma that we know exists, but can't see. The fabric of the Cosmic Web. Within seconds of thinking of my next question, Frasier was asking that exact question like some kind of mind link. With the assumption that many, if not most habitable planets may exist within the halo of Brown Dwarf stars, and are therefore functionality invisible to us, I wonder if this is the technology that could solve this problem. Regardless, I am excited at the prospect of mapping the Cosmic Web and the electromagnetic pathways that link planets, galactic structures, and even galaxies and galactic clusters themselves. We just might learn, as some in the field have been saying for years, that NO object is independent from its environment, and that the reality is much more profound. Such research may reveal that ALL of the visible universe is interconnected, and the electrodynamics of interstellar plasma play a much larger role in the formation and evolution of our universe than the very weak force of gravity. We actually could be a cog in the electromagnetic engine of the entire universe. That would explain a lot and solve what we've been getting wrong about our current models and lead to a tremendous advancement in our knowledge and understanding.

A really interesting interview, thank you both!

Super exciting! Proxima Centauri is within 30 light years. I love that picture: blip... blip... blip... as it hits each planet. And there you go, you gave them a new idea (both LP's).

I really enjoyed this interview with Dr. Knapp. Very informative and insightful!

This was excellent! Thank you.

Wow, that was really good. Great questions, and I loved listening to her answers.

mazing interview, there is so many great people with amazing ideas.

Cheers, thanks a lot!!

Awesome interview!

This is very interesting, thanks for sharing 👍

this is absolutely captivating! ^_^ you both were fantastic (communicating is hard sometimes!! especially w topics such as these😅).thanks for sharing ur insights girlie 😊😊

Hi CHRIS..there is a huge amount of structures and mechanical devices ETC everywhere in this one..great work AGAIN from you man..👍👍

I’m excited to see what comes of this!

Great guest!

This was a really interesting interview. Dr Knapp really knows her stuff. 👍

Way cool interview, again!

Great interview. Exciting time we are in!

Other planets in our solar system have La Grange points as well. Can't we use really efficient but slower orbital insertion methods to send a few big boxes of these cubesats into Martian or even Jovian L4/L5 configurations? This goes back to Grace Hopper's comment-I know what we can do with one big tractor. What can we do with a few thousand small tractors?

I like the idea of using it for high-resolution monitoring of the Sol system that came up from his question about using multiple Lagrange points around the sun

Using two Lagrange points should give you a parallax view.

What an awesome interview, Fraser! It is so great watching another brilliant female scientist with an insight that could change our view of the Universe. Best of luck and insights to you and your team! I will be longing for hearing of and reading about the amazing things you are certain to find.

37:35 Given, that SpaceX already has smallsat factory going, maybe it would make sense to just order from them to do a version with astro modification? Are their argon-ion engines enough for station keeping at Lagrange points?

A satellite at EM4 and / or EM5 with 12, 20 or 30 30cm telescopes mounted on a geodesic frame could be designed to watch the entire sky simultaneously and instantaneously. (Clearly, the more telescopes, the smaller the angle onserved by any one telescope and the higher the total resolution.) Such a system could be designed to fit within a falcon 9 or heavy fairing, or indeed any laucher fairing, depending, so that it could be launched in one shot. Laser telemetry would have the needed bandwidth to send down the data continuously. One could start small with 12 20cm scopes in a dodecahedra pattern and work your way up to 30 1m scopes. Raw data would be placed into an online repository for researchers to reference. Data would need to also include accurate positional data of the spacecraft for astrometry purposes.

The architecture tradeoff might be all of the above which is doable with cubesats and a few larger node SATs which could be data collection/retransmission nodes

With small sensors could they be attached to existing craft (such as starlink) to reduce need for shared sub systems like power and propulsion?

Fraser i have said it before and will continue to feed your ego, best interviewer in the solar system, wouldnt it be cool if you added lagrange to your name as a tribute and possibly lessen the amounts of times you get it explained to you =D

It might be interesting to include this in the Fermi paradox explanation list. Aliens deliberately broadcasting messages at ultra-long radio wavelengths to ensure grabbing the attention of civilizations employing fleets of craft outside their atmospheres working in tandem as radio telescopes.

What about two Smart constellations of cube sats that are semi-autonomous? The 1000's of satellites can be networked together with some type of wireless com system. whether it be Wi-Fi, blue tooth, laser, or even RF. With ion propulsion needing far less fuel source, the individual sats need minimal propulsion for very small corrections to maintain their station within the two constellations at L4 & L5. This could even allow the constellations to expand and shrink and replace malfunctioned or dead sats by cubes maneuvering into the vacated spot within the constellation grid.

Excellent interview. What do you think about the concept of a quantum interferometer telescope?

This telescope should use one of the names from the xkcd list. I think that "The mind-numbingly vast telescope" fits well.

Could a techno-signiture be the use of local beacons for things using low frequency, where mass information transfer and power is not required?

Low frequency tech signature of OUR civilization: 60 Hz alternating current in Western Hemisphere, 50 Hz in Eastern Hemisphere radiating from the continental power grids into space. If ET is using alternating current, which, depending on a time window of how long AC long range transmission tech remains relevant (for us, more than a century and counting and no sign of obsolescence), then that is something to look for. Of course, for ETs, it won't be exactly those freqs, but the range of efficient frequencies would be constrained by engineering considerations. Once magnetospheric or technological planets are LOCATED, they might be a target for more advanced imaging instruments. A problem of the highest resolution instruments is they have a narrow field, and are problematic for FINDING targets to image. You are looking at the sky through a long straw. That problem is resolved if another detection method tells you WHERE TO LOOK.

I was literally thinking about this earlier this month. I work with microscopes. When you go to higher power, you lose a lot of intensity of light; this makes sense as you are taking in less light in that area, so need to adjust accordingly. My thought was- what if our instruments are just not picking up enough EMR to see *other* things, like this scientist is talking about, but in the same frequency even? As in, the brightness of things that we just aren't seeing currently?

I am excited by the idea of an exrateresstial array to detect long waves and find megneto spheres around an exoplanet in the habitable zone of a star

A great idea, investigating this interstella Plasma and the Plasma filliments are essential for deepspace missions alone let alone drawing in the electrical differential from the Sun to charge spaceships, in theory the electrical charge has more potential than solar radiation

It seems like M I T is at the heart of every big breakthrough these days. Hopkins too.

Once you get these hyper long wavelengths, it will be interesting to translate them and compress from redshift into a match to 'human relative aka visible' light. Perhaps we will find that these wavelengths are hyper red shifted images of space older than our model of the age of the universe.

This sounds like a really good idea. I hope she gets all the financial and governmental support she needs.

We've been missing the AM radio transmissions from other planets! OK spend all the money, I want to hear 88.5 from outer space

I had this idea years ago so as to search for power grids of advanced civilizations. No one wanted to build the low-frequency telescope. Not only will they be able to detect magnetospheres but power grids also, if they exist.

A very interesting idea, this astronomical megaconstellation. However, I think it would be an expensive space telescope, since it would probably also require powerful relay satellites to deliver the data to Earth. How far do you have to be out of the earth's magnetic field to be able to measure anything? I could well imagine a Pathfinder mission out of a dozen Cubesats at the L3 or L4 point of the Earth-Moon system.

Maybe they can adapt something of the ELF (3-300 Hertz) submarine communications systems? Everybody has one now. They have to transmit through the ground, then through the sea water, but the submarines can get the signal through some kind of huge antenna. One of my favorite writers had the bad guys using this in a book "Wild Fire" a few decades ago.

Just an editing note.. for us earbud wearers.. I found the subtle background music to be too distracting. Otherwise, nothing but love for this channel ❤

When LIDO first gave us detection of Gravitational Waves, the first thing I ask myself was "What frequency are those waves"? Are they at the same frequency range as earthquakes?

Hi fraiser, If we eventually left earth to find another new planet to live on perhaps carry on travelling to more planets. Would a planet full of water be best (blocks radiation, make fuel oxygen, grow food) if not which planet do you thinks best. Love your channel m8

Would be nice if you put the interviewee's name in the videos title.

I feel like I'm misunderstanding something. How does a collection of observers observe a single photon? Doesn't something have to absorb the photon in order to measure it? Does radio receiving not actually function by absorption, but "just" measuring how local electrons are "influenced" by a "passing" photon?

Any chance we could work with whatever company to make the cube-sats with multipurpose use and get many benefits and share cost/responsibility to perhaps reduce the amount of overall "junk" that goes up and interferes with, well, anything else we send up there? I know, probably wishful thinking and all, but I always love things that perform multiple tasks even if it might be slightly less effective in one specific area. Maybe for future communications as we expand out into the solar system and all. I'm sure someone smart can figure out a solution so it's more of a win-win-win and all that amazing stuff! Let's go BIG!!! (Like, mind-numbing large for any space telescope and just keep the data flowing, even if there is no way to review it all in the next 100 years) 🌌🌠📡🔭🖥️🚀🛸

How cute and interviewee explaining to Fraser Cain the value of Lagrange points

We should launch a few hundred space radiotelescopes into Sun orbits in like a GPS satellite pattern but around the Sun, at say 1.25 AU, and then we'd have a 100 million km telescope. That should give us enough resolution to read the headlines of exo-newspapers, assuming they use magnetic ink. No, seriously.

Consider the charged moon orbiting closest to Jupiter. The moon should act like an antenna that emits a frequency equal to the orbital frequency. But that makes the wavelength billions of miles long

Will this array be able to receive exoplanet TV and Radio?

I'm curious if there's any affect humans have with our tech that causes some interactions with the low frequency magnetosphere. If so, you can use that as a potential metric for detecting life.

This idea can pay off for weak gravitational waves. Nice video.. Good interview & good wishes for both of you.

How would these satellites fail? Would they just randomly fall out of the Lagrange Points over time? Would thousands of defunct satellites at the L4/L5 points cause a problem for other missions? Or, are the Lagrange Points too big for this to be an issue? This is a cool idea. Hope it works out!

wow this guy has good questions

Now imagine sending a message to ET saying... "Could you guys please shut up? We're trying to observe the star system over there!"... 😬

A couple of questions i was left with: what is the shape of the cluster? Is it a ball or a disc or something else? And for backhaul communication, can the cluster also act as a phased-array antennae to form a beam pointed at earth? Then rather than a mothership, can it be more of a self-healing mesh network with distributed parallel data processing?

I think these constellation satellites should have a "Suicide Rocket" to send them to the Sun when faulty or decommissioned. That way the entire L4 could be cleared and replenished as the technology matures. The Sun won't mind the extra mass.

Shes great

FC could have been tongue in cheek right there and said "no need to explain L points to my audience" lol Also I really didn't know Jupiter's mag sphere was bigger than than most stars at certain times but it checks out at some wavelengths! Awesome

We don't know what we will see, but we should open our eyes and look. Mary Krapp is a very interesting guest you should do follow ups with her from time to time and cover other work in her field ✧

#BostonStrong

Wow for exoplanets this seems better than JWST

yeah, data management in space will be a neat problem to have to solve

Why not use a solar wind rudder? Need a maintenance station that can upgrade and refuel. Great test of swarm communications, might be useful for contact with other deep space missions

Since you need very low structural integrity in space, how about building an arecibo style mesh dish in space as a spider like 3D print? with a proper dish you don't need computational coherence which might be nasty. And presumably you could weave quite a large dish in space. Say 10km diameter and wouldn't need to be in lagrange, it could be in high earth orbit. Maybe earth moon L4

The interstellar plasma resulting in diminishing returns is a disappointment. For a while, I've been wondering about the difference between a megameter telescope and a gigameter telescope.

SOooo are you telling us we might be able to listen to some Rock and Roll from Alien worlds? Galactic AM radio.

Who do I contact to find an opportunity to work on this?

Sounds like you need Arecibo in space. This idea is more realistic.

This video is nearly as cool as the new episode of Picard that came out today.

How hard would it be to generate an artificial magnetosphere that's strong enough to protect interstellar spacecraft?

RE: Techno signatures. Should other technos use the equivalent of Project ELF, then possibly this could be detected.

Isn't the Lagrange points causing problems for the James Web space telescope be🎉hit by dust and stuff?

When the humans become less egotistical and “powercentric” they will open the archives in the Vatican and other special holding places of ancient information. They will learn more about their past as well as get clues to which instruments to make and where to locate them to maximize their efforts to discover who they are and where they came from, in all variances of vibration.

So how long before we just start dotting 'all those asteroids' with sensors instead of sending up the whole craft? Yes we need the crafts as well..., just saying 🤷‍♂ Awesome stuff!

Processing satellite data at L4 or L5 limits growth of the data processing device as hardware technologies develops . Also having a central data collection and processing unit at L3 or L4 puts a single point failure out of reach.

Did they inject the observer's eyes with a new protein to be able to see the never seen before wavelengths?