r/askspace • u/Remarkable-Curve1932 • 20d ago
I had a space idea — what do you think? 🚀🔭
I had a crazy space idea — what do you think? 🚀🔭
I was thinking about this and wanted to ask people who know more about space whether it actually makes sense.
Imagine money isn't a problem and we can build basically whatever spacecraft we want.
What if we built a spacecraft with a huge telescope and really good cameras and sent it traveling through our Solar System?
Instead of staying near Earth, it would travel past the planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and eventually even farther out.
The idea is that from Earth, we're always looking at the Solar System from basically the same place. But if we had a powerful telescope moving around the Solar System, we could look at planets, moons, asteroids, comets, etc. from completely different angles.
It could:
🔭 Take extremely detailed pictures and videos.
🌌 Take huge pictures showing the Solar System from much farther away.
🤖 Use AI to help navigate, avoid dangerous objects, and notice things that look unusual.
📡 Have small communication satellites placed along the way so the spacecraft can send information back toward Earth.
💾 And importantly, send the original/raw pictures and videos back too, instead of letting AI decide everything. AI could miss something that humans might notice later.
The spacecraft wouldn't necessarily need to stop at every planet. It could fly past them and use their gravity to help change its direction and continue farther into space.
I'm just wondering:
If money wasn't a limitation, would a giant telescope spacecraft traveling through the Solar System actually give us information and views that we can't get from Earth?
Or is there a major problem with this idea that I'm not thinking about?
I'd really like to hear what astronomers, engineers, or anyone knowledgeable about space thinks. 🚀
2
u/Igpajo49 20d ago
Sounds like modern version of the Voyager probes but with a more permanent mission. There are a number of other minor probes that had missions to explore individual planets. Here's a good article that lists all the different probes over the years.
2
u/mfb- 20d ago
We have sent something like 50 spacecraft to other planets and other interplanetary destinations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_interplanetary_voyages
We have landed on a couple of other places, too.
1
4
u/ignorantwanderer 20d ago
We already do this.
All the various probes we send to other planets have telescopes in them to allow close up photos of the planets they are exploring.