superstition hampering science

Originally posted by humy
That isn't a significant problem unless you are in a big hurry to see a particular part of the sky right now!

There are times when it is useful. A moon based telescope would be incapable of single long exposures beyond a certain timescale as well as making long term, regular observations difficult. There are also times when we do want to observe a particular target as soon as possible.

That is because, within each lunar cycle, because the moon turns on its axis, you would have the opportunity to point it just about anywhere you like.
Actually there would still be blind spots as is a well known fact for earth bound telescopes.

Not necessarily.
If it is a radio telescope, being on the far side of the Moon would mean almost all radio interference from the Earth (except some of the extremely long wavelengths ) would be blocked by the Moon from reaching it.
I thought there were relatively easy ways to block radio waves. But we weren't talking about radio telescopes anyway.

I envisage in the far future, if it is a giant telescope, it can be much more feasibly be built via robots and robot factories on the Moon using processed material mined from the Moon. Out of the many alternatives, I think the alternative of bringing all that material from the Earth into space would be much more problematic although there are alternatives that avoid that.
If you are talking the far far future, then just about anything is possible. But remember that you said that cost was not an object? Certainly in the near term, space telescopes are significantly cheaper than moon based ones. Even in the long term, I honestly don't believe mining moon material and making telescopes out of it will ever be a better alternative to simply doing it here and launching it. The cost of launches are:
1. Making the physical rockets. With reusable rockets that cost goes down. But with fancy robotics capable of making telescopes all by themselves, making rockets would also be possible, so no real costs.
2. Fuel. This can be made relatively easy and the only cost is energy which can be made from solar power. Once we have advanced robotics capable of building telescopes on the moon, we will have already have plenty of power on earth from solar panels. The cost of fuel will be negligible.
3. Employees, launch sites etc. Again, I foresee it costing less to run a launch site than to design robots to mine the moon.

Most star-gazing telescopes aren't for observing Earth.
I know. But why rule it out for no apparent reason? There is no benefit whatsoever in putting it on the far side of the moon rather than the near side. It would even make communications with it harder - for no reason whatsoever?

Originally posted by twhitehead
There is no benefit whatsoever in putting it on the far side of the moon rather than the near side. [/b]

Yes there is:
No interfering glare from the Earth. No telescope reflector can be perfect and there is always a tiny bit of random scattering of light from its surface; esp if some dust gets on it or if it is damaged by micro meteors (which would be a problem only for telescopes exposed to the vacuum of space ). That random scattering would mean, if it is pointing in a direction which allows that glare from the Earth to strike the reflector surface, some of that Earth light would randomly scatter from its surface to the secondary reflector and into the camera and thus add a small bit of unwelcome interference to the star image.

In addition, you could argue that Earth being in view of the telescope would cause a bind spot for it for it cannot see the stars that are behind the Earth relative to the direction of the telescope -not that would matter much if you were in no big hurry to see those stars.

We already got plenty of Earth satellites, mainly weather satellites, giving constant coverage of the view of just about the whole Earth at any point of time so what possible benefit could there be from adding to that an image of the Earth from the Moon which can, after all, only see one side of the Earth at any one time? That would have very little if any value.

Originally posted by humy
Yes there is:
No interfering glare from the Earth.

OK, fair enough. But I still think space based beats moon based by a long shot. One could even have it orbit the moon if the moon between it and the earth is occasionally useful, or if long term is required, stick it at the far Lagrangian point - although I am not actually certain that is in exactly the right place.

Originally posted by twhitehead
There are times when it is useful. A moon based telescope would be incapable of single long exposures beyond a certain timescale as well as making long term, regular observations difficult. There are also times when we do want to observe a particular target as soon as possible.

[b]That is because, within each lunar cycle, because the moon turns on its ...[text shortened]... than the near side. It would even make communications with it harder - for no reason whatsoever?

From a radio-telescopy point of view the far side of the moon is ideal. It's blocked from almost all anthropogenic transmissions (interplanetary satellite broadcasts being the exception) and so they can look at all the other frequencies that aren't available now. It might be cheaper to put a satellite into the Earth-Moon L2 point where it should be in the shadow of most signals of interest (the microwave background, for example, is at around 2mm and won't diffract there), it can make all the radio telescopy observations one could want and not require an actual moon landing or real human beings to be put at risk.

I believe the largest ground telescopes are slightly cheaper than the best space telescopes and offer similar if not better quality - although they are complimentary in many ways.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

What about Muslim astronauts having to figure out which direction to pray? If you are on the ISS and have obsessive need to do this whatever it is, 4 or 5 times a day, you are going to have to be an astronomer with a good program for your lap or phone to figure that one out. How would you physically do it if you are weightless anyway? Velcro on kneepads I guess would hold you down anyway.

Do they get special dispensation to not have the requirement to pray on ISS?

Originally posted by sonhouse
What about Muslim astronauts having to figure out which direction to pray?

Muslims, like Christians can be either very practical or very picky there is a whole range. I would think the type that become astronauts would tend to be the more practical type. The Muslims I have talked to about their rules say that they are expected to make reasonable efforts to observe certain practices / rules, but exceptions are allowed in the case of sickness or when circumstances don't permit.

The real damage to science from religion is usually in politics not withing the scientific community. When unscientific politicians make decisions for scientists or education on religious grounds, that is when the worst damage occurs.