Arecibo is getting decommissioned

[CloudWatcher]

12. Radio telescope on the far side

A radio telescope on the far side of the moon makes enormous sense because the moon would block almost all of the man-made radio signals that pollute observations from Earth-based telescopes.

And now that everyone and their cousins are putting up hundreds of communications satellites in low-earth orbit (for internet access from anywhere), the situation is going from bad to ridiculous.

From https://astrobites.org/2020/09/25/leosats/

Across the next decade, numerous private industry companies (including SpaceX, Kuiper Systems by Amazon, Samsung, and Boeing) each plan to launch between several hundred and several thousand satellites into “low Earth orbits” (LEO).

And if that wasn't enough reason, a radio telescope on the moon (or in space) would also allow observations at frequencies below 30MHz ... which are reflected by the Earth's ionosphere, essentially blocking ground-based scopes from working.

A couple links ...

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2020_Phase_I_Phase_II/lunar_crater_radio_telescope/

https://bgr.com/2020/04/09/moon-crater-telescope-nasa-concept/



I think sending people to Mars is nuts (because of the radiation problems), but building a scope on moon is a great idea