The Large Space Telescope program.

Abstract

The 1980's should see the establishment of the first major observatory in space. This observatory will contain a long-lifetime reflecting telescope of about 120 inches clear aperture. Advantages of an orbiting telescope include the elimination of astronomical seeing effects and improvements in resolving power. The small images and darker sky will permit low-dispersion spectrographs to avoid more of the contaminating background. The crispness of the images also has potential for very efficient high-dispersion spectroscopy. A further advantage lies in the accessibility of all the sky and nearly around-the-clock observing.