Concept/Idea: KSA Telescope Programme

[Kavaeric]

I was thinking of a type of spaceship programme/mod/something where you can launch space faring telescopes and take pictures. Of um. Stuff.

Beared with the terrible handwriting? Great. Here's the idea:

To build a telescope, all you do is pick an aperture part, body lenses part and an instrument module, piece 'em together like an engine and bam! Your telescope. The components will have different specifications which will contribute differently to the overall performance. Larger telescopes will obviously be more powerful than smaller ones. Stacking a bunch of body parts will increase the telescope's power. More powerful versions of the instrument modules multiply the performance, rather than simply add.

The telescope in operation will produce a steady stream of Science that it'll beam down towards Kerbin. The amount of science is based on where you're aiming your telescope at and its size and power. Low power telescopes get more science out of taking photos of planets and moons in the Kerbol system, while higher power telescopes gain more science out of, uh, photographing deep space (aim it at something not a planet or moon in the Kerbol system). Free science! Yay!

But hold on, there's a catch. It's a telescope. A space telescope. What do space telescopes have? They have sensitive optical parts.

You can't just piece together a massive space camera, pop it on top of a thousand Griffon XX thrusters and blast it off at full power. The inner workings of the telescope are highly vunerable. Exposure to forces barely over those experienced during launch will cause the telescope to be damaged, and its performance and thus science output will drop drastically. Exposure to atmospheric drag to the slightest degree can damage the front aperture outer glass shield. Even if you have it out in space doing nothing, eventually it will succumb to the (very very) slow damage of micrometeoroid impacts. Can you fix it, though? Hell yeah you can. All you need is a brave kerbonaut, a good controllable rocket (as if there are any) and the cash on hand for the cure. Just get Mr. Bob "The Builder" Kerman to perform a happy EVA spacewalk repair mission on the damaged component(s) and, assuming you did it right, the telescope will be working perfectly.

Anyway, that's my idea. I dunno if anyone came up with it, but here's my take on the idea of space telescopes in KSP!!

[MC.STEEL]

Nice doodles.Unfortunately i cant really say anything more other than how this has been suggested a lot before.

[Kavaeric]

oh

well

damn