[perilunar]

This is such an incredibly short-sighted view from astronomers. The same tech that is going to enable SpaceX to launch thousands of satellites is exactly what will enable (and fund) the expansion of humans into space — which will be more of a boon to astronomy in the long term than any number of large ground-based telescopes.

I'm perfectly happy to permanently screw over ground-based astronomy if that's what it take to get us into space.

Just build the damn telescopes in space. And stop thinking single-mirror scopes like Hubble — you could build huge multiple-segment mirrors in space — much bigger than anything on earth.