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Still, space based telescopes will probably not be able to compete with ground based (mega)projects for at least a decade, if not many

Operations and maintenance costs will still be much higher even if the hardware and deployment would become equally affordable

[fastball]

A constellation of low (relative) cost telescopes can definitely compete with a huge terrestrial telescope. Genuinely doubt it will take us a decade to get one.

Someone just needs to take a page from SpaceX's Starlink playbook and mass-produce telescope satellites. Or someone should pay SpaceX to do it.