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Perhaps, because of all the moving parts. How big is Starship though? I don't expect a telescope bigger than JWST could go up completely unfolded and expect to be perfectly resilient to launch forces. In addition, even if we had the option of a solid mirror, manufacturing such a massive mirror to perfect smoothness would be a feat. Piecemeal mirrors are probably easier in some ways because if one section is flawed, it can be replaced.


A Google search reveals: Starship has an 8 meter internal diameter. The Hubble mirror was 2.4 meters. The largest ground telescopes with a single mirror are somewhat over 8 meters in diameter. Though these don't have to withstand a rocket launch. JWST has a 6.5 meter segmented mirror with 1.3 meter per segment. It was folded up to fit into the Ariane 5 fairing.




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