Re: New 10" Newtonian Telescope Being Created

From: Jon Isaacs (jonisaacs_at_aol.com)
Date: 01/12/05 

Date: 12 Jan 2005 12:47:25 GMT

>
>The PRC is producing most of the telescope products these days. Notice,
>however, that they copy and imitate the innovations and the styles that
>have been produced in the West. That is, in the Capitalist nations by
>private inventors, engineers, designers, stylists and other innovators and
>wealth creators. The PRC is less interested in the consumer than he is in
>the innovations that can be stolen or imitated. Socialism imitates western
>capitalism.

If think if you look historically at the amateur telescope manufacture in the
PRC, you will see that actually much of the design and production work of the
Asian scopes has not been stolen by the Asians from the west, rather it has
been done in conjuction with design and help from capitalists in the west.

I might point out too that in the field of Amateur telescopes, one of the most
revolutionary designs of the last 30 years has been the Dobsonian, a clever
combination of simplist design that makes large scopes not only affordable but
transportable and useable.

30 years ago the idea that a 22 inch Telescope could be transported in a
compact car was unthinkable and yet today its "no problem." It has been truly
a revolution...

The inventor, John Dobson, has fame but no fortune because his goal was not to
make money but rather to get folks looking at the sky. Others have obviously
made big money from what he started but he has also achieved his goal in
spades.

-----

It is my understanding that the first bicycle factories that produced western
style bicycles in Taiwan and/or China were setup by Schwinn. Unfortunately for
Schwinn, they had a poor understanding of the marketplace and there were other
folks in the US who did understand it, they went to China/Taiwan and put
Schwinn out of business, twice. They were bit by their own dog...

Others have asked you various questions.

The one I ask is:

Do you feel you understand the telescope market place well enough to know what
it is that makes one set of design parameters superior to another? There are
lots of inventions out there but only a very few are successful. A successful
invention not only has to be something new, it has to address a real problem in
a way that produces a product that is an overall something that people are
willing to buy.

Just designing a whiz bang telescope, well there are plenty of those around,
but nobody is getting rich off whiz bangers, if anyone is getting rich, they
are doing it by building affordable, transportable, easy to use telescopes that
are the result of intelligent compromises.

Jon

  

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