QUESTION:
Why do you take an airplane instead of the space shuttle?

ANSWER from Ben Burress on May 12:
For a number of reasons, actually, not the least
of which is that the space shuttle was not in full operation
in 1974 when the astronomy community and NASA wanted to
build an airborne astronomy platform.  Other than that fact,
space shuttle flights are very expensive, and happen no more
than six to eight times per year--whereas the KAO flies at
a tiny fraction of the cost of a shuttle flight, and we
achieve between eighty and ninety flights per year.

But consider this:  as far as the infrared sky
is concerned, the KAO practically flies in space, anyway.
You see, the main reason we fly a telescope at 41,000 feet
is so that we can get above about 99% of the Earth's
atmospheric water vapor, which is one of the main
absorbers of infrared light.  Taking the extra step
amount of water vapor between our telescope and the
celestial objects by 1% of the whole.  That is not very
significant when one considers how much more expensive
it would be and how many fewer flights we would get
flying on the space shuttle.