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**Shane Santi
founded Dream 17 years ago (2003). He's been studying optics
since 1994 but first used a telescope before he was 10 years
old (1980), which is around the same time he started building
and launching rockets. He lives in the details because of his desire
to know what makes things tick. He has an unquenchable desire
for discovery. Each time a question is answered (discovery),
it becomes knowledge, which leads to deeper questions. Those
who continue to ask questions, even 20 years on, are the true
subject matter experts. This drive can't be taught because it
requires a fire that comes from within. |
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**Shane has
used his passion for complex systems to create a company that
focuses on the details. Small details matter and affect the final
outcome of the system. Understanding countless aspects of the
system to unusual levels allows for optimization of the system
that others are unaware of. His own goal is to move opto-mechanical
structures, optics and full systems into the modern era, since
higher performance means greater scientific discoveries. |
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"Hello Shane, I can't
think of anyone who has delved as deeply into the mechanics of
telescopes as you have." |
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- Dream customer |
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**Around the
mid 1990's Shane read the first of many scientific papers (similar to 3rd paragraph
Answer 2 links) that quantified the much larger than expected
performance
losses associated with solid mirrors.
It became readily apparent that many providing optical mirrors
& systems were making grossly over-reaching statements because
they were completely ignoring this source of dynamic performance
loss. These losses are from both mirror seeing and mechanical
bending of the support structures, which typically have high
mass & thermal mass, as well as low stiffness. |
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He formed Dream in 2003 for three main
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1.) Combine the complimentary technologies
of modern carbon fiber
& lightweight mirrors, |
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2.) Solve the century old problem of print-through
in lightweight mirrors and |
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3.) Offer higher performance instruments
that typically required big aerospace and government budgets
at a much lower cost. |
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**A more mechanically
& thermally stable total system can; slew faster, hold optical
alignment tolerances & optical surfaces to a higher, more
consistent performance level in a dynamic mechanical (changing instrument angles) and thermal
(changing ambient temperatures),
while being very close to thermal stealth. All of these, and
many more, combine to produce
instruments that break the pyschological norms
of what can be expected out of an instrument. To believe these
improvements have no benefit is the same argument critics of
G.W. Ritchey made 100 years ago. Those without, will always try
to minimize what they don't have, but desire. |
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**In the years
just prior to starting Dream Shane recognized that he could
take aerospace composite technology and optimize it specifically
for the unique and extreme thermal & mechanical tolerances
that are faced in modern opto-mechanical and electro-optical
instruments. The use of Invar rods to control spacing of optical
components requires two distinct & physically disconnected
structures instead of one. The more connections, the more likely
stiffness is lost, jitter is created and mass is increased. Dream
is making the instrument structures out of a specific carbon
fiber matrix that is athermal to the mirrors. This provides incredibly
stable optical performance of each mirror because the mirror
mounts are also athermal, eliminating the complexities that come
with flexure-based mirror mounts. There's no need for a metering
structure because the whole structure matches the mirrors. This
focus on dealing with the source of the problems has led to Dream's
athermal instruments which also exhibits exceptional mechanical
stiffness and consistency. This inherently produces an instrument
with extremely low maintenance. The extensive use of Dream's
CF and CFSC™ in the mirror mounts, backplates, telescope
tubes, mounting plates, lens barrels & spacers, etc., is
ideal because they have; |
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****- low
mass, |
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****- low CTE and |
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****- extreme
stiffness. |
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**In 2002
Shane quickly discovered that standard composite companies had
little to no knowledge of optical systems, little to no knowledge
of stiffness (not strength)
and the extreme requirements that
come with them. They also had little desire to work with such
a demanding and difficult customer. This began a long
series of unexpected in-house developments where Dream has taken
over more and more aspects of the total systems, in order to
control and achieve the higher levels of performance that Shane
knew were possible compared to the status quo. The benefit of
the long years of R&D can be seen in Dream's in-house designed
& produced stainless steel inserts, the extreme rugged performance of Dream's
advanced composites (see
CFSC screwdriver video), the
low MSF errors
of its engineered, lightweight zeroDELTA™ mirrors. Chasing real-world
performance has to be driven by a person
who understands why each parameter needs such critical control.
Otherwise no company will invest the additional time, effort
and expertise that is required to achieve that higher level of
performance. |
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**As soon
as space was leased in 2003 Shane designed the largest composite
oven that Dream continues to use to this day; 12' wide, 6' deep,
6' high. It was upgraded in 2013 after a decade of use. It can
maintain a tight temperature tolerance of +/-1°F, which is
one magnitude tighter than normal aerospace composite ovens.
Dream's resin content is 20-40x more tightly controlled than
standard pre-pregs from a decade ago and 2-4x more tightly controlled
than current (2018) industry-leading space-qualified prepregs.
This unusual attention to detail has led to Dream's actual and
measureable performance gains. |
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**Companies
are more recently using open-market carbon fiber in one or two
components of opto-mechanical systems where only 5-10% of the
"carbon fiber telescope" is actually carbon fiber.
The other 90-95% remain metals; old technology wrapped in a shiny
bow. Look carefully and ask direct, pointed questions like, what
percentage of the structural weight is carbon fiber? Are all
of the carbon fiber pieces actually taking load or are they in
there to drive sales? How many components use sandwich core? |
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Dream's CFSC™ is used extensively
in the structures it produces.
Dream consistently averages 95% carbon fiber and only 5%
metals for the weight of the structures in its athermal telescopes.
(no optics) |
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**Shane began
researching lightweight mirrors of all types 25 years ago. This
was brought on by his interest in understanding numerous types
of seeing, since seeing degrades system performance. "Seeing"
can come from numerous sources and each source is often complex;
mirror, telescope, observatory, ground effect, etc.,
are all individual forms of seeing that can do nothing but degrade
the performance. Understanding each source to a deeper
level has allowed Dream's products
to break new performance grounds and is the reason Dream is now
designing ground-up facilities from scratch. There's no point
in putting a high-performance instrument inside a facility that
will never allow it to be used at its full potential. |
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One of Dream's 0.4m
instruments is outperforming all other
instruments in a mulit-year NASA program, with some of those
instruments being as large as 1m. This validates what G.W. Ritchey
showed 100 years ago; quality of the total installed system matters
far more than aperture, when the other systems are ignoring fundamental,
centuries old thermal & mechanical problems. |
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**Dream's advanced composites offer
extreme stiffness and produce an athermal instrument when combined
with Dream's zeroDELTA™
engineered, lightweight mirrors. Customers also use Dream's
CF & CFSC™ with zero-expanion
mirror materials as well because they offer higher stiffness,
lower mass and a much closer match to the mirror material than
aluminum and steel structures. This can eliminate the need for
complex flexures and metering systems that bring their own errors
to the table, while offering higher mechanical performance. Dream's
systems achieve the same extreme level of performance day after
day, year after year, while having the lowest maintenance. What
many have considered an atmospheric
limit, is often traditional mirror seeing; a centuries old
problem that Dream has addressed directly through knowledge and
good designs. |
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Knowledge is power.
Ignorance is a liability.™ |
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The above strut is a prime example of the substantial
gains that Dream achieves with its optimized CFSC™ parts. The strut is 55.7" long,
weighs only 1.85 pounds and is shown in a 3-point bend arrangement
under 195 lbs of load. |
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biomedical backboard, rigid backboard,
carbon fiber board |
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carbon fiber structures for space,
carbon fiber space structures, cyanate ester, space qualified
carbon fiber |
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Other
Carbon Fiber Parts |
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rocketry, IRAC, Spaceport America
Cup, soundingrocket.org |
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Dream's carbon fiber is also superb for zero-expansion
mirror materials like Astro-Sittal, Clear-Ceram, fused silica,
ULE, Zerodur, etc. Click below to see a carbon fiber structure
for a 25" Cassegrain that used ULE mirrors. |
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Connection points in any opto-mechanical
or electro-optical system are often the cause of a loss in stiffness
and therefore performance. This
page shows the pull-out strength of
Dream's stainless steel inserts used within the Dream CFSC™ parts. |
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"Your company does phenomenal work.
There is a lot of thought and heart that goes into your products.
Dream's engineering sets their lightweight mirrors apart from
competitors. Your engineering goes beyond the lightweight aspect.
You focus on actual performance!" |
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- Ted Kamprath |
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40 years in professional
optics, using everything from $1m & $1.5m test rooms to 144"
Continuous Polishers. He's spent his career using the latest
in technologies, methods, materials & science finishing precision
optics. |
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Modern
Optical Metrology |
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