Telescopes are light gathering devices and the larger that they are, the more light they can gather. The reflecting surface is usually a major engineering problem as it must be exceedingly accurate to get a good image. On Earth the surface is usually a rigid surface supported by a precise support structure but in space there is no gravity and it might be possible to construct a transparent plastic balloon that was vacuum deposited on one half to gather light reflected to a sensitive surface within the balloon which would be the image transmitted to a receiving station. This would permit a huge reflector at little expense. But I have no idea as to whether the surface can be made sufficiently accurate to be useful. A radio telscope built on the same principle might be more possible.

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