I really can't wait until the have proper first light. They say June will be the earliest after phasing has completed, but it can't come soon enough.
That being said, I've waited 25 years so far, a few more months won't hurt
James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
51–60 of 350 posts
Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
#52It's funny how the excellent job of the French Ariane launcher is nowhere to be seen in this (and others) article.
Shortly after launch there were quite a few articles talking about how well the launch went on the Ariane and how that allowed the mission to be extended to 20 years or so. I'm not sure who it was anymore (possibly Scott Manley on youtube), but apparently ESA had been setting aside the components for the Ariane 5 that tested best to be used for the launch of JWST to lower the risk of failure and that might explain in…
I also heard that for this launch, Arianespace made sure to make no innovation whatsoever to the launcher (usually each launch is used to test small improvements).
Source: podcast in French
Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
#53'Science' writing at its worst -> the tennis-court sized telescope made its way into a parking spot that's about a million miles away from Earth. It would be better to try to explain concepts in a succinct way and, if it is not possible, to provide links to get the full information about a more detailed description. Also it is a good idea to use metric units for science articles.
> Also it is a good idea to use metric units for science articles. It's not if you're writing for an American audience that's more familar with imperial units.
They’re not “imperial” units, since those were set by the British Empire in the first part of the 1800s, and the Americans never adopted them.
Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
#54I'm a little embarrassed to say this and I don't know exactly what I pictured in my head, but I had no idea these telescopes were so big[1]. I guess I never saw one pictured next to a human. I've only seen pictures of satellites being worked on so I expected something more human sized? It seems so stupid now, especially since earth telescopes are huge. [1] https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a013500/a013522/JWST_v.…
The human is not to scale if that's the Webb telescope.
It definitely is. 6.5m diameter of the mirror only on JSWT and 2.4 of Hubble.
Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those size comparisons are super misleading. I've seen the shuttle and it's not that big. A 737 is pretty small. The shuttle can ride piggy-back on a 747--in fact it was designed to: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-01... Also, the comparison with the Statue of Liberty is also misleading. The Statue of Liberty is on a huge pedestal that makes it stand much, much higher; the orbiter and booste…
The sum of your comment seems to be the subjective belief that the statue of liberty and 737s are "not that big"... Not sure what size you'd expect the shuttles to be, but being in the same ballpark as the statue of liberty (without pedestal) seems a great deal larger than my expectations.
These are subjective things, sure. My personal feeling upon seeing the shuttle was that it was not that big, because I've seen big airliners all my life. I was expecting the shuttle to be bigger. So when I looked at the parent's infographic and saw a 737 and the Statue of Liberty there, they didn't seem right (I've also seen the SoL in-person). So the size comparisons I think are quite misleading in that graphic, and yeah, I was surprised how much smaller the shuttle is than what I expected.
Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
#56I'm a little embarrassed to say this and I don't know exactly what I pictured in my head, but I had no idea these telescopes were so big[1]. I guess I never saw one pictured next to a human. I've only seen pictures of satellites being worked on so I expected something more human sized? It seems so stupid now, especially since earth telescopes are huge. [1] https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a013500/a013522/JWST_v.…
May I please subscribe to the raw images of ANY space telescope...
I mean *WE* /paid/ for them... I would like to access the data provided in real-time.
Where can one get the raw images?
Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Also it is a good idea to use metric units for science articles. It's not if you're writing for an American audience that's more familar with imperial units.
Then you can use football fields as measurement unit, following that argument. Or bananas.
But tennis courts are very common in America. Every high school around here has at least 2. Many parks have them. The fitness center I go to has 2 external and 1 internal tennis courts.
Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
#58This was an absurdly teeth-clenching deployment. And no back-up, even if the Ariane launch failed. No back-up. Congrats to everyone across the board for getting this amazing telescope right where it needs to be. Now all we need is the mirror alignment and we're in for some seriously incredible science.
It’s really sad to think about how well NASA works when you consider how little funding they get and how hard they have to fight for it. It’s honestly quite ridiculous.
I know a lot of military industrial complex boils down to being nationwide jobs programs, e.g. everything to do with the F-35. But NASA? I don’t think they’re anywhere near as close to being a “jobs program”
Off the top of my head, I really can’t think of many things NASA as a whole has fucked up.
Challenger & Columbia. Challenger wasn’t a NASA problem, it was a Politicians & Bureaucracy problem. As I earlier mentioned… the people responsible for my initial statement of “how well NASA works” knew that disaster was highly likely with Challenger launch. But bureaucracy didn’t care. Haven’t read into Columbia so won’t comment.
So why the hell do they get so little funding… it’s depressing to think about. My cynicism doesn’t think James Webb success is going to bring in much more funding. SpaceX, understandably, is likely going to take more & more space related contracts.
I still think NASA deserves much, much better treatment.
Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
#59I'm a little embarrassed to say this and I don't know exactly what I pictured in my head, but I had no idea these telescopes were so big[1]. I guess I never saw one pictured next to a human. I've only seen pictures of satellites being worked on so I expected something more human sized? It seems so stupid now, especially since earth telescopes are huge. [1] https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a013500/a013522/JWST_v.…
The space shuttle blows my mind every time I see one. It's huge - the size of an airliner - and would glide back at Mach 25. It's a humbling level of accomplishment.
Actually one of the reason SS was not cost effective anymore because of the added complexities required by the DoD.
Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
#60I'm a little embarrassed to say this and I don't know exactly what I pictured in my head, but I had no idea these telescopes were so big[1]. I guess I never saw one pictured next to a human. I've only seen pictures of satellites being worked on so I expected something more human sized? It seems so stupid now, especially since earth telescopes are huge. [1] https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a013500/a013522/JWST_v.…
May I please subscribe to the raw images of ANY space telescope... I mean * WE* /paid/ for them... I would like to access the data provided in real-time. Where can one get the raw images?
These images would not be your typical jpg taken in the visible part of the spectrum. I’m not sure it is cost effective to host these image data for random people to download without any post processing. If you are dedicated enough to understand and post process the data yourself you can probably get access to the data for free