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James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

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Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

#91

Post by dev_tty01 »

s5300 wrote: post #58
EMM_386 wrote: post #9

This 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 thin…

I agree with your overall sentiment, but I have to disagree with this:

>Challenger & Columbia. Challenger wasn’t a NASA problem, it was a Politicians & Bureaucracy problem.

NASA managers overrode the recommendations of the engineers. That was absolutely a NASA problem. Sure they were under some political pressure, but they made the wrong call in the face of strong data. Columbia too was a management priorities problem.

That being said, NASA is doing great science. NASA is compromised of humans so they are therefore imperfect, but I would also love to see them get more support. Their $23 billion dollar budget is only 3% of the size of the DOD budget.

As far as SpaceX, they are a NASA subcontractor, executing goals specified by NASA. I don't understand your concern. (SpaceX also has a thriving private satellite business of course.) The entire Apollo program was executed by NASA paid subcontractors. That is how NASA operates. Their primary role is to spec, subcontract, and manage. SpaceX is doing things for less money than other subcontractors, so they are helping NASA's budget.

Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

#93

Post by tobylane »

gameswithgo wrote: post #32
inamberclad wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

original plan was smaller, but military had a mission in mind that required it be bigger, so they went bigger to get military buy in. And of course the imagined mission never happened. I wonder how much money would have been saved!

What was the intended mission? I’ve read about the classified missions that went ahead, iirc one of them did use the full capacity.

Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

#94

Post by zionic »

PinkMilkshake wrote: post #3

I'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.…

Really sad that 30 years later we're only slightly larger. This is a major problem for telescopes since there are hard physical limits on resolution vs size.

Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

#95

Post by dev_tty01 »

js8 wrote: post #75
bestouff wrote: post #4

It's funny how the excellent job of the French Ariane launcher is nowhere to be seen in this (and others) article.

Worse, journalists often compare Webb with Hubble, but they mostly ignore the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herschel_Space_Observatory , which had a larger primary mirror (for example, https://webb.nasa.gov/content/observatory/ote/mirrors/index.... ). It's a very subtle form of American exceptionalism.

Yes, Herschel was a great project by the ESA. It certainly got short shrift within the US press despite significant contributions from NASA and JPL. I hope it got plenty of love from the European press. Great work.

Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

#96

Post by simonh »

samstave wrote: post #62
gameswithgo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

original plan was smaller, but military had a mission in mind that required it be bigger, so they went bigger to get military buy in. And of course the imagined mission never happened. I wonder how much money would have been saved!

>> the imagined mission never happened The X37s would like a word. Also, "Rods from God" has something to say https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37 https://endwar.fandom.com/wiki/Kinetic_Strike --- Rods from god may be the source of "jewish space lasers" Fun stuff to speculate on.

The mission being referred to was capturing a Russian satellite in a polar orbit in the cargo bay and returning it to earth. The shuttle also needed big wings to provide the cross-range capability it would need to complete one polar orbit and land at the original launch point (Vandenberg) despite the earth having rotated, moving the airbase by many hundreds of miles since takeoff.

The original NASA spec had a smaller cargo bay and wings because it would have mainly been a crew ferry. As a result it would also have been launchable on top of a rocket instead of strapped to the side, giving better safety. Significant cargoes would have been launched independently.

Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

#97

Post by tobylane »

pfdietz wrote: post #12

I'd be happier in a world where individual universities, or at least consortiums, could have their own space telescopes.

Cubesats fill that role, for when those groups need their own. JWST is from the consortium of half the first world, because they want to measure the same thing. It’s not an either-or.

Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

#98

Post by Dave3of5 »

arcticfox wrote: post #33
tunap wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an interesting observation I never considered. If it were a SpaceX rocket, it would have been mentioned once per paragraph, minimum.

If it was a SpaceX rocket, it would be getting ready to fly again. Expendable rockets have been putting up payloads for 60 years at this point, SpaceX has been flying reusable rockets for less than a decade.

Actually Hubble was put into space by a (mostly) reusable system the space shuttle STS-31. That was about 30 years ago.

Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

#99

Post by jon_richards »

zionic wrote: post #94
PinkMilkshake wrote: post #3

I'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.…

Really sad that 30 years later we're only slightly larger. This is a major problem for telescopes since there are hard physical limits on resolution vs size.

Obviously it’s sad that we don’t have a larger Hubble-equivalent by now, but the Webb’s operating temperature makes it a completely different beast. It is massively expanding our capabilities in a way a larger Hubble wouldn’t. And I’m hopeful for the mid-term future, as the massive improvements in launch capability we’re seeing start to pay off.

Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

#100

Post by pkdpic »

I had no idea its final destination was a legrange point thats so cool!

I got confused though, I thought they were saying it was at the one between the sun and the earth (L1). But I guess its at the one behind the earth (L2)? Anyway so cool! Lagrange points always make me think of Liu Cixin :^)

> The L2 point of the Earth-Sun system was the home to the WMAP spacecraft, current home of Planck, and future home of the James Webb Space Telescope. L2 is ideal for astronomy because a spacecraft is close enough to readily communicate with Earth, can keep Sun, Earth and Moon behind the spacecraft for solar power and (with appropriate shielding) provides a clear view of deep space for our telescopes. The L1 and L2 points are unstable on a time scale of approximately 23 days, which requires satellites orbiting these positions to undergo regular course and attitude corrections.

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/754/what-is-a-lagrang...

^ cool lagrage point graphic and nasa explanation

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