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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

#111

Post by NikolaeVarius »

kortex wrote: post #31
jamincan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So they essentially binned the rocket parts much the same way a chip fab would?

No? This is a completely meaningless comparison

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

#112

Post by ch4s3 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #90
wongarsu wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard the (probably unfounded) story that the Soviets saw the Space Shuttle, couldn't figure out why the Americans would build it but figured there surely must be a good reason; so they copied it to also have whatever capability the Americans were after.

Buran was also superior in capabilities; greater lift capacity, ability to transport more people, and attain higher orbits. It could also perform a mission entirely autonomously. The US Space Shuttle was the (heavy) inspiration, but the Soviets put their own spin on it.

That's the second mover advantage right?

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

#113

Post by NikolaeVarius »

Dave3of5 wrote: post #98
arcticfox wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The Space Shuttle was refurbishable. Its barely a valid comparison

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

#114

Post by ddalex »

tobylane wrote: post #93
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!

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

Likely snatching enemy satellites in a single orbit (i.e. launch, snatch sattelite, land, all in the same orbit) before enemy can even detect that the shuttle is up there.

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

#115

Post by awestroke »

snakeboy wrote: post #85
Laremere wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Destin has also peaked (or very close to it) in importance of person interviewed, as he interviewed Obama during their presidency. Though, sadly not an hour long. https://youtu.be/GpWQHFzrEqc

Just out of curiosity, is it considered best practice these days to use the gender-neutral "their" even with a specific subject (Obama) who is known to use masculine pronouns for himself?

It doesn't matter

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

#116

Post by enave3 »

tobylane wrote: post #93
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!

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

> What was the intended mission?

There were several. A couple of examples: the shuttle could delay release of a payload, maneuver while in orbit, release the payload, then maneuver again. So conceptually, you just put a satellite into an orbit and your enemy doesn't know exactly what orbit its in. I'm sure eventually they would find it, but the military still wants stuff like that.

Another example is the ability to grab a satellite and bring it back to Earth. To my knowledge, this was only ever used with the "long-duration exposure facility" because it'd probably be considered an act of war to steal another country's satellites but here again, it's the kind of thing the military would ask for.

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

#117

Post by gameswithgo »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #45
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 space shuttle is a sad story. On the one hand the military’s money made it possible but they also influenced the design in a very bad way.

This is the case with almost all large scale human endeavors. To get things done with lots of people takes compromises. Apollo program was the same way. I assume the pyramids and roman roads and so on as well. Though to be fair at some point once the shuttle program got going someone could have aborted on it and said that really this doesn't make sense.

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

#118

Post by gameswithgo »

tobylane wrote: post #93
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!

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

No idea, but yes I assume other missions managed to use the full capabilities once it was big!

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

#120

Post by heffay »

inamberclad wrote: post #13
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.…

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.

Reminds me of a video I came across last year about about landing the space shuttle and the complexities of it all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb4prVsXkZU
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