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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

#241

Post by btkramer9 »

ativzzz wrote: post #230
spookthesunset wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not aware of what we've learned from the International Space Station If you watch videos of the people on the space station you begin to be reminded of "remote hands" in a data center. The space station is like a colo-facility that houses science experiments instead of racks of computers. The people on board seem to exist as "remote hands" that maintain those science experiments for whatever science team is on…

Have there been any interesting breakthroughs or findings from the science done aboard the ISS?

I know you're asking specifically about results from on board the ISS but here's something more broad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies

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

#242

Post by caycep »

bdamm wrote: post #211
_yoqn wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can actually go see Endeavor in real life at the L.A. Science Center. Admission is like $2. Regardless of the size, the spectacle is breathtaking.

I traveled to LA once just for the sole reason to see the space shuttle there. It was worth it!

I remember when it was decommissioned and flown to LA on the 747 transporter...definitely an event. They publicized the flight path and times, and did like 2 or 3 loops over LA and the west side. Everyone in the city was watching on the rooftops of all the office buildings and parking garages.

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

#243

Post by BurningFrog »

Steltek wrote: post #151
snakeboy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I think it would be nice if English evolved to only ungendered pronouns. Eliminates accidental offense while also reducing everyone's cognitive load. Also, you reminded me of a quote from yesterday: "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore."

Persian and Chinese have, if I remember correctly, no gendered pronouns.

No effects on gender equality seem observable.

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

#244

Post by mulmen »

chernevik wrote: post #166
s5300 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It seems to me that there are two NASAs: The unmanned exploration programs, which do amazing things, and the manned exploration programs, which look very much like jobs programs. I'm not an expert, but I haven't yet seen a good science rationale for returning to the moon. I'm not aware of what we've learned from the International Space Station. And the Space Shuttle was an expensive and needless boondoggle that kille…

> I'm not aware of what we've learned from the International Space Station.

We learned about the effects of microgravity on the human body for one. Useful for future trips to the Moon and/or Mars.

Plus we’ve had the benefit of a microgravity laboratory staffed by world class scientists for two decades.

Putting people back on the Moon is valuable just as a technology demonstration and test for more ambitious missions like Mars.

As you say, Apollo taught us a lot about the Moon. But it didn’t teach us everything. So if Apollo taught us something then clearly there is value in sending humans.

> And the Space Shuttle was an expensive and needless boondoggle that killed fourteen people for no good reason.

Without the Shuttle there is no ISS. So any benefit gained from the ISS is owed at least in part to the Shuttle.

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

#245

Post by jacobolus »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #111
kortex wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No? This is a completely meaningless comparison

It’s the same idea. Instead of making a tighter spec and spending more resources making just the right number of parts meeting the specified tight tolerance, use a looser production tolerance and make a bunch of parts, and then (for an especially tricky use case) pick the parts satisfying a tighter tolerance after production, leaving the remaining parts for less demanding jobs.

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

#246

Post by gunsle »

ademup wrote: post #237
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.…

I marvel at how small they are. Why not add 20, 100, or 1000 more mirrors to JWT? Or launch 10 more of these and go full interferometry? Maybe I've just been playing to much Dyson Sphere Program, but it feels to me that NASA et al are committing the cardinal sin of making the production loop too small.

Probably because this project has been in development for decades and overran it’s timelines and budgets multiple times (to my knowledge). Congress already hates funding NASA, can’t imagine they were lining up to give them more money when I’m sure they had been asking when’s this thing even gonna come out?

Also, FWIW, this thing has 100+ points of failure along its route to being fully deployed and getting to the L2 spot. A lot of people thought for sure at least one area would malfunction, would have easily doomed the whole launch. After this successful launch, it’s possible we’ll see discussion on building another in this design, but there is already a telescope in the planning stages for a 2027 launch, as well as four other concepts being developed for the future.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Grace_Roman_Space_Tele...

https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/57407/are-they-alr...

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

#247

Post by mulmen »

ur-whale wrote: post #236
s5300 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. I do agree with you, but have you maybe considered that you're looking at it the wrong way? Isn't there a saying that armies that eat bad food win more battles? Could it be that because NASA is not funded at the level they deserve, they have to be more efficient?

By the same logic we could conclude that the US Military is an efficient operation. After all I can find someone who will argue their funding needs to be increased.

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

#248

Post by dimator »

jacquesm wrote: post #177
entrep wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mirror deployment was done before insertion, moving the 18 mirrors up from their locked position by 12.5 mm. Now, 3 months of mirror alignment will follow. They will align with a reference star having to first move one mirror a little bit to identify how the mirror affects the alignment, then calculate the alignment and move the mirror. Each mirror's position can be controlled at 10 nm resolution.

It's not only position, also deformation by pulling or pushing on the center of the mirror changing it's curvature.

I can't fathom how they have a servo, a linear actuator, or anything else, that can apply pressure to the mirror and keep it there, for years, in the most extreme environments.

Every component of this thing is mind bending.

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

#249

Post by TaylorAlexander »

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?

As someone tuned in to queer twitter I can say that if you know someone’s pronouns you should use them, so ideally for Obama you would use he/him. But also we’re all using they/them a lot more for people when we’re not sure and that can bleed in to people even when we do know their pronouns, and generally that’s not a big deal. Only becomes a problem when a trans person has a clear preference for she/her or he/him (or anything else) and a person repeatedly and willfully uses they/them, as that can be used to deny recognition of someone’s gender identity. But it’s generally not a problem if you use they/them for a cis person once, that can just slip out. We’re more sensitive around pronouns for trans people, since they are much more likely to have trauma around that. They/them is cool for someone with unknown pronouns but it’s best to politely ask as soon as possible and begin to use the preferred ones.

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

#250

Post by mulmen »

Denvercoder9 wrote: post #15
ainiriand wrote: post #14

'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.

Pushes up glasses. Well, actually, the United States of America has never used Imperial Units. We have used US Customary Units which share some of the more common names. But the definitions and sizes are not the same, nor are all the names. Also, since 1893 US Customary Units have been defined in terms of SI units.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendenhall_Order https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Act_of_1866 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_units

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