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

Post by munificent » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 9:25 PM UTC

billforsternz wrote: post #198

munificent wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with you, but I think it's worth pointing out that there is a pragmatic benefit to gendered pronouns. You can think of pronouns as sort of like `$?` in bash or `_` in Python's interactive shell. They give you a short way to refer to a previously mentioned noun. When you have more than one of these "special variables", you can use them more often as long as they conveniently get uniformly distributed…

Interesting rationalisation for gendered inanimate nouns in romance languages, thanks. Also used in many/most other Germanic (and other language families?) right? Is your explanation a personal inspiration or established theory? For it to make sense they would need to (for example) refer to (say) a table as 'he' later in a sentence. Do they do that?

Post by echelon » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 9:28 PM UTC

bewaretheirs wrote: post #229

macintux wrote: post #186

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The mission I believe the parent comment was referring to was a foreign (Soviet) satellite recovery. It required a larger payload bay and as I recall a very aggressive launch profile that I believe also imposed some undesirable design constraints, but my memory is fuzzy.

My understanding was that the specific requirement was for a launch into polar orbit (southbound from Vandenberg AFB, just north of Los Angeles) and then a landing ~90 minutes later at Vandenberg, clearly to snatch something out of orbit. Since the earth is rotating under the orbital plane of the shuttle, this requires a large amount of cross-range maneuverability on reentry so it could land back in California rather…

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 9:36 PM UTC

dimator wrote: post #248

jacquesm wrote: post #177

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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.

Post by GlenTheMachine » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 9:48 PM UTC

neatze wrote: post #81

s5300 wrote: post #58

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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…

What are you talking about Webb was build by contracting defense contractors, like for example Northrop Grumman (primary contractor if not mistaken) and Lockheed Martin who also build F-35, there is YouTube video where Lockheed does presentation about Webb telescope project complexity.

Post by p1mrx » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 10:01 PM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #252

p1mrx wrote: post #142

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We should just define that outer space uses metric units. The average american won't know the difference between "a million miles" and "a million kilometers", because they're both way beyond the realm of practical experience.

As an American, about 1.6. 600,000 kilometers is 1.5 times as far from Earth as the Moon. Interesting to think how much longer it took Webb to cover that distance than Apollo. A consequence of not being able to slow down under power.