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James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
121–130 of 350 posts
Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
#122I'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.…
It’s really easy to get a wrong intuitive sense of the size of these things! I don’t understand why space agencies don’t always have human figures for reference in their visualizations. Or even a simple scale bar! We just get these silly “the size of a tennis court” type textual comparisons. Few people realize how big the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers are, as another example.
> Few people realize how big the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers are
To be fair, Perseverance looks as big as I imagined it would be, about the size of an SUV but wider (because even in 2020s, they still don't have streets in mars, what a bummer): https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/science/mars-2020-rover-n...
Or did my googling fail me? :)
edit: direct image link around paywall: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/02/18/science/18mars202...
Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
That's part of it (with regards to rocket motor tech). The other is that the Soviet's designed the vehicle through a different process, versus the American's where it was design by committee (between NASA and the DoD [1]).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_design_process
Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
#124I'd be happier in a world where individual universities, or at least consortiums, could have their own space telescopes.
The JWT is famous for costing over 10b USD to develop. AFAIK it's the most expensive object ever to be launched into space. I don't think universities should (or could) spend that kind of money on research equipment.
The ISS has cost a combined total of 150b$. It's apples and oranges, of course, but it can considered to be the single most expensive item ever built.
Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
#125Earlier 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…
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.
It’s true that Northrop Grumman was the prime contractor. You don’t want to keep all the skills to build this, and all the manufacturing steps, in-house.
But the project leadership and key pieces of the design were at GSFC and JPL.
Full list: https://webb.nasa.gov/content/meetTheTeam/team.html
Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
#126Earlier 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?
They selected the parts that were the most up to spec (not necessarily the strongest, but the most faithful to spec).
Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
#127This animation, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cUe4oMk69E&list=TLGG8tIphgp... is a nice visualization of the L2 orbit. It was different than what I expected.
For some reason I expected it to stay in Earth's shadow. L2 is probably too far from Earth for that.
Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
If launch costs are 1% or less per mass of the Ariane 5, mass budgets could be greatly increased, and engineering could become easier. I see no reason ultimately why space telescopes should be much different in cost than terrestrial telescopes. Ultimately I see telescopes being maintained and upgraded in space much as terrestrial telescopes are.
The Webb telescope didn't go several times over budget from growing several times heavier. Novel telescope are expensive because they must address unique engineering challenges with unforeseen costs. You can't just grab a sunshade off the shelf – everything's built bespoke. Of course, the flip side here is that it would be cheaper to build a second Webb telescope. Maybe we could mass produce a hundred more for a tent…
With lowered launch costs, and more things launched into orbit, surely over time you’d have to handle these unique engineering challenges yourself less and less.
Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
#129I'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?
As noted elsewhere: um, yeah, all the data is available, for free.
But in regards to the James Webb: I don’t think you’re going to find the raw images to be particularly compelling. It is imaging in the infrared spectrum. So it’s going to require a fair bit of processing to get a reasonable monochrome image out of that data.
Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
A human standing next to a full-size replica: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F... It looks the same to me.
Where is this replica located? Is it open to the public?
I recall seeing a full-sized mockup of the James Webb at the South by Southwest about ten years ago. It was accompanied by a small traveling exhibit about the mission and some folks from a NASA (or Northrup?) education team to answer questions. They had been taking it to cities and museums across the country.
Not sure where it is now or if there are multiple full-sized mockups, but I wouldn't be surprised if one ends up in the public collection at Udvar-Hazy Smithsonian Annex where many big NASA toys end up.