They got one shot. Only craft that could theoretically reach L2 with an airlock for EVA would be Starship, and you're looking at 2 years before they could even fly astronauts into orbit, at best.

Maximus_Meridius said:

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They got one shot. Only craft that could theoretically reach L2 with an airlock for EVA would be Starship, and you're looking at 2 years before they could even fly astronauts into orbit, at best.

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Setting aside the distance, JWST wasn't designed for in-flight service. I don't think there is any docking collar or grapple point for a visiting spacecraft to capture it. Nor were the optics, consumables, etc. designed to facilitate maintenance once it left the integration facility.

TriAg2010 said:

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Maximus_Meridius said:

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They got one shot. Only craft that could theoretically reach L2 with an airlock for EVA would be Starship, and you're looking at 2 years before they could even fly astronauts into orbit, at best.

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Setting aside the distance, JWST wasn't designed for in-flight service. I don't think there is any docking collar or grapple point for a visiting spacecraft to capture it. Nor were the optics, consumables, etc. designed to facilitate maintenance once it left the integration facility.

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Well yeah but we've all seen interstellar and james bond movies so I am sure they could figure out something if they had to.

TriAg2010 said:

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Maximus_Meridius said:

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They got one shot. Only craft that could theoretically reach L2 with an airlock for EVA would be Starship, and you're looking at 2 years before they could even fly astronauts into orbit, at best.

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Setting aside the distance, JWST wasn't designed for in-flight service. I don't think there is any docking collar or grapple point for a visiting spacecraft to capture it. Nor were the optics, consumables, etc. designed to facilitate maintenance once it left the integration facility.

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You're absolutely correct about JWST's lack of serviceable design, and odds are that if something goes wrong, it's all over. That being said, it also would not shock me at all that if something like that were to happen for Elon to tweet out an offer of flying astronauts to L2 in Starship if they can maintain position that long. Could they actually do anything? Most likely not, but I think at this point we all know that crazy SOB would try it just to prove he could.

Unlikely. Elon would simply offer to send up a better, Starship-based, Webb replacement and charge by the image to prove he could do it.

Politically, JWST has me torn. As interested as I am personally in the sort of thing the JWST will research, I recognize that a lot of people couldn't give two sh**s about it. Why should they be taxed to pay for it? I don't want to be taxed to pay for their hobbies either. It would be hypocritical for me to argue against using tax dollars to give other people food stamps, government housing, welfare, etc. and to then turn around and demand we use tax dollars so I could pique my interest in cosmology.

Time on the JWST is excludable and rivalrous. Therefore, my ideology dictates that it should be privately launched and owned. If they cannot fund raise enough money to pull it off, then too bad. Government should not be spending tax dollars to build NFL stadiums on the moon either. Some things are simply too expensive to try now. This may be one of them. Maybe Musk will make launches cheap enough that we can try again for 1/10 the price in 10 years.




On the flip side.. since the launch is tomorrow, I will sure as hell be watching and will be interested when we finally start seeing pictures.

aTmAg said:

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Politically, JWST has me torn. As interested as I am personally in the sort of thing the JWST will research, I recognize that a lot of people couldn't give two sh**s about it. Why should they be taxed to pay for it? I don't want to be taxed to pay for their hobbies either. It would be hypocritical for me to argue against using tax dollars to give other people food stamps, government housing, welfare, etc. and to then turn around and demand we use tax dollars so I could pique my interest in cosmology.

Time on the JWST is excludable and rivalrous. Therefore, my ideology dictates that it should be privately launched and owned. If they cannot fund raise enough money to pull it off, then too bad. Government should not be spending tax dollars to build NFL stadiums on the moon either. Some things are simply too expensive to try now. This may be one of them. Maybe Musk will make launches cheap enough that we can try again for 1/10 the price in 10 years.

On the flip side.. since the launch is tomorrow, I will sure as hell be watching and will be interested when we finally start seeing pictures.

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Well, that's just living in a society, man. We elect a representative government that decides how much to tax us and how to spend those revenues. It's utterly impossible that every member of the Republic is going to agree with how every dollar is spent.

While the telescope time is finite and therefore excludable, the data gathered is non-rivalrous because it is made available to everyone in the public domain. There is no incremental cost if 10 or 10,000 people use the data gathered. You could conceivably try to charge a subscription to the narrow group of scientific users, but this would suffer the problem of many research consortia: how do the subscribers know the results are worth the money ahead of time? We're exploring a new frontier, so we have no idea what we will find. This leads to a tragedy of the commons where a private party would be unlikely to get over the hurdles necessary to make a project like JWST happen.

I fundamentally see JWST as in the same national interest as the Lewis & Clark expedition. We are obligated to keep pushing our observation of the universe. Turn to the last page of your passport and it reads: "Every generation has the obligation to free men's minds for a look at new worlds...
to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation." That's what we will do tomorrow.

Hell yeah!

Have to agree. One thing about a scope as wide field as JWST, it can fulfill dozens of different research needs for every exposure it makes, and buy moving it in to the public realm, there will be no monopolization.

There's also no way that a private industry could ever support the thing in the next 30 years or so. Just to support the data transfer satellites is going to be a challenge, I'm assuming the thing will likely be using the DSRN to transmit the files back.

Something like hubble I think private industry/research likely could, and will, eventually get going, but not a deep space telescope.

My biggest concern is the delicacy of the whole thing...I just domt see it outlasted it's expected life like we're used to.

TriAg2010 said:

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aTmAg said:

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Politically, JWST has me torn. As interested as I am personally in the sort of thing the JWST will research, I recognize that a lot of people couldn't give two sh**s about it. Why should they be taxed to pay for it? I don't want to be taxed to pay for their hobbies either. It would be hypocritical for me to argue against using tax dollars to give other people food stamps, government housing, welfare, etc. and to then turn around and demand we use tax dollars so I could pique my interest in cosmology.

Time on the JWST is excludable and rivalrous. Therefore, my ideology dictates that it should be privately launched and owned. If they cannot fund raise enough money to pull it off, then too bad. Government should not be spending tax dollars to build NFL stadiums on the moon either. Some things are simply too expensive to try now. This may be one of them. Maybe Musk will make launches cheap enough that we can try again for 1/10 the price in 10 years.

On the flip side.. since the launch is tomorrow, I will sure as hell be watching and will be interested when we finally start seeing pictures.

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Well, that's just living in a society, man. We elect a representative government that decides how much to tax us and how to spend those revenues. It's utterly impossible that every member of the Republic is going to agree with how every dollar is spent.

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This is the problem and why we are almost $30T in debt and will likely economically implode. So this is why I'm thinking "if I had to do it over again, what standard should we apply on what government should and should not do?" (Maybe we get the chance in our lifetimes)

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While the telescope time is finite and therefore excludable, the data gathered is non-rivalrous because it is made available to everyone in the public domain. There is no incremental cost if 10 or 10,000 people use the data gathered. You could conceivably try to charge a subscription to the narrow group of scientific users,

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By this argument, government should pay for all intellectual property. Since every book, song, software application, etc. is in the public domain and non-rivalrous. Instead, we have government institute IP protection that effectively makes it rivalrous since that is preferable to them providing the good/service themselves altogether.

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but this would suffer the problem of many research consortia: how do the subscribers know the results are worth the money ahead of time? We're exploring a new frontier, so we have no idea what we will find.

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This happens all the time. I buy books, songs, movies, software apps, etc. and run the risk of them sucking. We don't use this as an excuse to have government create those things because of it.


Let's pretend for a moment, that government couldn't affordably protect that IP. That it truely was non-excludable and non-rivalrous. Then JWST should be private and the funds used to rent time on it be public. It is almost certain that a private firm would have been able to pull it off much faster and a fraction of the cost. Hell, there may be competing JWSTs for scientists to chose from. However, if no private firm could provide an affordable JWST, then it shouldn't be done. Just like if no contractor could afford to produce a fighter aircraft for less than $100T. Sometimes things are simply too expensive and should not be tried (until costs become reasonable).

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This leads to a tragedy of the commons where a private party would be unlikely to get over the hurdles necessary to make a project like JWST happen.

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I don't think this is a tragedy of the commons problem, but a simple "it costs too much" problem. Like building a house on the moon in 1975. A house on the moon is rivalrous and excludable too and there is no way in hell the private sector would have attempted it. Government could have done it if it taxed people enough, but should it? Clearly not.

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I fundamentally see JWST as in the same national interest as the Lewis & Clark expedition. We are obligated to keep pushing our observation of the universe. Turn to the last page of your passport and it reads: "Every generation has the obligation to free men's minds for a look at new worlds...
to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation." That's what we will do tomorrow.

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Who says we are obligated to do that? We have to spend gazillions of dollars just because something written on passports? How far do we need to go? Should we try to send an expedition to Alpha Centauri next year no matter how much it costs? To me, Lewis and Clark is more justified if it was for defense (despite the Louisiana Purchase being unconstitutional). But in no way can JWST be considered to be defense or anything like that.

"It could overcook and yeet the thing into deep space"...I love Scott.

Ag_of_08 said:

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"It could overcook and yet the thing into deep space"...I love Scott.

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I think the proper English spelling for that term is "yeet".

My phone is apparently prejudiced against yeeting things, it autocorrected it to four different words just typing the above lol

Ag_of_08 said:

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In the grand scheme of **** we waste billions of dollars on, JWST is nothing, and at least provides scientific datum that could be of benefit.

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I agree.. if I were put in charge and told to cut stuff, this would be among the last things on my list. I'm merely talking ideology here. What should and what shouldn't governments in general do? I think this, among a billion other things the USG currently does, should not be done by government. And this is a hard case that tests my ideology because I'm a big fan of this stuff.

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NASA definitely needs spending reform, but even if someone went in like the angry first of God, took all control of who got what money away from congress, and optimized their budget, they'd still be underfunded for the amount t of good they do, and a drop in the bucket compared to the money the govt wastes with zero benefits.

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My argument is that whatever good they do would be less than the good that would have been done if resources weren't diverted away from the free market in the first place.

All the typical arguments about color TV, tang, computers, etc. are bogus. Every single one of those things (except maybe tang since it sucks so bad), would have been developed in the free market regardless of our space program. In fact, we would probably be further ahead since the processors and engineering diverted to Apollo and the shuttle were denied other applications that would now be further ahead. We spent those processors (and engineers) planting flags on the moon, when they could have been used in other medical, communication, development, etc. applications that would have been more useful to people.

I used to think that NASA propelled us ahead in space at the expense of other fields. That we are farther ahead in space than we would have been otherwise, but behind in other things. Now, after watching Space-X beat pants off of NASA, I think NASA has hindered space in addition to everything else. That back when Apollo was going on, it was the "cool" project that pulled in the best engineers the nation had to offer. That landing on the moon was the peak of acceleration of NASA's space envelop expansion. Then we wasted 30 years worth of resources and engineering on the shuttle program and stagnated that envelop expansion. That if we disbanded NASA after Apollo, we'd be much further ahead in space than we are now. If we never established NASA at all, we'd probably wouldn't be on the moon yet (unless some Elon Musk type would have done it by now), but we'd be further along in every other technical field (and maybe space too).


Remember the axiom: Government sucks at EVERYTHING they do. It's just that in a few cases, that suck is the best we got (like defense).

nortex97 said:

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Meanwhile, thanks to Bezos' sham lawsuit being thrown out, Artemis folks are touring SpaceX BC facilities.

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Thanks to the failure of Blue Origin's NASA Human Landing System (HLS) lawsuit, SpaceX and the space agency were finally able to get back to work last month.

Taking advantage of that, NASA astronauts and Artemis Program leaders recently took a tour of SpaceX's South Texas Starship factory and launch pads a massive hub of activity that the company has deemed Starbase. In doing so, save for updates from SpaceX and even members of the public over the last 6-9 months, NASA officials were finally able to get up close and personal with the progress SpaceX has made while the space agency was temporarily forced to halt all work on HLS.

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Starbase, Tx Launch Site
11 month difference pic.twitter.com/pfrJ0Co5ZT

— RGV Aerial Photography (@RGVaerialphotos) December 7, 2021

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In other words, once SpaceX is confident that the tank farm is safe to store liquid methane, the first Super Heavy wet dress rehearsals and static fire tests eventually simulating full thrust just before liftoff could begin almost immediately. Once the tower's three arms are at least partially functional, SpaceX will also be able to install a Starship on top of Super Heavy for the second time and test a fully-integrated two-stage Starship launch vehicle for the first time, paving the way for the first orbital-velocity launch attempt as soon as as the FAA grants a license.

Though SpaceX technically hasn't started building a prototype of the actual Starship Moon lander that will returns humans to the lunar surface, every single Starship and Super Heavy booster it builds and tests mature's the foundation of that crewed variant's design, as well as the fleet of boosters and ships that will be required to fuel it in orbit. By all appearances, Starship S20 the first completed orbital-class prototye has passed all the tests thrown at it and is ready for the program's first orbital-velocity launch attempt. If the speed of recent testing continues, Super Heavy Booster 4 may not be far behind it.

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First comment is funny;

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You should all note that construction at Cape Canaveral began in 1950...but it did not see its first launch till 1959 !!!! 9 years to build the launch facility for a just a pathetic little 150 ton titan missile with a 15,000km range....NO ONE....can fairly say that StarBase which is going to launch the biggest ship ever conceived, that is going 150 million miles and back, is going slow on construction......

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So a buddy of mine lives in the Brownsville area, he said one of his friends has a contract to put some type of suite or living type quarters on top of that huge 400 ft work shed they built.. I believe they have been working on it for a while now, it's mostly metal I believe so he has lots of welders up there.. anyway just something he recently told me

He's calling it "star lounge" or something like it, it's supposed to be a club/restaurant I believe. It will be on top of the high Bay

Ag_of_08 said:

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He's calling it "star lounge" or something like it, it's supposed to be a club/restaurant I believe. It will be on top of the high Bay

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Ok that makes sense, i remember him telling me it was a living type space, the guy said it's "way" up there

So far so good. SRB separation @ 44 miles, should be higher than Hubble in another minute or two.

Sweet!

I was a bit surprised to hear Rob Navias narrating the launch broadcast instead of a Goddard PAO person.

ETA: Where we're the WB-57s? I would have expected NASA to be broadcasting airborne launch video.

I don't think they can do in-air refueling with those, and they don't have the range to get from Florida to Guiana (something like 2,500 miles). I think it's roughly capable of flying that far but not back, and is not at this point in it's age really ready for a big trans-ocean ETOPS-type trip.

I was a little disappointed ESA didn't have any aircraft up to snap some video though, as well.

The moment we've all been waiting for... you can now watch again and again as many times as you want! 🤩🚀

📽️ https://t.co/YT3av96SCM#WebbFliesAriane #Webb #WebbSeesFarther

Video credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace pic.twitter.com/4GUzhoSziq

— ESA Webb Telescope (@ESA_Webb) December 25, 2021

Pretty handy chart for the deployment schedule.

https://planet4589.org/space/misc/webb/time.html

Edit to add snippet;



Basically nothing will happen now until tomorrow am.

Is there an official JWST twitter for keeping up with the milestones?

Edit: And Merry Christmas, everyone. This is my second favorite thread on TexAgs and I greatly appreciate all of you and the quality space conversations we have here. My wife is also glad I have somewhere else to direct my space rants at besides her.

Maximus_Meridius said:

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Is there an official JWST twitter for keeping up with the milestones?

Edit: And Merry Christmas, everyone. This is my second favorite thread on TexAgs and I greatly appreciate all of you and the quality space conversations we have here. My wife is also glad I have somewhere else to direct my space rants at besides her.

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What's your first favorite thread?????

Stock market thread. I love you guys, but that thread's money.

Maximus_Meridius said:

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Is there an official JWST twitter for keeping up with the milestones?

Edit: And Merry Christmas, everyone. This is my second favorite thread on TexAgs and I greatly appreciate all of you and the quality space conversations we have here. My wife is also glad I have somewhere else to direct my space rants at besides her.

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Merry Christmas to you as well and everyone else. All of you have made this a great thread.

Maximus_Meridius said:

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Is there an official JWST twitter for keeping up with the milestones?

Edit: And Merry Christmas, everyone. This is my second favorite thread on TexAgs and I greatly appreciate all of you and the quality space conversations we have here. My wife is also glad I have somewhere else to direct my space rants at besides her.

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@NASAWebb

I'm so glad you went wireless with this

— Dr. James O'Donoghue (@physicsJ) December 26, 2021

https://webb.nasa.gov/whereiswebb

This is pretty cool. Show it's speed, distance from earth, distance to L2 and other things.

10 Days to Primary Mirror deployment.

Well, some numbers on a 9 engine Starship.

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Regardless of its thrust, dimensions, or weight, what matters most is how a stretched, nine-engine Starship would impact that overall rocket's launch performance. If unofficial modelers are to be believed, the results are significant: compared to a 'normal' Starship with a six-engine upper stage and 33-engine booster, the stretched ship could theoretically boost the amount of payload the rocket can launch to low Earth orbit (LEO) from about 150 tons to 220 tons or more (330,000 to 485,000+ lb) an almost 50% improvement. In fact, per another recent comment from Musk indicating that Starship unlike almost all other rockets won't temporarily throttle down on ascent, the total payload performance could be a bit less than 230 tons (~500,000 lb) more than 50% greater than a shorter six-engine Starship.

If those estimates are accurate, upgrading Starship with nine Raptors and stretching its tanks is a no-brainer. It might slow development and make all nine-engine ships cost a substantial fraction more but a 50% improvement in payload performance would significantly improve the efficiency of Starship's more ambitious Moon and Mars launch profiles, which require numerous orbital refuelings.

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In effect, a 50% payload increase would allow SpaceX to complete most refueling tasks more efficiently, quickly, and cheaply. Even if the upgrade plans mean that all Starships will be stretched and carry nine Raptors, fully refueling the new Starship variant in LEO could require 7 tanker launches instead of 8-10. If SpaceX doesn't mind maintaining multiple distinct Starship variants, which appears to be the case, then ships that are exclusively dependent on refueling (Moon and Mars landers in particular) could stay at their current size, with ~1200 tons (~2.6M lb) of propellant storage and six Raptors. A fleet of upgraded Starships could thus refuel their smaller siblings with just 5-6 tanker launches.

However, there's a good chance that the extra mass required to stretch Starship ~5.5m (~4 tons or ~9000 lb) is minor enough that SpaceX will instead stretch all Starship variants. In fact, for variants like NASA's HLS Moon lander and future Marsbound Starships, which depend entirely on refueling to reach their destinations, stretched tanks and more propellant storage could increase the amount of payload they could send to the Moon, Mars, and other high-energy destinations by quite a bit. Ultimately, it will be fascinating to hear more details from SpaceX and Musk on how exactly the upgraded Starship design might benefit those operations in the coming weeks and months.

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9 days to Primary Mirror deployment.