The Astronomy Thread

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Tripamang

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I dont think much of the cooling systems have Earth based applications, which is where a huge chunk of the cost comes from.
All the more reason to build another JWST? Kind of my point that all that tech they developed is just shelved. Long term that cooling tech might be pretty lucrative for building super conductor computers in space.
 
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Furry

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How many Gov projects come in under budget? Are there any repercussions for knowingly under bidding by large margins, to make it look good, so the politicos you paid off (legally, of course) can get general support? The $10 billion final price was only 3.33 times over budget...

Gov is usually a lot stricter than that, and is usually quite the miser with lots of avenues of recourse against a bad actor in a contract. Most of those wasteful contracts you hear about are just spook cover stories. This is the rare legitimate major overrun I think. The project ran into a lot of problems, but managed to work it's way through. In the end, it's a magnificent achievement, so I'm excited to see what it produces.
 
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Aaron

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Capture.PNG
 
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Mudcrush Durtfeet

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All the more reason to build another JWST? Kind of my point that all that tech they developed is just shelved. Long term that cooling tech might be pretty lucrative for building super conductor computers in space.
Once Starship gets going we won't need to build such a complex dinosaur of a device.
 
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Tripamang

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Once Starship gets going we won't need to build such a complex dinosaur of a device.
Why not? In what world would it not be 10x as big and even more complex? If they can apply the same unfolding techniques to make it even bigger why wouldn't you do it?

Unless the thing is fabbed in space and the fairing size doesn't matter I don't see things changing much.
 
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Big Phoenix

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I assume he means the rube goldberg folding mechanism for the mirror and sun shield. iirc that was heavily dictated by the constraints of the launch vehicles available when it was first being designed.
 

Mudcrush Durtfeet

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I assume he means the rube goldberg folding mechanism for the mirror and sun shield. iirc that was heavily dictated by the constraints of the launch vehicles available when it was first being designed.
Pretty much. Assuming Starship performs anything like it is planned to, access to space will be far cheaper and it will be possible to construct things in space using multiple missions if need be at a reasonable price.
 
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Big Phoenix

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In yet another example of how insanely dog shit "journalism" is, remember that story about NASA hiring a few dozen religious types? All bullshit. Some clickbaiter whose about to put out a book put out a story in some UK publication about a 6 year old NASA "study" that involved a few religious types. Once it was published "journalist" started playing telephone like retarded 5 year olds;

 
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phisey

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The secondary mirror deployment was livestreamed a couple hours ago. Had some interesting commentary and great documentary coverage on the production and testing in it so NASA can pat their backs even harder when it doesn't fail:

 
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