Mirrors Finished For James Webb Space Telescope 115
eldavojohn writes "On August 15th, sendoff ceremonies were held at Ball Aerospace (subcontractor to Northrop Grumman) for the 18 gold-coated, ultrasmooth, 4.2-foot (1.3 meters) hexagonal beryllium primary mirror segments that will comprise the 21.3-foot (6.5 m) primary mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Over 90% of the back material was taken out of these mirrors to make them light enough so that 18 could be launched into space where they must operate at minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 240 degrees Celsius). The mirrors will be adjusted by computer controlled actuators that are vital to JWST producing high-quality sharp images. The tennis court sized JWST will reside at L2 and is hyped to allow us to see 'back to the beginning of time.' NASA has provided a video of the computer animated metamorphosis with many more videos at the JWST site."
yeah (Score:1)
We will REALLY be able to see boobies with that thing!
Re:yeah (Score:5, Informative)
Here's The scientific case for the James Webb Space Telescope [springerlink.com]. The earliest galaxies are redshifted into wavelengths that the HST can't resolve.
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In the fourth paragraph, page 490 (fifth page of the PDF) where (as in the preceding tables of abbreviations) it is referred to as "HST":
In the mid-1990s, the “HST and Beyond” committee recommended that NASA build an IR-optimized telescope to extend HST discoveries to higher red- shift and longer wavelength (Dressler, 1996).
Re:yeah (Score:5, Informative)
Hubble = HST.Look again.
For instance:
The deepest images of the universe include the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (UDF) in the optical (Beckwith et al., 2003), which reaches AB = 29.0 mag in the I band, HST near-IR images of the UDF, which reach AB = 28.5 in the J and H bands (Bouwens et al., 2005a), and the Spitzer Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (Dickinson, 2004), which reaches AB = 26.6 mag at 3.6 m. Galaxies are detected in these observations at 6
Or how about this:
Hierarchical Assembly: The dark matter mass function of bound objects at very high redshifts can be uniquely measured in two ways with JWST. First, the dynamics of groups of galaxies or sub-galactic fragments can be used to determine the typical masses of halos (Zaritsky and White, 1994).
These measurements require observations of emission lines in the rest-frame optical, such as [OII] 3727, [OIII] 5007, and H. These are very difficult to measure from the ground when redshifted into the near-IR.
Second, JWST will measure halo masses through the gravitational bending of light. Using this weak-lensing method, ground-based programs have measured the mass within 200–500 kpc of galaxies at redshifts of z 0.1 (McKay et al., 2002) and z 1 (Wilson et al., 2001). Using the superior resolution of HST, these measure- ments are likely to be extended into 30–50 kpc for galaxies at z 1 (e.g., Rhodes et al., 2004; Rhodes, 2004). While there are some hints of variable halo struc- tures for galaxies of different luminosity and total halo mass, the radial penetration of these surveys, and the ability to compare galaxies of different morphologies are
518 J. P. GARDNER ET AL.
limited by statistics. We expect that HST will establish the statistical mass functions for spiral and elliptical galaxies at z 1, but not much beyond that, because of its limited sensitivity and sampling at > 1.6 m.
JWST will extend the equivalent measurements of galaxies to z 2.5 and thus determine the development of the dark matter halos during the peak growth of galaxies and star formation. JWST will require near-IR imaging with high spatial resolution and sensitivity to achieve this greater depth. Background galaxies with a size comparable to the resolution of JWST will be measured at 20 .
The same near-IR sensitivity and resolution will also make JWST superior to those of ground-based facilities and HST for the study of dark matter structures on larger scales, e.g., 1–10 arcmin or 2–20 Mpc (co-moving) at z 3. These volumes measure the clustering of dark matter on cluster or even supercluster scales, and would extend the study of the mass function into the linear regime. The goal of these observations would be to verify the growth of structure between z 1000 (the CMB large-scale structure) and z 2.5, i.e., during the period that dark matter dominated the cosmological expansion of the universe prior to the beginning of dark energy dominance at z 1.
It's not all about the redshift, the paper also describes potentially useful observations in the IR-- planet formation, star formation, etc. And,of course, optical telescopes have a hard time resolving what's behind dust clouds-- ir telescopes can see beyond them
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It's important science, but even if the telescope works without a hitch and everything goes according to plan, the Webb Space Telescope represents a real failure on the part of NASA administration. According to Wikipedia, the telescope was originally supposed to launch in 2007 for a cost of $500 million; then 2007-2008 for a cost of $1 billion, then 2009 for $1.8 billion, now it's 2018 and 8.7 billion. The Curiosity rover has also had major problems, being two years behind schedule and $1.5 billion over bud
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You mean it's hard to predict how long and how expensive it will be to do something literally *nobody has ever done*?
Well holy shit, you just blew my mind.
Also, how is leadership failing them? Leadership seems to be doing pretty well, they managed to secure additional funding and time for the engineers and projects that needed it. Leadership would be failing if those projects were canceled after years of work and billions of dollars. I suppose the only failure is that they didn't take the initial estimates,
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They shouldnt be underestimating their budgets. If they thought they were going to build that telescope for 500million they should be fired.
You are making the very large assumption that budgets get approved at their actual cost. In reality, they get approved at their assumed or original budgeted cost, with the longstanding joke in business that projects like this will always end up costing 4x in the end. Stupid and absolutely ludicrous, but only mirrors the absurdity of the politics involved.
And knowing the beaurcracy of projects this large, I doubt anyone got fired. The fact that the project went from an original budget of 1 billion to over
Where is that money being spent? (Score:5, Insightful)
That money is being spent in the USA, it is going to our own citizens to advance our own science.
With your reasoning, just about EVERY SINGLE project this government has EVER undertaken:
- electrification
- interstate highway system
- moon shot
- internet
- big dig
- just about everyting NASA has done
would be considered a "failure" because ALL of them overran their original budgets.
If "budgetary concerns" are your ONLY criterion for success or failure, you're CLEARLY one of those "Harvard MBA Spreadsheet" wonks who thinks that all of life and reality can be boiled down into an excel spreadsheet.
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That money is being spent in the USA, it is going to our own citizens to advance our own science.
With your reasoning, just about EVERY SINGLE project this government has EVER undertaken:
I'm sorry, but this is a very real failure. I'm a total space geek at heart, but the cost overruns completely change the cost/benefit analysis of the project. Sure, if there is no other research or project to spend the money on, your argument might make sense. But there are tons of these project that all compete for funding. The value we, as citizens and taxpayers, receive for that money is incredibly important. There are a ton of other very worthy projects that could have done more with that amount of
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I'm sorry you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
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That money is being spent in the USA, it is going to our own citizens to advance our own science.
With your reasoning, just about EVERY SINGLE project this government has EVER undertaken:
I'm sorry, but this is a very real failure. I'm a total space geek at heart, but the cost overruns completely change the cost/benefit analysis of the project. Sure, if there is no other research or project to spend the money on, your argument might make sense. But there are tons of these project that all compete for funding. The value we, as citizens and taxpayers, receive for that money is incredibly important. There are a ton of other very worthy projects that could have done more with that amount of money.
Hell, for that amount of money, how many New Horizons [wikipedia.org] type missions could we have paid for?
Your Utopian business model, complete with real project justification, proper spending constraints, and sound ROI analysis sounds awesome!
Too bad I'm still laughing my ass off, because hardly any of that shit actually happens in the real world.
And careful when you use the words "for that amount of money", for there are plenty who would claim you "space geeks" are a complete waste of taxpayer money, and that the entire NASA budget could easily fund "other very worthy projects" not related to space exploratio
Re: budgets (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, Accepting that flyingsquid's remark and mine will be moderated into Negativeland, I will feed his/her troll-ness just this once.
Budgets running "over": I agree that you have, using perfect 20/20 hindsight, identified a worrisome trend: rising NASA project costs over time. I will argue against this as a legitimate complaint on 2 fronts:
A) All government projects rise, at rates at least equal to NASAs. By the time the projects "end" they all appear wildly delayed, and hugely inflated. B1, B2, F22, F35, LCS, Stryker, M2 Bradley, M1 Abrams, F18 (which was the loser in the competition for the F16), NexRad, IRS software upgrades, the list is endless. You've chosen to reframe NASA's behavior as out-of-place, when creeping budgets and timelines are the norm. These "creeps" are in fact reviews, where congress revisits the project's justification and reconsiders continuance or abandonment.
B) Hindsight is unavoidable, but somewhat useless. All government projects are engaged in for the best reasons at the time. (Including pork: politics and perception are both, unhappily, reasons.) All of them are initially put up with gigantic dark-areas of knowledge. The proponents of the project have to name the best number they can with the available knowledge, then run with it. Each successive increase is a far harder battle than the initial start, and the fact that a project eventually flies means that the best congressional minds decided it was worth it at each of those increases.
My conclusion: You are offended by a pattern of behavior that is visible looking back, but invisible looking forward. I welcome your proposal to eliminate this problem, but to tote out the tried-and-true phrases like "accountability for failures" and "leadership is failing them" is to cloth Luddism in conservative gowns. I've attempted to make the case that while the system isn't elegant, it is your perception of it that is your problem. This inelegant system produces investments that it believes are worthy, using the best information available at the time, at each step along the way. That it follows a Drunkard's Walk is meaningless if it gets to the desired goal.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
So the guys that are liars (or incompetent) and lo-ball their initial budget estimates to get the project started are rewarded with funding and the guys that are honest from the start and put big contingencies in their estimates for unknowns never get funded because they are always underbid. If the desired goal is to reward BS, dishonesty, and political pull over scientific merit it's working great.
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Ok, Accepting that flyingsquid's remark and mine will be moderated into Negativeland, I will feed his/her troll-ness just this once.
I'd like to think that he's not trolling and is instead expressing a valid concern. It's anathema in terms of how I think the U.S. should shift its priorities post-Global War on Terrorism, but it's still valid. We want the U.S. government to spend money wisely, so scrutinizing and eliminating waste is good ... but not at the cost of killing a program that's going to be crucial for America's journey into the 22nd century.
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how I think the U.S. should shift its priorities post-Global War on Terrorism
"post"? Why do you think the GWOT will ever end?
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F18 (which was the loser in the competition for the F16
It does amuse me that the US defense bidding process produces all these failed/shelved designs for the Second-Bestest Nucular Bombar Ever. What happens to them? Are there defense contractors with big grudges, deep pockets and a back garage full of prototype stealth city obliterators? What happens if one of these guys decide they're tired of always being America's Second Runner-Up / Miss Congeniality 1988 in the Mass Civilian Murder, Mayhem and Catwalk/Gantry Jumpsuit Model categories... but never #1?
There's
Re:yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
The Pentagon, DOD, CIA and all the "other" defense related BS that the aging, paranoid "military-industrial complex" spending is classified, the dollar figures released are for public consumption only and are a TINY fraction of the true amount! The REAL amount spent, would dwarf (IMHO) the entire remainder of the federal budget!
If the USofA spent the same percentage of it's budget on all the above as China or Europe, not only would their be NO DEBT, the federal coffers would be busting at the seams with money for roads, bridges, waterworks, infrastructure, environmental clean up, etc, etc, etc.
BUT as the defense industry is so very generous to our whores in Washington, we can reliably expect to be at war for the foreseeable future!
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Congress added billions by jerking NASA around... (Score:3)
NASA's (mis-)management aside, congress added an extra $2.2B to the cost by disregarding the review panel's findings and not funding the project in a timely manner. Read more about it here [scienceblogs.com], courtesy of an earlier slashdot article: How the Webb Space Telescope Got So Expensive [slashdot.org].
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It always comes back to Congress. I think they are NASA's real problem. We should put Congress-people that aren't from NASA center/JPL/etc. states but nonetheless are enthusiastic about science, tech, space, and aero into the committees that decide their budget. Do those even exist?
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What I think you're missing is that the standard bean-counter approach to budgeting and project management just doesn't apply here. Take a car company as the opposite - they make hundreds of thousands of everything. Because they're dealing with well-known technology and high production numbers, they can say with a great deal of confidence exactly how much it will cost to make the next one, or the next ten, or the next ten thousand. Neither of those apply to a lot of these technological projects that are so
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Problems nobody could have forseen are going to come up,
"Bit of a bother, sir. The Soviets have called off this whole Cold War thing. Dashed unsporting, what?"
"Nassssty hippie peaceniks! My preciousssssss!"
and solutions will have to be found,
"So some of our chums across the ditch have been thinking, let's try reviving the Crusades. Cos those worked out brilliantly the last time we tried that!"
"Excssseeellent! You haff saved our budgetssssss!"
and nobody will be able to predict how much it will cost or how long it will take ahead of time.
"Righty-ho, here's your unlimited war budget. Course it will trash the world economy, but what's a few eggs to an omelette, eh?"
"O my I am teengling just thin
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Why is it when the Defense Department has a cost overrun of billions of dollars, everyone says, "But we need this! It's important!" but no one ever tries to make the same case for the advancement of science?
We could have discovered the Higgs boson a decade sooner -- in the United States -- if we'd opted to take a chance on science and finish building the Superconducting Supercollider, but killing Earthlings was apparently more important, so Congress in its infinite wisdom shut that project down. Flash forwa
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We could have discovered the Higgs boson a decade sooner -- in the United States
And planted a really really tiny US flag on it, I'm guessing.
"We came in peace for all mankinx - darnit! Stupid cramped lettering! Hand me the quantum eraser!"
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We will REALLY be able to see boobies with that thing!
And then the scientists will find out that the green alien babes they were looking for aren't actually mammals at all and the jig will be up.
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American (American Football), Canadian (Canada's variant thereof...), or European (soccer)?
Obviously an Unladen African Arena Football field.
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European (soccer)?
Not the best choice of measurement, as they can vary dramatically [wikipedia.org]. Now a rugby pitch, that's a fixed size.
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Now a rugby pitch, that's a fixed size.
Lies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_pitch#Playing_field (note the "Not Exceeding" measurements in the picture.)
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Before you answer, remember, international units conversion problems have caused previous space missions to fail...
Re:Tennis court (Score:5, Funny)
Would also be nice to know how many libraries of congress per second the telescope will be able to send back to Earth
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Would also be nice to know how many libraries of congress per second the telescope will be able to send back to Earth
Throughput might also be better using IPv6.
Don't worry though. We won't have deployed it by then either.
NATS.....IN.....SPAAAAACE!!!!!
Hopefully... (Score:5, Funny)
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They're now part of the ISR Systems department at Goodrich, which was recently purchased by United Technologies.
And yes, they still bid and win NASA contracts.
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I once had a discussion with a director of engineering about being fired for screwing up a design (in jest; a hypothetical "I hope this does't fail" comment). He quickly came back with, "Oh, I wouldn't fire you. Far worse - I'd make you stay on and fix it."
Smart engineers who have made some rookie mistakes are probably some of the first people you want on a review team. When everything goes perfectly, you don't know how much of your design was genius and how much was luck.
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I cited Perkin-Elmer because they repeatedly ignored fail test results from two tools when one tool gave a pass, and that one tool was later identified as being assembled incorrectly so its optics were wrong. They seemingly never questioned that tool's results or had it c
Have they been properly collimated? (Score:4, Insightful)
Please tell me they have been collimated properly and we aren't going to get another Hubble problem, this time at L2 with no hopes of a monocle to fix it.
Re:Have they been properly collimated? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Have they been properly collimated? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Have they been properly collimated? (Score:5, Informative)
Collimation wasn't the issue, the mirror was incorrectly shaped due to a fault in the QA process where a tool used to measure the sphericity of the mirror called a null corrector was assumed to be set up to spec.
More details here for those who are interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#Origin_of_the_problem [wikipedia.org]
Collimation refers to the arrangement, or alignment, of the optical surfaces and lenses in relation to each other.
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A cousin of mine with a degree in quality engineering [wikipedia.org] works for Northrop Grumman and had to go visit Ball a bunch in the last year to ensure that the mirror segments were to spec. So if the mirror doesn't work, I'm blaming her.
memories of Hubble (Score:2)
hopefully they polished this one well enough...
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Re:memories of Hubble (Score:5, Informative)
The Allen Commission found that the null corrector used to test the mirror had a lens installed 1.3mm out of position. Citation The Hubble Space Telescope Optical Systems Failure Report [berkeley.edu] chapter 7.
The mirror was wrong when it left the factory.
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I'm guessing there's a good reason, but do you by any chance know why NASA didn't test the final optical alignment of Hubble on the ground before it launched? Why not lay the thing on its side and point it at something really far away to make sure everything was in focus (or just point it up at the night sky)? Too much structural warping due to gravity?
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I imagine being a satellite, it wasn't designed to support it's own mass against gravity when fully deployed - after all for launch it would need to be as light as possible.
Re:memories of Hubble (Score:4, Informative)
hubble was polished fine. It warped when it got to zero g...
No it wasn't, it's well known that the mirror was ground incorrectly due to the measurement instrument being 1.3mm out [wikipedia.org]
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LOL. No, it was figured wrong, period.
Compared to any military project, I am sure NASA's budget overruns are miniscule. It's too bad military projects aren't subject to this kind of scrutiny. I'm sure the taxpayer would save billions.
Re:memories of Hubble (Score:5, Funny)
The beginning of time (Score:3)
... see back to the beginning of time
so they finally see the hand of the Maker:
Sorry for the inconvenience.
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One hand will be in the pocket, the other one will be holding a cigarette.
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That's really quite ironic, don't you think?
First to see the epoch becomes God (Score:2)
Quantum mechanics shows that conscious participation can help define the universe (Are things a wave or a particle? Matters if you're looking). John Wheeler [wikipedia.org] took this further and called it the Participatory Anthropic Principle. (Not as catchy as his other terms he came up with like black hole or wormhole). So whomever sees epoch first may become the Maker. A fun little read on the idea is 2002 discover mag article [discovermagazine.com]
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Need more of these stories (Score:2)
Beryllium? (Score:1)
When they add in the new power supply, will it use berryllium spheres?
One shot at getting it right. (Score:5, Informative)
During Hubble's deployment a solar panel failed to fully unfold. An astronaut needed to manually extend the panel or Hubble would not have the power to operate. Hubble famously needed a "set of glasses" to correct for a deformation in it's mirror. This was accomplished with a space shuttle mission. In the years that followed Hubble needed gyroscopes replaced and has received upgrade packages to extend it's capabilities.
Webb will be four times further away from Earth than the distance between the Earth and Moon. That will make any effort to repair it more risky than an Apollo moon mission. Webb was almost cancelled for budget reasons. It's unlikely a rescue mission would be conducted if something were to go wrong.
I can't wait to see what a telescope more powerful than Hubble can do. I hope everything goes according to plan.
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NASA has learned a lot from all of their work up until now. Consider the spectacular success in getting Curiosity onto Mars - a remarkably complex and audacious plan.
Testing methods, materials and technology has come a long way; it's not a guarantee that everything will go without a hitch but I'm optimisitic.
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Thousands of satellites have been launched on unmanned rockets and have done fine without human intervention.
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I'm aware, but most of them extend a dish or make a minimal configuration change once in orbit. Few of them are folded like complex origami into a rocket nose.
I want this to work, I'm just expressing a concern.
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I'm aware, but most of them extend a dish or make a minimal configuration change once in orbit. Few of them are folded like complex origami into a rocket nose.
I want this to work, I'm just expressing a concern.
It does occur to me that it would not be so far away that we couldn't launch a robotic vehicle with manipulators to do maintenance on it.
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Webb will be four times further away from Earth than the distance between the Earth and Moon. That will make any effort to repair it more risky than an Apollo moon mission. Webb was almost cancelled for budget reasons. It's unlikely a rescue mission would be conducted if something were to go wrong.
I think robotics has advanced to the point where we could engineer and send up an unmanned repair vehicle if we had to. Hopefully, we won't have to. :)
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How much of the cost of the Webb was actually construction? I never understood all the hubble repair missions and such - just build a few more of them and launch them.
I suspect that 90% of the cost is in the design/etc. Sure, the mirror has to cost a pretty penny, but after you have the rigs all designed to grind it out, why not just start them on a second mirror the day after the first is removed? If something goes wrong with the first telescope you have a spare, and if not, well, then you get to do twi
Fahrenheit, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Guys, really? Fahrenheit? In a science article? On an international website?
I don't even advocate the usage of Celcius in this case, so why not use 33 degrees Kelvin? This at least give us _some_ idea of how close to absolute zero we are. Otherwise, why not use 'near absolute zero' and leave out the numbers completely?
</getoffmylawn>
Fahrenheit and Tennis Courts, Yes (Score:3)
Jeez, somebody whizzed on the electric fence [youtube.com] last night.
Re:Fahrenheit, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Guys, really? Fahrenheit? In a science article? On an international website?
I don't even advocate the usage of Celcius in this case, so why not use 33 degrees Kelvin? This at least give us _some_ idea of how close to absolute zero we are. Otherwise, why not use 'near absolute zero' and leave out the numbers completely?
</getoffmylawn>
degrees Kelvin you say? In a comment to a science article?
Re:Minus, really? (Score:1)
If you're going to complain, complain about the use of "minus" as a unary operator.
It's *negative*. Minus is subtraction.
Pet Peeve!
At least with F and C they're accurate if unconventional.
(Aside: What? no Rankine love?)
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Guys, really? Fahrenheit? ... On an international website?
It's not an international website. It's an American website. The fact that you can access it from outside the US is great and all, and I welcome everyone to this community warmly. However, I welcome everyone to the community warmly in the very same way that the grocery store down my street welcomes foreign visitors. They'll sell you anything you want, treat you the same as they treat all their American customers, but don't go and get all indignant that they have no employees who speak Finnish. This web
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On an international website?
From an old slashdot FAQ.
Slashdot is U.S.-centric. We readily admit this, and really don't see it as a problem. Slashdot is run by Americans, after all, and the vast majority of our readership is in the U.S. We're certainly not opposed to doing more international stories, but we don't have any formal plans for making that happen. All we can really tell you is that if you're outside the U.S. and you have news, submit it, and if it looks interesting, we'll post it.
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Guys, really? Fahrenheit? In a science article? On an international website?
I don't even advocate the usage of Celcius in this case, so why not use 33 degrees Kelvin?
For one thing, there's no such thing as a "degree Kelvin." Look it up.
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the name still annoys me (Score:4, Funny)
Wish it had been named after an astronomer, like the Hubble [wikipedia.org] was, not a NASA administrator.
Re:the name still annoys me (Score:5, Insightful)
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I just assumed it was named after the guy who wrote MacArthur Park.
Cool! All we need now is (Score:2)
a solid xenon-halogen laser and a ginormous popcorn ball!
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Don't forget to clean your optics, first.
What about maintanance of Hubble? (Score:3)
It is very unfortunate that JWST means the end if Hubble. JWST provides only infrared spectrum (and we already have seperate telescopes that do infraded and x-ray), while Hubble does ultraviolet and optical. Servicing Mission 4 was under the thread of being canceled, however even though it is completed, all the finances are now invested into JWST, so SM4 was the last mission to the Hubble.
only space shuttle can maintain Hubble (Score:3)
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Why bother when it is not necessary. Ground-based scopes can do visual band perfectly fine. IR and UV have to be outside the atmosphere apart from some very narrow windows. Saying that, JWST costs too much and not worth it. We would have got a lot more science out of a couple of smaller IR scopes and loads of ground based stuff where it's multiple magnitudes of order cheaper and they're shutting left and right because there's no money left.
Re:What about maintanance of Hubble? (Score:5, Informative)
While there have been other telescopes that observed in the infrared, JWST will have a mirror 6x larger than the prevous space-based telescopes that operate or have operated at the same wavelengths (0.8 to 24 microns). This means that JWST will have a factor of 6 better resolution than previous telescopes and be incredibly more sensitive due to the larger collecting area. Ground-based telescopes cannot compete with JWST because of the sky brightness in the infrared making sensitive observations very time consuming. The science drivers of JWST are primarily the high-redshift universe, that is galaxies that were formed shortly after the big bang. This is something Hubble cannot do since it is not infrared optimized (the telescope is quite warm compare to JWST's operating temperature) and has too small of an aperture for the resolution needed.
The lack of future Hubble servicing has a lot to do with the retirement of the Space Shuttles, the only platform that can be used to service HST. Hubble will be kept going as long as possible since it is still doing outstanding science. In the 2020s it is hoped to launch an 8m class optical-uv telescope to truly replace Hubble.
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and 36 times the light gathering power.
NASA got two spare Keyhole mirrors (Score:2)
Say (Score:2)
He looked out the porthole at the new telescope whose gathering disc dwarfed his ship.
"That's one big-ass mirror!", Tom Swift reflected.
Meteorites? (Score:3)
I have a great idea! (Score:2)
Let's pretend that the people who write budgets are the only people on this planet with any common sense.
Then we can judge everything based on whether it overran its budget, without consideration of any other criteria.
Sounds strange? Read the comments above!
Calibration (Score:2)
I hope they calibrated the testing equipment.
I seem to remember that the Hubble mirror passed all the tests, but that the test equipment wasn't calibrated correctly.
I would be happy if I wasn't so bitter. (Score:2)
You know what would have REALLY been able to "see back to the beginning of time"? A proper gravitational observatory like the LISA/Pathfinder project, which would have used three satellites to measure fluxuations in space-time less than the width of an atomic nucleus. It was planned to be operational by 2015 and would have been able to "see" better and farther than light-based telescopes.
But I probably will never see anything as cool as that, because it lost funding when the Webb sucked up all the oxygen in