'A Christmas Gift for Humanity' - Cheers Erupt After Webb Telescope Completes Flawless Launch (www.cbc.ca) 56
"We have LIFTOFF of the @NASAWebb Space Telescope!" NASA tweeted seven hours ago, sharing a 32-second video of the launch. "At 7:20am ET (12:20 UTC), the beginning of a new, exciting decade of science climbed to the sky," they wrote, adding that the telescope "will change our understanding of space as we know it."
The CBC reports: The world's largest and most powerful space telescope rocketed away Saturday on a high-stakes quest to behold light from the first stars and galaxies, and scour the universe for hints of life.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope soared from French Guiana on South America's northeastern coast, riding a European Ariane rocket into the Christmas morning sky. "What an amazing Christmas present," said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's science mission chief.
The $10-billion US observatory hurtled toward its destination 1.6 million kilometres away, or more than four times beyond the moon. It will take a month to get there and another five months before its infrared eyes are ready to start scanning the cosmos. First, the telescope's enormous mirror and sunshield need to unfurl; they were folded origami-style to fit into the rocket's nose cone. Otherwise, the observatory won't be able to peer back in time 13.7 billion years as anticipated, within a mere 100 million years of the universe-forming Big Bang. NASA administrator Bill Nelson called the telescope a time machine that will provide "a better understanding of our universe and our place in it: who we are, what we are, the search that's eternal."
"We are going to discover incredible things that we never imagined," Nelson said following liftoff, speaking from Florida's Kennedy Space Center. But he cautioned: "There are still innumerable things that have to work and they have to work perfectly.... We know that in great reward there is great risk...."
"We have delivered a Christmas gift today for humanity," said Josef Aschbacher, the European Space Agency's director general....
Cheers and applause erupted in and outside Launch Control following the telescope's flawless launch...
Official online dashboards are now tracking its position. (And you can watch complete footage of the entire launch here.) "If all goes well, the sunshield will be opened three days after liftoff, taking at least five days to unfold and lock into place," the CBC points out. "Next, the mirror segments should open up like the leaves of a drop-leaf table, 12 days or so into the flight." In all, hundreds of release mechanisms need to work — perfectly — in order for the telescope to succeed. Such a complex series of actions is unprecedented — "like nothing we've done before," noted NASA program director Greg Robinson.
Thanks to Slashdot readers Dave Knott and hackertourist for sharing the news...
The CBC reports: The world's largest and most powerful space telescope rocketed away Saturday on a high-stakes quest to behold light from the first stars and galaxies, and scour the universe for hints of life.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope soared from French Guiana on South America's northeastern coast, riding a European Ariane rocket into the Christmas morning sky. "What an amazing Christmas present," said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's science mission chief.
The $10-billion US observatory hurtled toward its destination 1.6 million kilometres away, or more than four times beyond the moon. It will take a month to get there and another five months before its infrared eyes are ready to start scanning the cosmos. First, the telescope's enormous mirror and sunshield need to unfurl; they were folded origami-style to fit into the rocket's nose cone. Otherwise, the observatory won't be able to peer back in time 13.7 billion years as anticipated, within a mere 100 million years of the universe-forming Big Bang. NASA administrator Bill Nelson called the telescope a time machine that will provide "a better understanding of our universe and our place in it: who we are, what we are, the search that's eternal."
"We are going to discover incredible things that we never imagined," Nelson said following liftoff, speaking from Florida's Kennedy Space Center. But he cautioned: "There are still innumerable things that have to work and they have to work perfectly.... We know that in great reward there is great risk...."
"We have delivered a Christmas gift today for humanity," said Josef Aschbacher, the European Space Agency's director general....
Cheers and applause erupted in and outside Launch Control following the telescope's flawless launch...
Official online dashboards are now tracking its position. (And you can watch complete footage of the entire launch here.) "If all goes well, the sunshield will be opened three days after liftoff, taking at least five days to unfold and lock into place," the CBC points out. "Next, the mirror segments should open up like the leaves of a drop-leaf table, 12 days or so into the flight." In all, hundreds of release mechanisms need to work — perfectly — in order for the telescope to succeed. Such a complex series of actions is unprecedented — "like nothing we've done before," noted NASA program director Greg Robinson.
Thanks to Slashdot readers Dave Knott and hackertourist for sharing the news...
Oblig... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oblig... (Score:4, Informative)
Permalink [xkcd.com]
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No it didn't. It was launched BY the EU, by it launched FROM the north-east coast of South America.
James Webb Space Telescope soared from French Guiana on South America's northeastern coast
Re: Oblig... (Score:1)
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(Oh, and by the way French Guyana is not a "protectorate". People in "protectorates" don't get to elect MPs and vote for the President).
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If you want to nitpick, then nitpick correctly:
by it launched FROM the north-east coast of South America.
Correct.
No it didn't. It was launched BY the EU
It did. As this part belongs to the EU, oops. It is part of France.
Re:A gift for humanity? (Score:5, Insightful)
Only that's not a question of money, but a question of complete unwillingness to tackle the underlying (and even obvious) problems.
Simplistic thoughts like this are utterly useless.
But you know that, or you wouldn't be posting as an Anonymous Coward.
Re:A gift for humanity? (Score:5, Insightful)
If we never spend resources on knowledge for knowledge alone, we'll never know what we might have done with that knowledge.
I suppose we could have kept living without any technology. No medicine, no farming, no solid-state electronics, no thermionic valves, no aluminum, steel, iron, copper or other metals, no flint knives. We could still all be huddling in small groups, wondering where our next meal was coming from.
Re:A gift for humanity? (Score:5, Insightful)
[quote]I'm sure the homeless sleeping in tents...[/quote]
Oh stop. Do you mean to tell me that you never go to a movie or buy a chocolate bar? The existence of homelessness and people with medical bills doesn't (nor should it) stop us from reaching for scientific goals, or public art, or athletic competition, or anything else. The 10B cost of the James Webb Space Telescope is about $30.17 per person in the US. So everyone in the US collectively decided to spend the money for one night out at the cinema on a scientific instrument that will provide insight and knowledge for a generation.
[quote]or kids with empty stomachs[/quote]
How about the kids with empty minds? To provide quality education tomorrow we need research today.
Re:A gift for humanity? (Score:5, Interesting)
What you said, plus
That $30 was spent over 24 years. So we're looking at a ~$1.25 a year.
There's about 500,000 homeless at present, including the one-week homeless.
That $10 billion would provide $800 per year for each one. I'm not sure you could get an apartment in NYC for $800 a year.
If we used it for reparations to black Americans, they would get about $21 a year.
In 2020, we spent $670 Billion on Medicaid.
The cost of the Webb telescope isn't enough to fund one week of Medicaid this year, much less all the other programs.
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That $10 billion would provide $800 per year for each one. I'm not sure you could get an apartment in NYC for $800 a year.
To be honest that sounds like a pretty fucking good thing to do with 10 billion dollars.
On the other hand though I do think that there are far better places in the US budget to trim that kind of money then taking it from something as awesome as the James Webb
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What is stopping you from going and helping them?
If you care so much then tell us, when was the last time you bought a homeless person some food?
When was the last time you donated a winter coat to one of them?
When did you last donate food to poor children?
Re: A gift for humanity? (Score:5, Insightful)
You know one Christmas, when I was kid a relative got me an ugly shirt with a whacky print on it and it was a size too big as well. I hated getting clothes anyway .. I wanted toys, books, or gadgets. Useless to me at the time so I threw three shirt in the closet and forgot all about it. Does not change the fact that it was a gift. I did not wear it until years later when I went to a rock concert. The JWST is a gift for me, for science, for understanding the laws of nature to tickle our curious out and fascination and maybe that we can use to build and engineer things. So yeah, it is a gift for humanity, even the ones too dumb to appreciate or accept it.
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If that is your biggest issue with the money spent on scientific endeavours like a space telescope, then how about:
We remove a (1) multibillionaire from this planet, divide his wealth (even if it's in the form of stocks, BitCoin or whatever) over all the people you're concerned about, ... and still have the James Webb up there (+ change). Except for that one (1) multibillionaire, surely a better solution for everyone?
Same thing for 2, 3, 4, ... etc multibillionaires: acceptable. Bring it on.
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Their money is in stock valuations, not stuffed in a mattress.
So you seize the stock, which you cannot do constitutionally as the government must compensate for things it takes, making it pointless, and may only tax in ways granted to it (hence an amendment to give it the power of income tax) then what?
Government must sell the stock for it to be of use. This crushes the stock market as vast amounts of high value stocks plummet, again making it a pointless endeavor.
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"No one group is 'humanity'."
Yes - by definition! Humanity is the collection of all humans. You couldn't be more wrong in five words.
You might want to argue the point, but my money is on Merriam Webster.
https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
Re: Yes (Score:1)
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I'm sure the homeless sleeping in tents in winter or people with bankrupting medical bills or kids with empty stomachs are thrilled that we're going to get pictures of blobs 13 billion light years away.
Hurray.
More or less thrilled than spending the equivalent of 54 James Webb Telescopes worth on the military in the past year alone? Oh but blowing shit up and killing people is important, we need to cut science funding to support your pet project right?
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If we avoided any other scientific or technological pursuits until all social problems were solved we'd still be in the dark ages.
Advances in technology improve the average human quality of life so that even though the poor remain poor, what it means to be "poor" isn't as bad as it was in ages past.
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I'm sure the homeless sleeping in tents in winter or people with bankrupting medical bills or kids with empty stomachs are thrilled that we're going to get pictures of blobs 13 billion light years away.
Hurray.
Yeah, we could have even spent it to stay in Afghanistan for another... month or so.
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I'm sure the homeless sleeping in tents in winter
Meh, I'm sure they collectively spent more on booze, cigarettes and meth in the last 20 years than JWST cost.
Cheering for the mission (Score:3)
It's finally on its way, can't wait to see the first results.
I was a bit disappointed by the joint NASA/ESA webcast though. People talking over each other, repeating each other. Better graphics than previous ESA launches (I liked the indication with altitude, downrange distance and speed), but very little video from the launcher (only one camera inside the fairing, no outside views).
exciting, if still late (Score:1)
And then the next one (Score:5, Informative)
Re: And then the next one (Score:3)
Dear god, please don't name a major scientific endeavor after the person whose life mission is to turn criminal justice into a sensational reality TV show.
Yes, I get it, it's not the same person, but all they have to do is remove the middle name and nobody will get the two confused. They didn't call JWST the James Edwin Webb Space Telescope, after all.
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They didn't call JWST the James Edwin Webb Space Telescope, after all.
That's because they didn't want anyone to know it's a giant laser for starting forest fires.
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Unfortunately, both Webb and Nancy Grace Roman see mostly in the infrared, so they can't really replace Hubble. LUVOIR [wikipedia.org] would be able to see visible light, but wouldn't launch until 2039. The Decadal Survey [universetoday.com] released a month ago scaled down LUVOIR but the scaled down version still wouldn't launch until 2039.
Oh God... (Score:2)
I thought you meant "Nancy Grace", and I thought, "Fuck me... it's really the end."
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Shack Outside at Lagrangian two (Score:1)
Rumour spreadin' a-'round in that Maryland town
'bout that shack outside Lagrangian two
and you know what I'm talkin' about.
Just let me know if you wanna go
to that home out of range.
They gotta lotta nice mirrors ah.
Have mercy.
A haw, haw, haw, haw, a haw.
A haw, haw, haw.
Well, I hear it's fine if you got the time
and the ten billion to get yourself in.
A hmm, hmm.
And I hear it's out of sight most ev'ry night,
but now I might be mistaken.
hmm, hmm, hmm.
Ah have mercy.
Props to ZZ Top and RIP to Dusty Hill
please don't fuck this up (Score:1)
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So far, so good.
So long as everyone stuck to using imperial units, things will work out.
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The standard unit of length shall be that of my penis. You mortals would measure it in "meterS"
0.1M is still technically measured in "Meters"
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So long as everyone stuck to using imperial units, things will work out.
Considering how international this effort has been I really hope that it was the Americans who adopted metric units in this case. Though with the right size person using the screw driver you can fit those M4 screws into that 8/36 hole.
The temptation is strong (Score:3)
I'm delighted at the scientists finally having their new tool to explore the universe and look forward to seeing what they can find out with it. The whole point of doing research is that you don't know what you're going to find out. Excellent!
Like LHC, developments like this tempt me to go back to school so I can be a part of it.
...laura
$10 billion (Score:3)
Now that the R+D expenses are paid, how much incremental cost would it be to build & launch Webb2 and get twice as much results?
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how much incremental cost would it be to build & launch Webb2
$15 Billion.
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Lest we forget the cause of the delays: (Score:1)