
NASA reveals delay for Hubble successor - okket
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03863-5
======
cromwellian
I really fear for this project. Because if it blows up on launch, misses an
orbit, or has a failure to deploy, or some flaw, basically decades have been
lost.

As another commentor said, the marginal cost of these things must be must
cheaper. Why aren't they just launching new iterations like every year or so.
Rather than starting from scratch after the HST, there should have been an HST
2.0, HST 3.0, a whole bunch of marginal iterations. This would create an
efficient pipeline around producing many of these one-off specialized parts.

Building the mirrors would become a pipeline of incremental improvements
instead of 2-decade redesigns.

I feel like if Elon Musk ran this project, he'd have built 5 different
versions already, 3 of them would have failed, we would have learned something
useful, and two of them would be in space delivering 2x the science.

~~~
Cacti
There _are_ incremental improvements, in the form of 5 gamma ray, 6 x-ray, 5
UV, and 4 visible satellites. Actually, there are more than that since Hubble
went up.

Unfortunately there are real physical limits to visible light telescopes, and
there are not many ways to get around them without drastically increasing the
size of the lens/mirrors, and drastic increases in size and weight are not
something that plays well with our space capabilities.

I know it seems ridiculous from the outside, but do you really think thousands
and thousands of astronomers, physicists, etc., wouldn't be exploring every
single possible way to improve visible light telescopes? That the idea of
"incremental improvement" never occurred to anyone? They are using the current
approach because it is the only approach, at least for the time being. Perhaps
in 10, 20, 30 years we'll be able to launch hundreds of smaller telescopes
that can achiever a higher effective resolution, but, again, it's pretty
damned hard.

~~~
lutorm
All true. On the other hand, the current JWST is way less capable, and way,
way more expensive, than what was initially planned. I think there's a very
legitimate argument to be made that maybe, with hindsight, it would have been
better not to put all that money into the very large bucket that it's ended up
being.

It seems the way this goes is "we don't have money for more than one mission,
so we have to make it count." But now you only have one mission, so you have
to make _really_ sure it doesn't fail, and the cost starts running away.

Also, after JWST started, NASA has pretty much completely changed their
strategy away from grand missions into many smaller ones with the "faster,
better, cheaper" motto.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _It seems the way this goes is "we don't have money for more than one
> mission, so we have to make it count." But now you only have one mission, so
> you have to make really sure it doesn't fail, and the cost starts running
> away._

This is recognized by NASA - in particular, I've recently seen one report[0]
with a diagram explicitly mentioning this problem. It was called "The Tyranny
of Space Transportation Costs", and depicts a spiral with nodes like "High
Launch and Space Transport Costs" -> "Infrequent Launch" -> "Inability to
Service" -> "Over Engineering" -> "Cost Growth" -> "Need for Extreme
Reliability" -> "Higher Launch Costs" -> ...

That's one of the reasons NASA is interested in in-orbit mining &
manufacturing - to enable rapid iteration on future missions. That seems to
also be the reason why they've outsourced LEO transportation to private
companies.

\--

[0] - "Stepping Stones: Economic Analysis of Space Transportation Supplied
From NEO Resources". Found it on HN some time ago.
[https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/eso_fin...](https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/eso_final_report.pdf)
(warning: 140-ish MB); the diagram in question is on page 9.

------
dingaling
What really baffes me about megaprojects like the Webb telescope is that they
do decades of research and design, build ONE and then disassemble the teams
and jigs.

Since all the design and tool-up costs are sunk, why not build two or three?
Even just as components.

Otherwise if we get to March 2020 and the launch fails, or the scope or shade
doesn't deploy, that's $8 billion down the drain.

~~~
yiyus
> that's $8 billion down the drain

Not really. The amount of scientific and technological developments that we
get even from failed missions is substantial. When starting a new project, all
the findings from previous projects are not ignored.

What you are proposing is not necessarily a bad idea but, if that was the
case, I would expect some comment saying: why do they construct three equal
telescopes when we could use all that money and man-power to build three
different ones that would help us much more?

~~~
jonhendry18
Perhaps it could be designed so that, if the first telescope reaches orbit and
works, the extras could be partially dismantled and large subsystems
repurposed in a new satellite. Take out the optics package and replace it with
something else. Keep the power distribution, solar panels, and other things.

If nothing else the intelligence agencies could probably come up with a use
for it.

~~~
zaarn
Outside of cubesats and mass deployed sats like GPS and the European variant,
almost every satellite is somewhat of a unique build.

Even cubesats and GPS sats are special, you can't simply take a GPS sat and
repurpose it for a TV station. The requirements can be vastly different
(geostationary vs LEO, precise orientation vs simple attitude control).

The same goes for space telescope. You can't just take a ST sat body, ram in a
LEO weather satellites electronics and expect that to stay in orbit or work
reasonably.

------
Mononokay
Why do articles involving the space program always go on about cost? When the
military develops a plane for more than a hundred times over that, no one bats
an eye.

I have to wonder if the lack of exposure towards military spending is one of
the reasons it gets so much funding.

~~~
jacobsheehy
In the 1990's, a survey was done and found that something like 60% of
Americans thought that the NASA budget was 25% of the entire federal budget
(it's like 0.4% today). This is done very specifically by propaganda just like
you mention to make Americans think that science, space, research is stupid
and expensive and we shouldn't do it. Republican politicians especially will
use logical fallacies to try to justify reducing our understanding of the
world and to justify falling economically behind other countries and powers.

It is a case of anti-intellectualism and a strong desire for guns, war, etc
and to shun science and basic research. It is born from greed and selfishness
and probably also fear of the unknown.

NASA is and has always been really really cheap for what it does. But there
has been a multiple-decades-long battle to convince Americans otherwise.

Edit: Here's a citation on that survey I think:
[http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1000/1](http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1000/1)

~~~
Consultant32452
FYI, at least according to NdT Republicans tend to fund the sciences more than
Democrats.

[https://youtu.be/x7Q8UvJ1wvk](https://youtu.be/x7Q8UvJ1wvk)

~~~
munificent
His argument is _really_ strange. He notes, correctly that _Congress 's_ job
is to put together a budget. But then he talks only about the party of the
_President_. What he should be talking about is which party has a majority in
Congress. And, indeed, during almost all of Clinton's time in office, the
Republican party had very strong control over Congress.

I don't have the time, but I would be really interested to see a chart showing
funding changes for NIH, NASA, etc. by year with the party in control of
Congress at that time. Seems like that would give you a much better picture.

~~~
Consultant32452
The crazy "omnibus" spending bill that just passed by a Republican Congress
included a $2 Billion increase to NIH and $1.3 Billion increase to NASA.

~~~
munificent
Yes, because that's what the Democratic Congressional members demanded to get
their vote for it. It was a bipartisan bill. The Republicans couldn't pass it
on their own because the Freedom Caucus wouldn't toe the line, so they had to
make concessions to the Democrats.

~~~
Consultant32452
Yes, Republicans and Democrats do not always vote lock-step. That does not
negate the fact that Republicans tend to fund the sciences more. I'm sorry if
this doesn't match up with your rhetoric, but it's true. One of the biggest
names out of NASA told you it was true. The Republican controlled Congress
just did it again right in front of you. The fact they didn't do it
unilaterally does not in any way negate the original premise.

Here's an article talking about the Obama administration recommended budget
which cut funding to NASA. It's worth acknowledging here that Trump's
requested budget ALSO cut funding for NASA, but the Congressional Republicans
over-ruled him.

[https://www.universetoday.com/127309/nasa-2017-budget/](https://www.universetoday.com/127309/nasa-2017-budget/)

------
bane
In a post SpaceX world, with cheap(ish) launches a reality, even for large
payloads, how does this change the design parameters for instruments like
this? I would imagine that since launches used to be so expensive, it put
pressure to create exquisite instruments that (should) work perfectly and
robustly for a long time.

But if launch costs are dirt cheap you can put up any old thing for a year or
two, burn it up and launch an improved model with newer tech...repeat as long
as needed, or launch dozens of instruments instead.

I feel like we're on the cusp of something here and mission profiles like this
will feel like the ancient Phalanx-like relics of thought processes that no
longer are relevant.

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DubiousPusher
Darn. Well, I'm still very much looking forward to finding out what the
atmospheres of some of these exoplanets are made of. Hopefully there isn't
another attempt to kill the project politically.

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_ph_
This is pretty sad to hear. The Webb telescope is highly anticipated, not only
becaue it has a 3x larger mirror than Hubble, but because it is capable of
observing in the infrared range, something no earth based telescope is able to
due to atmosphere absorption. This would open a huge treasure trove for
astronomy and cosmology.

~~~
Tepix
It's mirror has a 6.5m diameter vs 2.4m for Hubble. That's a 25sqm collecting
area vs 4.5sqm for Hubble. The area is more than 5 times as large.

Infrared light is absorbed by the water in the atmosphere. There are infrared
telescopes on earth, they are located in high elevations in dry places.

~~~
_ph_
I was referring to the mirror diameter. Of course, the area is even much
larger. And infrared telescopes on high elevations are certainly better than
telescopes on low ground, still the atmosphere is a big barieer. For that
reason the SOFIA telescope was built into a 747, as the airplane gets up to
almost 15 kilometers and thus the observation conditions in the infrared range
are much better than any ground based observatory. Obviously, an airplane
isn't the best platform to mount a telescope.

The Webb telescope should be able to provide a way better view into the
infrared range than any telescope available so far.

------
randomerr
Isn't it only being delayed a year? In the grand scheme of things that isn't
much time.

~~~
Tepix
This is not the first delay.

In 2002, NASA awarded the $824.8 million prime contract for the NGST, now
renamed the James Webb Space Telescope, to TRW. The design called for a
descoped 6.1-meter (20 ft) primary mirror and a launch date of 2010.

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supernova87a
Has anyone seen a report or link to details of the findings that led to the
delay decision?

There are like 5000 people working on this thing and I would think they have
to issue a report to explain a significant delay.

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maxxxxx
If a project is delayed many times at work I usually think that something is
fundamentally wrong with it and they can't figure it out. Could something like
this be going on here?

~~~
UncleEntity
Well, they have one shot at this so it has to be 100% perfectly correct
because once it's gone it's gone.

I, for one, would much rather have them work out all the kinks on the ground
than shoot it up into space before they're absolutely sure and then find out
the thing is lost because they set a cotter pin at 28° instead of the required
32° so the heat shield didn't deploy.

Though I'm sure if they successfully get the thing where it needs to be and
there is a problem they can just send up some robots to fix the thing in
another 20 years or so...

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guelo
$8 billion is nothing. We have tons of money as evidenced by the military
getting an extra $61 billion yearly increase to their $700 billion budget.

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hulton
Why do we trust and believe NASA?

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nepotism2018
Finding out what is causing the dimming light of star KIC 8462852 is worth
every penny...said nobody

