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It's because this is a flippant, unhelpful attitude. If we were talking about building a mile of blacktop highway then such a casual observation about the overr
by DubiousPusher 5y ago
It's because this is a flippant, unhelpful attitude. If we were talking about building a mile of blacktop highway then such a casual observation about the overrun might be warranted.
But we're not talking about that. We're talking about building the first non-orbital space telescope in human history. To a certain extent, no one could know the actual cost ahead of time. It's one of those things you kind of have to do and it will cost what it will cost.
Was there waste I this project? Probably. But there's a good chance the overruns are dominated by true "found work" rather than waste.
In fact, this is exactly the kind of project you want handled by the government because the cost of failure is so high. In a project where you need to push the risk out as many decimal places as possible it is good to have an agency which can afford the overruns to do it.
- perihelions 5y ago"the first non-orbital space telescope" There've been a few others, including Gaia (SEL-2 halo orbit -- same as JWST), and Kepler (heliocentric). [edit]: also Herschel (SEL-2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_(spacecraft)#Launch_and_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_(spacecraft)#Launch_and_o... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_space_telescope#Orbit_and_orientation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_space_telescope#Orbit_a... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herschel_Space_Observatory#Launch_and_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herschel_Space_Observatory#Lau...
- DubiousPusher 5y agoInteresting. I assumed these were in orbit like other satellites. I didn't realize they operated from the Lagrange points. Thanks.