4 ms·

Launch costs are not the only (maybe not even the most) important factor for reliability. If your probe takes 9 years to reach it's destination and then fails t

Launch costs are not the only (maybe not even the most) important factor for reliability. If your probe takes 9 years to reach it's destination and then fails to deploy it's not the launch costs that are the problem. Or if you want to land an unmanned cargo ship near your lunar or mars base reliability is defiantly a concern. Cheap launch costs are definitely in important step to colonizing the system we are simply pointing out it's one of many things we need before we can usefully launch millions of tons around the universe.

ncmncm 5y ago
Much of the cost of JWST was making it so it could unfold from a tiny cylinder that fit on a little rocket. Probably the overwhelming majority of the cost was just because it took so long before they could launch it. They kept losing the scheduling reason to reject unnecessary proposed changes. Probably it is a better telescope for many of the changes, but almost certainly not a 10x better telescope.