5 ms·

Maybe Elon is right, and instead of spending tens of billions of dollars and decades on one bulletproof piece of jewelry, maybe we should just launch 20 cheaply

by 323 5y ago

Maybe Elon is right, and instead of spending tens of billions of dollars and decades on one bulletproof piece of jewelry, maybe we should just launch 20 cheaply built ones with less redundancy and hope a couple make it through. Think monolith mainframe versus cluster of commodity hardware. There was a great article about this recently on HN, about how Spaceship will change everything with it's extremely cheap price per kilo and how NASA is not ready for it.

jazzyjackson 5y ago
This is not Elon’s idea, there was much clamoring in the scientific community to spread the research dollars instead of having one flagship suck up all the funding. It’s a big gamble to be able to see what JWST is designed to see, no number of smaller projects would match it, whether it was the best use of our taxdollars remains to be seen
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
GDC7 5y ago
> Maybe Elon is right, and instead of spending tens of billions of dollars and decades on one bulletproof piece of jewelry Musk is pretty much socially incompetent, proven so many times. On this topic he discounts the fact that the type of individuals needed to do this job have plenty of offers and nobody wants to work on something which will blow up and has very low odds of making it. Especially smart people who bathe in the concept of opportuinity cost with regards to their time and carrer.
- an9n 5y ago
  Uh...
SahAssar 5y ago
Do you think that 20 cheap telescopes give the same benefit as one great one? Like if I gave you 20 shitty 360p cameras to shoot a movie would it look as good as if I gave you one Arri Alexa?
- Majromax 5y ago
  > Do you think that 20 cheap telescopes give the same benefit as one great one? Arguably, it could give greater benefit. Time on the Hubble (now) and JWT (eventually) is very carefully controlled. Observation campaigns have to be scheduled far in advance since the camera can only point in one place at one time. Having twenty lower-spec space telescopes would allow twenty research groups their own simultaneous time on the platform.
  - SahAssar 5y ago
    You seem to think that the same research would be possible on the 20 cheaper ones. Having a lower quality instrument would likely mean that a lot of the observations would not be possible and that the things that would still be possible would have worse data because the instrument would be worse.
  - mdoms 5y ago
    > Arguably, it could give greater benefit. Please, make that argument. Explain to us how 20 - hell let's be generous and say 1,000 - worse telescopes can achieve what one great one can.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  Is the requirement to shoot a movie or to shoot a good looking movie?

by 323 5y ago

jazzyjackson 5y ago

This is not Elon’s idea, there was much clamoring in the scientific community to spread the research dollars instead of having one flagship suck up all the funding. It’s a big gamble to be able to see what JWST is designed to see, no number of smaller projects would match it, whether it was the best use of our taxdollars remains to be seen

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

GDC7 5y ago

> Maybe Elon is right, and instead of spending tens of billions of dollars and decades on one bulletproof piece of jewelry Musk is pretty much socially incompetent, proven so many times. On this topic he discounts the fact that the type of individuals needed to do this job have plenty of offers and nobody wants to work on something which will blow up and has very low odds of making it. Especially smart people who bathe in the concept of opportuinity cost with regards to their time and carrer.

an9n 5y ago
Uh...

SahAssar 5y ago

Do you think that 20 cheap telescopes give the same benefit as one great one? Like if I gave you 20 shitty 360p cameras to shoot a movie would it look as good as if I gave you one Arri Alexa?

Majromax 5y ago
> Do you think that 20 cheap telescopes give the same benefit as one great one? Arguably, it could give greater benefit. Time on the Hubble (now) and JWT (eventually) is very carefully controlled. Observation campaigns have to be scheduled far in advance since the camera can only point in one place at one time. Having twenty lower-spec space telescopes would allow twenty research groups their own simultaneous time on the platform.
- SahAssar 5y ago
  You seem to think that the same research would be possible on the 20 cheaper ones. Having a lower quality instrument would likely mean that a lot of the observations would not be possible and that the things that would still be possible would have worse data because the instrument would be worse.
- mdoms 5y ago
  > Arguably, it could give greater benefit. Please, make that argument. Explain to us how 20 - hell let's be generous and say 1,000 - worse telescopes can achieve what one great one can.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
Is the requirement to shoot a movie or to shoot a good looking movie?