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"NASA's follow-on instrument to the wildly successful Hubble Space Telescope was originally due to launch about a decade ago" I don't think anything else could

"NASA's follow-on instrument to the wildly successful Hubble Space Telescope was originally due to launch about a decade ago" I don't think anything else could better express just how bad the government is at deploying capital than the sentence above. Say what you will above SpaceX, but what they've been able to achieve in the time that this launch has been DELAYED is astounding.

marricks 5y ago
The question was never how to launch it or when but building and testing the telescope. SpaceX has no proven or even theoretical skill in building telescopes.
- idlewords 5y ago
  Yeah but Elon says he can build 1000 telescopes a year for free on Mars.
  - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
    Links plz
idlewords 5y ago
Building a giant space telescope where everything has to work right the first time is hard. Building a capital-intensive project like Webb on a NASA budget cycle is hard. I find the idea that everyone at NASA is a bunch of fools a pretty tiresome theme in these discussions.
- ryanSrich 5y ago
  It’s less the individuals at NASA, and more the bureaucratic structure of government agencies that’s the problem.
NationalPark 5y ago
Isn't SpaceX an example of the government deploying capital? Since they are a government contractor?
unethical_ban 5y ago
Yeah, as others have said: Is there anything in the private sector remotely close to the JWST in its capability and planned lifespan? If so, why hasn't it launched, or why hasn't another nation developed it?
Majromax 5y ago
> I don't think anything else could better express just how bad the government is at deploying capital than the sentence above. Not really. This is a great expression of how hard it is to deploy capital in a one-off manner, to a strict budget. Contrast this space telescope with the series of Earth-observation satellites launched by the National Reconnaissance Office. By amortizing development costs over at least half a dozen launches, the NRO keeps putting up classified payloads. SpaceX's success isn't exactly organizational genius, it's that its plan from the outset has been to rapidly iterate with the expectation that the first half-dozen of anything will fail in interesting ways. Were JWT being built to a SpaceX standard, there wouldn't be one telescope -- there would be a dozen.
chasing 5y ago
SpaceX put a telescope with a mirror 10x the size of Hubble's at the Sun-Earth L2 point? I missed that bit of news, but impressive!
- ryanSrich 5y ago
  You’re intentionally missing my point.
  - chasing 5y ago
    Your point that government is bad at deploying capital, as evidenced by the fact that SpaceX accomplished something entirely unrelated during the delays on an incredibly ambitious project that no organization has ever undertaken?
    - ryanSrich 5y ago
      Yes, telescopes are not rockets, and they’re not satellites. But to say they’re entirely unrelated is silly. Even if a reusable rocket is 10x easier to build, it’s obscene to justify a 10 year delay.
      - chasing 5y ago
        Easier things are easier, it's true.
snowwrestler 5y ago
SpaceX gets a ton of funding from the government, so is their success proof that the government is good or bad at deploying capital?
ufmace 5y ago
I don't believe the JWST effort is comparable to anything SpaceX is doing. Falcon 9 first optimized for manufacturing cost for a well-proven category of product. Pretty much every aspect of orbital multi-stage rocket design is well explored, and they can surely hire people with experience in it. Optimizing for manufacturing cost is also an activity that many people have experience in. It's an innovative and risky business strategy, but nothing being done is physically or technologically risky - the only risk is they may not be able to optimize costs enough, which is only a risk to the business. For the next innovation, first-stage landing, it was also very low-risk to their core business. If they screw up the landing stuff, then the first stage blows up somewhere, but they were all going to do that anyways, no risk to the primary payload. This let them iterate on it rapidly for very low cost and risk. Building a brand-new space telescope of an original design with a dozen new and revolutionary technologies is a whole different ballgame. There's a ton of unknown unknowns that nobody can anticipate ahead of time, only one try per device, and it's either total success or failure. It shouldn't be too surprising that it overran expected costs and deadlines so far. It's more a statement on the Government contracting process that attempts to treat building revolutionary technology just like building the 10 millionth Jeep.

marricks 5y ago

The question was never how to launch it or when but building and testing the telescope. SpaceX has no proven or even theoretical skill in building telescopes.

idlewords 5y ago
Yeah but Elon says he can build 1000 telescopes a year for free on Mars.
- NikolaeVarius 5y ago
  Links plz

idlewords 5y ago

Building a giant space telescope where everything has to work right the first time is hard. Building a capital-intensive project like Webb on a NASA budget cycle is hard. I find the idea that everyone at NASA is a bunch of fools a pretty tiresome theme in these discussions.

ryanSrich 5y ago
It’s less the individuals at NASA, and more the bureaucratic structure of government agencies that’s the problem.

NationalPark 5y ago

Isn't SpaceX an example of the government deploying capital? Since they are a government contractor?

unethical_ban 5y ago

Yeah, as others have said: Is there anything in the private sector remotely close to the JWST in its capability and planned lifespan? If so, why hasn't it launched, or why hasn't another nation developed it?

Majromax 5y ago

> I don't think anything else could better express just how bad the government is at deploying capital than the sentence above. Not really. This is a great expression of how hard it is to deploy capital in a one-off manner, to a strict budget. Contrast this space telescope with the series of Earth-observation satellites launched by the National Reconnaissance Office. By amortizing development costs over at least half a dozen launches, the NRO keeps putting up classified payloads. SpaceX's success isn't exactly organizational genius, it's that its plan from the outset has been to rapidly iterate with the expectation that the first half-dozen of anything will fail in interesting ways. Were JWT being built to a SpaceX standard, there wouldn't be one telescope -- there would be a dozen.

chasing 5y ago

SpaceX put a telescope with a mirror 10x the size of Hubble's at the Sun-Earth L2 point? I missed that bit of news, but impressive!

ryanSrich 5y ago
You’re intentionally missing my point.
- chasing 5y ago
  Your point that government is bad at deploying capital, as evidenced by the fact that SpaceX accomplished something entirely unrelated during the delays on an incredibly ambitious project that no organization has ever undertaken?
  - ryanSrich 5y ago
    Yes, telescopes are not rockets, and they’re not satellites. But to say they’re entirely unrelated is silly. Even if a reusable rocket is 10x easier to build, it’s obscene to justify a 10 year delay.
    - chasing 5y ago
      Easier things are easier, it's true.

snowwrestler 5y ago

SpaceX gets a ton of funding from the government, so is their success proof that the government is good or bad at deploying capital?

ufmace 5y ago

I don't believe the JWST effort is comparable to anything SpaceX is doing. Falcon 9 first optimized for manufacturing cost for a well-proven category of product. Pretty much every aspect of orbital multi-stage rocket design is well explored, and they can surely hire people with experience in it. Optimizing for manufacturing cost is also an activity that many people have experience in. It's an innovative and risky business strategy, but nothing being done is physically or technologically risky - the only risk is they may not be able to optimize costs enough, which is only a risk to the business. For the next innovation, first-stage landing, it was also very low-risk to their core business. If they screw up the landing stuff, then the first stage blows up somewhere, but they were all going to do that anyways, no risk to the primary payload. This let them iterate on it rapidly for very low cost and risk. Building a brand-new space telescope of an original design with a dozen new and revolutionary technologies is a whole different ballgame. There's a ton of unknown unknowns that nobody can anticipate ahead of time, only one try per device, and it's either total success or failure. It shouldn't be too surprising that it overran expected costs and deadlines so far. It's more a statement on the Government contracting process that attempts to treat building revolutionary technology just like building the 10 millionth Jeep.