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I have an intuition that we'll increasingly run up against practical limitations in undertaking ever more complex projects of this kind in the coming years. Th
by lacker 5y ago
I have an intuition that we'll increasingly run up against practical limitations in undertaking ever more complex projects of this kind in the coming years.
This is already happening - Webb took 7 years longer than expected and cost $10b instead of the projected $5b.
Specifically for space telescopes, I am optimistic for the future because launching mass into orbit is getting cheaper and cheaper. One main reason Webb has to be extremely expensive is that it also has to be extremely lightweight. If it becomes 10x cheaper to stick things in orbit then we can save money on construction too because we won't have to optimize weight as much.
Of course, once space telescopes become cheap and normal, it'll be time to think about constructing a radio telescope array on the far side of the moon.... :D
- stargazer-3 5y agoThe cost of Ariane 5 rocket is below $200m, which is a rather small fraction of the overall budget of $5-10b. If the main reason for the huge cost is to make it so lightweight, why didn't they go with more capable heavy-lift rockets to cut some R&D costs already? At least, Delta IV Heavy seems to have a significantly larger max. payload [1]. The JWST was still in re-planning phase as of 2005 and Delta IV Heavy was already operational at that point. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy-lift_launch_vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy-lift_launch_vehicle