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RE>> "I understand the reasons for not putting a camera on or near the JWST" What are the reasons? I'm sorry ~ I'm ignorant on the topic, but I'd love to learn

RE>> "I understand the reasons for not putting a camera on or near the JWST" What are the reasons? I'm sorry ~ I'm ignorant on the topic, but I'd love to learn more. Why/what are the reasons?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
JohnBooty 5y ago
Great blog post from NASA themselves explaining it: https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/01/06/why-doesnt-webb-have-deployment-cameras/ https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/01/06/why-doesnt-webb-have-... the post is really not very long and I would suggest getting it straight from the horse's mouth, but for those not willing to devote a click here are arguably the most relevant bits! "deployment surveillance cameras would not add significant information of value for engineering teams commanding the spacecraft from the ground." "Webb’s built-in sense of ‘touch’ (for example, switches and various mechanical, electrical, and temperature sensors) provides much more useful information than mere surveillance cameras can," said Geithner. "We instrumented Webb like we do many other one-of-a-kind spacecraft, to provide all the specific information necessary to inform engineers on Earth about the observatory’s health and status during all activities."
- amelius 5y ago
  Perhaps one day they could send a robot mechanic along with the mission, and then a camera could be of value.
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    I’m sure if we ever have sufficient technology to build a city on the moon, the first museum exhibit will be a captured JWST
    - sandworm101 5y ago
      No. The museum will be built atop its first exibit: tranquility base. See Futurama s01e02.
      - messe 5y ago
        For the sake of correctness, Tranquility Base is not where the museum is built upon in Futurama S01E02; you must be misremembering. In fact, the moon landing site is considered lost at the beginning of that episode. When it's later found in the episode, it's found with the lunar ascent module still attached. Because the astronauts ascended in this module, only the descent modules should be there, so you might at first think that this is a blatant mistake on the part of the writing staff and you might hope someone was fired for that blunder[1]. However, if you pay close attention, there's a plaque behind Leela while she's in the ascent module that states "Lander returned to this site by the Historical Stickler's Society."[2] [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTxw5nQX7SA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTxw5nQX7SA [2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/futurama/comments/91kssj/i_didnt_want_to_be_a_stickler_for_historical/ https://www.reddit.com/r/futurama/comments/91kssj/i_didnt_wa...
        sandworm101 5y ago
        My bad. I do remember the issue re the assent module, and the sign, but forgot that they escaped into the lander after leaving the dome.
      - mikepurvis 5y ago
        The book Artemis proposes this also.
- bichiliad 5y ago
  One thing they mentioned that kinda sends it home to me is that the telescope is aimed at the dark and away from the sun, and the other side is especially reflective[0]. In other words, one side is too dark to see, and the other is too bright to see. [0]:https://twitter.com/NASAWebb/status/1479161991252131841 https://twitter.com/NASAWebb/status/1479161991252131841
  - newman8r 5y ago
    Couldn't they just use an image intensifier tube for night vision? I think they should just stick with the excuse of it being costly and unnecessary.
    - Sebb767 5y ago
      We're talking about "see the faintest light from stars millions of lightyears away"-dark (for that reason you also can't shine a light on it), with our sun in the background. To see something on that side, you'd basically need the vision capabilities the telescope itself has and that's obviously not going to happen.
      - newman8r 5y ago
        > to see something on that side, you'd basically need the vision capabilities the telescope itself I'm not sure if that's correct - there's a lot of photons hitting the telescope (the night sky), and night vision systems can work off of a relatively small number of photons
      - dTal 5y ago
        It obviously needs a selfie mirror.
        nullc 5y ago
        It has a selfie 'lens': NIRcam has extra optics that can be swung in that allows the camera to focus on the primary mirror instead of out in the great infinity. So in this sense webb is already a camera which can photograph itself! This capability exists for mirror alignment: They'll point webb at an isolated star, switch to focusing on the primary mirror, swap in optics that cause small phase differences to result in diffraction patterns, and then they can use the resulting images to fine tune the positioning of the mirror segments to a small fraction of the wavelength of light that they're using.
- behnamoh 5y ago
  they could have sent a temporary camera along with the craft to take a picture of it at the final position and send back to earth.
  - 14 5y ago
    How about a Tesla with Sentry cameras going?
  - newaccount2021 5y ago
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    Sounds like that would be expensive with little to no return when it comes to the goals of the mission.
  - michaelwilson 5y ago
    Sadly one of the the problems is, it's dark where it is. The mirror side is in complete darkness (because of the sunshield), and the sun side is blazingly bright (because of the reflective sunshield). This is the unfortunate reality of space: The images we see from the Hubble, et al, are exposed for minutes if not hours, and processed to bring out colors invisible to the human eye. An astronaut flying to see the Webb, or one of many other "well known" astronomical landmarks would see either nothing or a faint smudge without a telescope or other enhancements. The aforementioned NASA blog post goes into the many other reasons this wasn't practical.
- bopbeepboop 5y ago
- dev_tty01 5y ago
  Yes, I get all of that, but they still missed an excellent PR opportunity. NASA really could have built some engagement showing images of the deployment process, even if the images wouldn't have direct scientific benefit. Good PR leads to improved funding which leads to more science.
  - JohnBooty 5y ago
    I just want to make sure I understand. Your position is that they should have added significant complexity to a maneuver that was already the most complex of its kind. A maneuver with $10 billion and two decades of work on the line. In order to make the first 30 days of a 10+ year mission marginally more entertaining. You propose this while fully aware that the "entertainment" in question consists of things unfolding in extremely slow motion, in total darkness. I mean, okay. (Thought experiment: when you think about the Hubble, do you think about the day they shoved it out of the shuttle's cargo bay, or do you think about those groundbreaking images it captured during its multidecade mission?)
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - yreg 5y ago
      I doubt adding a tiny camera is adding a significant complexity.
      - JohnBooty 5y ago
        I see you haven't read NASA's aforelinked blog post where they explicitly detail the sorts of complexity it would add. Since you've indicated an unwillingness to read the blog post I'll summarize briefly: A camera on the "light" side of JWST would need its own heat shielding and wouldn't show us any of the instruments. A camera on the "dark" side of JWST would need to function at temperatures close to absolute zero. It would somehow need to do this without disturbing the ultrasensitive instruments on the JWST. This would have been needed to be accomplished with, essentially, 10-30 year old technology as the designs for spacecraft like this need to be locked in far ahead of time due to the incredible complexity of deep space launches. In both cases the cameras would need power and data cable routing, and given the various harsh constraints involved (complexity, budget, liftoff weight, size) would have involved compromises in some other area.
- voidfunc 5y ago
  Once again scientists miss the entire point. It is about marketing and making people interested. It makes it easier when you go back five years later and ask for more money if people can see the multi-million dollar toy they paid for.
  - jibalt 5y ago
    Yeah, scientists are point-missing dummies who think that the images that telescope will produce are of no value next to images of the telescope unfolding. Far better to have internet randos who surely aren't dummies running things.
  - repler 5y ago
    How often do you look at exterior photos of the Hubble? Secondly, do we collectively as smart people honestly care what the ivermectin crowd thinks about exploring the cosmos?
  - SirHound 5y ago
    It’s a telescope with a camera stuck to one end. I think people will be able to see what they paid for.
  - JohnBooty 5y ago
    When you think of the Hubble, do you think of "product porn" shots of the telescope itself, or the spectacular images and science it produced? Likewise, for Voyager/Cassini/Huygens/etc? Don't remember any selfies from those. We merely had to settle for the spectacular, never-before-seen images of other worlds. Guess they were failures. :-(
- intricatedetail 5y ago
  Wow this sound so patronising. I am sure there will be a moment when they say oh wish we had installed those cameras...
  - JohnBooty 5y ago
    Yeah, it seems like NASA hasn't really put much thought into this mission. /s
luxuryballs 5y ago
Looks like there aren’t actually any good reasons. I’m actually kind of surprised that mere curiosity at what could have been seen wasn’t good enough.
- samus 5y ago
  Nothing could have been seen: on the bright side, a smudge of light. On the dark side, nothing. The mirror is currently at -172° C and further cooling down toward absolute zero temperature; even with infrared it's hard to see anything at this point.
jjtheblunt 5y ago
it might be "desense", that the running of electronics of certain sorts near the large detector has the effect of desensitizing it. this is just a guess though.
trembonator 5y ago

RE>> "I understand the reasons for not putting a camera on or near the JWST" What are the reasons? I'm sorry ~ I'm ignorant on the topic, but I'd love to learn more. Why/what are the reasons?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

JohnBooty 5y ago

Great blog post from NASA themselves explaining it: https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/01/06/why-doesnt-webb-have-deployment-cameras/ https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/01/06/why-doesnt-webb-have-... the post is really not very long and I would suggest getting it straight from the horse's mouth, but for those not willing to devote a click here are arguably the most relevant bits! "deployment surveillance cameras would not add significant information of value for engineering teams commanding the spacecraft from the ground." "Webb’s built-in sense of ‘touch’ (for example, switches and various mechanical, electrical, and temperature sensors) provides much more useful information than mere surveillance cameras can," said Geithner. "We instrumented Webb like we do many other one-of-a-kind spacecraft, to provide all the specific information necessary to inform engineers on Earth about the observatory’s health and status during all activities."

amelius 5y ago
Perhaps one day they could send a robot mechanic along with the mission, and then a camera could be of value.
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  I’m sure if we ever have sufficient technology to build a city on the moon, the first museum exhibit will be a captured JWST
  - sandworm101 5y ago
    No. The museum will be built atop its first exibit: tranquility base. See Futurama s01e02.
    - messe 5y ago
      For the sake of correctness, Tranquility Base is not where the museum is built upon in Futurama S01E02; you must be misremembering. In fact, the moon landing site is considered lost at the beginning of that episode. When it's later found in the episode, it's found with the lunar ascent module still attached. Because the astronauts ascended in this module, only the descent modules should be there, so you might at first think that this is a blatant mistake on the part of the writing staff and you might hope someone was fired for that blunder[1]. However, if you pay close attention, there's a plaque behind Leela while she's in the ascent module that states "Lander returned to this site by the Historical Stickler's Society."[2] [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTxw5nQX7SA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTxw5nQX7SA [2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/futurama/comments/91kssj/i_didnt_want_to_be_a_stickler_for_historical/ https://www.reddit.com/r/futurama/comments/91kssj/i_didnt_wa...
      - sandworm101 5y ago
        My bad. I do remember the issue re the assent module, and the sign, but forgot that they escaped into the lander after leaving the dome.
    - mikepurvis 5y ago
      The book Artemis proposes this also.
bichiliad 5y ago
One thing they mentioned that kinda sends it home to me is that the telescope is aimed at the dark and away from the sun, and the other side is especially reflective[0]. In other words, one side is too dark to see, and the other is too bright to see. [0]:https://twitter.com/NASAWebb/status/1479161991252131841 https://twitter.com/NASAWebb/status/1479161991252131841
- newman8r 5y ago
  Couldn't they just use an image intensifier tube for night vision? I think they should just stick with the excuse of it being costly and unnecessary.
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    We're talking about "see the faintest light from stars millions of lightyears away"-dark (for that reason you also can't shine a light on it), with our sun in the background. To see something on that side, you'd basically need the vision capabilities the telescope itself has and that's obviously not going to happen.
    - newman8r 5y ago
      > to see something on that side, you'd basically need the vision capabilities the telescope itself I'm not sure if that's correct - there's a lot of photons hitting the telescope (the night sky), and night vision systems can work off of a relatively small number of photons
    - dTal 5y ago
      It obviously needs a selfie mirror.
      - nullc 5y ago
        It has a selfie 'lens': NIRcam has extra optics that can be swung in that allows the camera to focus on the primary mirror instead of out in the great infinity. So in this sense webb is already a camera which can photograph itself! This capability exists for mirror alignment: They'll point webb at an isolated star, switch to focusing on the primary mirror, swap in optics that cause small phase differences to result in diffraction patterns, and then they can use the resulting images to fine tune the positioning of the mirror segments to a small fraction of the wavelength of light that they're using.
behnamoh 5y ago
they could have sent a temporary camera along with the craft to take a picture of it at the final position and send back to earth.
- 14 5y ago
  How about a Tesla with Sentry cameras going?
- newaccount2021 5y ago
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Sounds like that would be expensive with little to no return when it comes to the goals of the mission.
- michaelwilson 5y ago
  Sadly one of the the problems is, it's dark where it is. The mirror side is in complete darkness (because of the sunshield), and the sun side is blazingly bright (because of the reflective sunshield). This is the unfortunate reality of space: The images we see from the Hubble, et al, are exposed for minutes if not hours, and processed to bring out colors invisible to the human eye. An astronaut flying to see the Webb, or one of many other "well known" astronomical landmarks would see either nothing or a faint smudge without a telescope or other enhancements. The aforementioned NASA blog post goes into the many other reasons this wasn't practical.
bopbeepboop 5y ago
dev_tty01 5y ago
Yes, I get all of that, but they still missed an excellent PR opportunity. NASA really could have built some engagement showing images of the deployment process, even if the images wouldn't have direct scientific benefit. Good PR leads to improved funding which leads to more science.
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  I just want to make sure I understand. Your position is that they should have added significant complexity to a maneuver that was already the most complex of its kind. A maneuver with $10 billion and two decades of work on the line. In order to make the first 30 days of a 10+ year mission marginally more entertaining. You propose this while fully aware that the "entertainment" in question consists of things unfolding in extremely slow motion, in total darkness. I mean, okay. (Thought experiment: when you think about the Hubble, do you think about the day they shoved it out of the shuttle's cargo bay, or do you think about those groundbreaking images it captured during its multidecade mission?)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - yreg 5y ago
    I doubt adding a tiny camera is adding a significant complexity.
    - JohnBooty 5y ago
      I see you haven't read NASA's aforelinked blog post where they explicitly detail the sorts of complexity it would add. Since you've indicated an unwillingness to read the blog post I'll summarize briefly: A camera on the "light" side of JWST would need its own heat shielding and wouldn't show us any of the instruments. A camera on the "dark" side of JWST would need to function at temperatures close to absolute zero. It would somehow need to do this without disturbing the ultrasensitive instruments on the JWST. This would have been needed to be accomplished with, essentially, 10-30 year old technology as the designs for spacecraft like this need to be locked in far ahead of time due to the incredible complexity of deep space launches. In both cases the cameras would need power and data cable routing, and given the various harsh constraints involved (complexity, budget, liftoff weight, size) would have involved compromises in some other area.
voidfunc 5y ago
Once again scientists miss the entire point. It is about marketing and making people interested. It makes it easier when you go back five years later and ask for more money if people can see the multi-million dollar toy they paid for.
- jibalt 5y ago
  Yeah, scientists are point-missing dummies who think that the images that telescope will produce are of no value next to images of the telescope unfolding. Far better to have internet randos who surely aren't dummies running things.
- repler 5y ago
  How often do you look at exterior photos of the Hubble? Secondly, do we collectively as smart people honestly care what the ivermectin crowd thinks about exploring the cosmos?
- SirHound 5y ago
  It’s a telescope with a camera stuck to one end. I think people will be able to see what they paid for.
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  When you think of the Hubble, do you think of "product porn" shots of the telescope itself, or the spectacular images and science it produced? Likewise, for Voyager/Cassini/Huygens/etc? Don't remember any selfies from those. We merely had to settle for the spectacular, never-before-seen images of other worlds. Guess they were failures. :-(
intricatedetail 5y ago
Wow this sound so patronising. I am sure there will be a moment when they say oh wish we had installed those cameras...
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  Yeah, it seems like NASA hasn't really put much thought into this mission. /s

luxuryballs 5y ago

Looks like there aren’t actually any good reasons. I’m actually kind of surprised that mere curiosity at what could have been seen wasn’t good enough.

samus 5y ago
Nothing could have been seen: on the bright side, a smudge of light. On the dark side, nothing. The mirror is currently at -172° C and further cooling down toward absolute zero temperature; even with infrared it's hard to see anything at this point.

jjtheblunt 5y ago

it might be "desense", that the running of electronics of certain sorts near the large detector has the effect of desensitizing it. this is just a guess though.

trembonator 5y ago