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14 years late, 2000% over budget even while getting a free ride from ESA -- and loudly exclaiming this thing has no redundancy whatsoever: anything at all might

14 years late, 2000% over budget even while getting a free ride from ESA -- and loudly exclaiming this thing has no redundancy whatsoever: anything at all might brick it. It may be a great telescope, but it's a miserable failure as a project.

burrows 5y ago
X failed as a project if and only if X failed as a product or X consumed (hugely) more resources than initially planned? But what other reasons that people might care about X failing as a project when it succeeds as a product?
selectodude 5y ago
What is a "budget" when it comes to this sort of stuff though? They were doing things nobody has ever done before. How could anybody have any idea what it was going to cost?
- panick21_ 5y ago
  Well, the companies that promised that they could deliver the things they were advertising claimed to know. What should have been done is to have many more missions where these technologies can iteratively been proven so that once you head into a larger project you have some idea of whats gone happen. And you don't end up launching a telescope that already has 20 year old tech in it. And the companies that did it made fine profit of course. Promise the moon, don't deliver, make profit. Not a good model.
  - bastawhiz 5y ago
    > What should have been done is to have many more missions where these technologies can iteratively been proven so that once you head into a larger project you have some idea of whats gone happen. And how much do those projects cost? And what value do we derive from lots of small iterative solutions? > And you don't end up launching a telescope that already has 20 year old tech in it. If you're launching iteratively, then either you're proving out the tech until it's decades old, or you're never making progress on your iterative approach because you're constantly replacing the thing you iterated on with the new hotness.
devoutsalsa 5y ago
All of the lessons learned can be applied to future space missions. It’s not like the next satellite is a “complete rewrite”.

burrows 5y ago

X failed as a project if and only if X failed as a product or X consumed (hugely) more resources than initially planned? But what other reasons that people might care about X failing as a project when it succeeds as a product?

selectodude 5y ago

What is a "budget" when it comes to this sort of stuff though? They were doing things nobody has ever done before. How could anybody have any idea what it was going to cost?

panick21_ 5y ago
Well, the companies that promised that they could deliver the things they were advertising claimed to know. What should have been done is to have many more missions where these technologies can iteratively been proven so that once you head into a larger project you have some idea of whats gone happen. And you don't end up launching a telescope that already has 20 year old tech in it. And the companies that did it made fine profit of course. Promise the moon, don't deliver, make profit. Not a good model.
- bastawhiz 5y ago
  > What should have been done is to have many more missions where these technologies can iteratively been proven so that once you head into a larger project you have some idea of whats gone happen. And how much do those projects cost? And what value do we derive from lots of small iterative solutions? > And you don't end up launching a telescope that already has 20 year old tech in it. If you're launching iteratively, then either you're proving out the tech until it's decades old, or you're never making progress on your iterative approach because you're constantly replacing the thing you iterated on with the new hotness.

devoutsalsa 5y ago

All of the lessons learned can be applied to future space missions. It’s not like the next satellite is a “complete rewrite”.