3 ms·

I do love me a scientific megaproject, but I still do wonder if a glorious $24 billion (and that's before the overruns) monolith is the most effective thing in

I do love me a scientific megaproject, but I still do wonder if a glorious $24 billion (and that's before the overruns) monolith is the most effective thing in terms of science per dollar, especially if it also has a limited lifespan due to consumables. That's fabulously expensive: you could have four LHCs, have enough change to replace Arecibo with 10 FASTs and then maybe a aircraft supercarrier on top just for funsies. It feels like JWST again: it's so expensive that it cannot be allowed to fail, so it's engineered to near perfection, but that costs so much that it has to be engineered even more to be sure, and so on until it's 1900% over budget, a decade late and muscling other science out of funding. But, also dayum it's a piece of art.

OrvalWintermute 5y ago
> I do love me a scientific megaproject, but I still do wonder if a glorious $24 billion (and that's before the overruns) monolith is the most effective thing in terms of science per dollar, especially if it also has a limited lifespan due to consumables. The 2nd mission with which I got involved, an Air Force Captain explained to me that continual trend was to massively underbudget a mission, and then make it whole through cost overruns. Of course, my work was all about increasing the security capabilities of the constellation, which likely added in the tens, to hundreds of millions in cost to the system. > It feels like JWST again: it's so expensive that it cannot be allowed to fail, so it's engineered to near perfection, but that costs so much that it has to be engineered even more to be sure, and so on until it's 1900% over budget, a decade late and muscling other science out of funding. Launch costs are dropping and the space body of knowledge is changing rapidly System Engineering tools are in their infancy, so rework or changing requirements are pricey. I expect this will really the cost of missions over time, since it directly relates to labor costs. Simultaneously, the space operator mentality of "extreme availability at all costs" is meeting the hard reality of "space is now an offensive and defensive cyber domain". We're building too many one-offs and too few constellations, both the birds, and the sensors. If you want lower cost we need to get past unit volume of one.
denton-scratch 5y ago
> the most effective thing in terms of science per dollar > muscling other science out of funding But we don't need four LHCs. We do need a way of observing dim and distant infrared light with high resolution. There's no other instrument that can observe EM radiation from 13 billion years ago. So it's not one or the other; something like the JWST was going to be built sooner or later.
pas 5y ago
24B is peanuts. Public spending has a greater than 1 multiplier, especially infrastructure, science and R&D. It took a supply shock and a demand shock and trillions for the economy to see inflation, and unfortunately almost all of that is just due to fucking fertilizer and lack of livable wage for logistics workers, not science equipment manufacturers hiking prices...

OrvalWintermute 5y ago

> I do love me a scientific megaproject, but I still do wonder if a glorious $24 billion (and that's before the overruns) monolith is the most effective thing in terms of science per dollar, especially if it also has a limited lifespan due to consumables. The 2nd mission with which I got involved, an Air Force Captain explained to me that continual trend was to massively underbudget a mission, and then make it whole through cost overruns. Of course, my work was all about increasing the security capabilities of the constellation, which likely added in the tens, to hundreds of millions in cost to the system. > It feels like JWST again: it's so expensive that it cannot be allowed to fail, so it's engineered to near perfection, but that costs so much that it has to be engineered even more to be sure, and so on until it's 1900% over budget, a decade late and muscling other science out of funding. Launch costs are dropping and the space body of knowledge is changing rapidly System Engineering tools are in their infancy, so rework or changing requirements are pricey. I expect this will really the cost of missions over time, since it directly relates to labor costs. Simultaneously, the space operator mentality of "extreme availability at all costs" is meeting the hard reality of "space is now an offensive and defensive cyber domain". We're building too many one-offs and too few constellations, both the birds, and the sensors. If you want lower cost we need to get past unit volume of one.

denton-scratch 5y ago

> the most effective thing in terms of science per dollar > muscling other science out of funding But we don't need four LHCs. We do need a way of observing dim and distant infrared light with high resolution. There's no other instrument that can observe EM radiation from 13 billion years ago. So it's not one or the other; something like the JWST was going to be built sooner or later.

pas 5y ago

24B is peanuts. Public spending has a greater than 1 multiplier, especially infrastructure, science and R&D. It took a supply shock and a demand shock and trillions for the economy to see inflation, and unfortunately almost all of that is just due to fucking fertilizer and lack of livable wage for logistics workers, not science equipment manufacturers hiking prices...