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Have you done any research into the budgeting process? Edit: I googled it. Here's the first paragraph of the first link from DDG: > The James Webb Space Teles

by uoaei 4y ago

Have you done any research into the budgeting process? Edit: I googled it. Here's the first paragraph of the first link from DDG: > The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is expected to cost NASA $9.7 billion over 24 years. Of that amount, $8.8 billion was spent on spacecraft development between 2003 and 2021; $861 million is planned to support five years of operations. Adjusted for inflation to 2020 dollars, the lifetime cost to NASA will be approximately $10.8 billion. So "spacecraft development" comprised about 90% of the total budget. Of the remainder, 96% is allocated to "five years of operations". So we have about $39 million left over, which I assume covers the launch and everything around it. If you want to try optimizing that, go ahead, but it is nearly a rounding error (0.4% of budget) in the grand scheme of things. There is an argument to be made that a few million dollars saved is valuable. I would propose a counterargument, that the amount of friction induced by working with private contractors (especially contentious and manipulative ones like those who run SpaceX) would add to some of the development costs, so the savings may not be as big as you think from a naive comparison.

ghaff 4y ago
Basically, it's the cost of designing and building a complete one-off that's going to be launched off into space, deployed, no opportunity to repair, etc. There are a million things that can go wrong. And you have one shot. I know someone who was one of the test engineers on SDO (solar dynamics observatory) and there were all manner of concerns about this, that, and the other thing that were really hard to say were almost absolutely certainly "just fine."
- throw0101a 4y ago
  > Basically, it's the cost of designing and building a complete one-off […] As a simple analogy: there's a difference between going to 3-for-1 Suite Warehouse and going to Saville Row and getting something bespoke. It's just there are no COTS satellites that do what JWST do, so if you want to do cutting edge science you're paying for Saville Row.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Probably even worse than that. They're effectively often designing special fabrics, threads, and tools to do the sewing. Not that I have a need any longer, but custom suits in lower cost of labor areas aren't a big deal and even off-the-rack suits pretty much have to be tailored for many of us to look good.
- drexlspivey 4y ago
  First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?
throwaway6734 4y ago
Is it possible that cheaper and more frequent launches will keep and up dropping the development prices as maybe more regular launches will enable the development process to be less strict and leave more room for error?
- dotnet00 4y ago
  That is essentially what's driving the popularity of smallsats and megaconstellations. Since launch costs are dropping and flights are becoming more regular (eg SpaceX's transporter flights, where the rocket flies regardless of payload readiness and anyone who wasn't ready just moves to another flight, eliminating the main issue from other rideshare arrangements), it's potentially cheaper to make more replaceable satellites. So far this mainly applies to Earth observation and internet constellations. This doesn't really carry-over to large projects like JWST yet though.
raisin_churn 4y ago
Part of the huge cost to develop it was getting a mechanism that could deploy the mirror segments into a large enough array with sufficient accuracy, a task that would be dramatically simplified by a a launch platform with a wider fairing and greater mass to the L2 Lagrange point. So yes, if SpaceX Starship was available, it would've saved a ton of money on JWST, albeit mostly by relaxing the design parameters of the telescope rather than through cheaper launch costs.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  > if SpaceX Starship was available, it would've saved a ton of money on JWST How much? How much did it cost for the actual JWST? Do you have any evidence of this great cost? The glorification of Musk's ego is endless. Can JWST see the farthest reaches of it? Is it expanding or contracting?
  - JacobThreeThree 4y ago
    I think OP is saying they would have had the space to simply built one large mirror instead of many different mirror segments that require complicated motors and moving parts to deploy into position. The mirror segment deployment technology is surely a significant percentage of the cost.
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      > surely Is there a more common or obvious trap of reasoning? If 'surely' worked, we wouldn't have needed the Enlightenment, science, or the JWST to learn about the universe. IIRC (much stronger evidence than 'surely', but still lacking), it's in fact not significant to the cost.
      - JacobThreeThree 4y ago
        >IIRC Is there a more common or obvious trap of reasoning? If 'IIRC' worked, we wouldn't have needed the Enlightenment, science, or the JWST to learn about the universe.
bpodgursky 4y ago
> especially contentious and manipulative ones like those who run SpaceX I don't think you know anything about the space industry. SpaceX is famous for being wildly easier to work with than any other launch provider (including semi-national providers like Arianespace).
- wolverine876 4y ago
  Famous among who? Are you in the space launch industry?

by uoaei 4y ago

ghaff 4y ago

Basically, it's the cost of designing and building a complete one-off that's going to be launched off into space, deployed, no opportunity to repair, etc. There are a million things that can go wrong. And you have one shot. I know someone who was one of the test engineers on SDO (solar dynamics observatory) and there were all manner of concerns about this, that, and the other thing that were really hard to say were almost absolutely certainly "just fine."

throw0101a 4y ago
> Basically, it's the cost of designing and building a complete one-off […] As a simple analogy: there's a difference between going to 3-for-1 Suite Warehouse and going to Saville Row and getting something bespoke. It's just there are no COTS satellites that do what JWST do, so if you want to do cutting edge science you're paying for Saville Row.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Probably even worse than that. They're effectively often designing special fabrics, threads, and tools to do the sewing. Not that I have a need any longer, but custom suits in lower cost of labor areas aren't a big deal and even off-the-rack suits pretty much have to be tailored for many of us to look good.
drexlspivey 4y ago
First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?

throwaway6734 4y ago

Is it possible that cheaper and more frequent launches will keep and up dropping the development prices as maybe more regular launches will enable the development process to be less strict and leave more room for error?

dotnet00 4y ago
That is essentially what's driving the popularity of smallsats and megaconstellations. Since launch costs are dropping and flights are becoming more regular (eg SpaceX's transporter flights, where the rocket flies regardless of payload readiness and anyone who wasn't ready just moves to another flight, eliminating the main issue from other rideshare arrangements), it's potentially cheaper to make more replaceable satellites. So far this mainly applies to Earth observation and internet constellations. This doesn't really carry-over to large projects like JWST yet though.

raisin_churn 4y ago

Part of the huge cost to develop it was getting a mechanism that could deploy the mirror segments into a large enough array with sufficient accuracy, a task that would be dramatically simplified by a a launch platform with a wider fairing and greater mass to the L2 Lagrange point. So yes, if SpaceX Starship was available, it would've saved a ton of money on JWST, albeit mostly by relaxing the design parameters of the telescope rather than through cheaper launch costs.

wolverine876 4y ago
> if SpaceX Starship was available, it would've saved a ton of money on JWST How much? How much did it cost for the actual JWST? Do you have any evidence of this great cost? The glorification of Musk's ego is endless. Can JWST see the farthest reaches of it? Is it expanding or contracting?
- JacobThreeThree 4y ago
  I think OP is saying they would have had the space to simply built one large mirror instead of many different mirror segments that require complicated motors and moving parts to deploy into position. The mirror segment deployment technology is surely a significant percentage of the cost.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    > surely Is there a more common or obvious trap of reasoning? If 'surely' worked, we wouldn't have needed the Enlightenment, science, or the JWST to learn about the universe. IIRC (much stronger evidence than 'surely', but still lacking), it's in fact not significant to the cost.
    - JacobThreeThree 4y ago
      >IIRC Is there a more common or obvious trap of reasoning? If 'IIRC' worked, we wouldn't have needed the Enlightenment, science, or the JWST to learn about the universe.

bpodgursky 4y ago

> especially contentious and manipulative ones like those who run SpaceX I don't think you know anything about the space industry. SpaceX is famous for being wildly easier to work with than any other launch provider (including semi-national providers like Arianespace).

wolverine876 4y ago
Famous among who? Are you in the space launch industry?