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A new hubble-scale space telescope is a multibillion dollar project - Hubble cost about $7 billion in 2022 dollars at the time of launch, JWST cost $10 billion.
by jjk166 4y ago
A new hubble-scale space telescope is a multibillion dollar project - Hubble cost about $7 billion in 2022 dollars at the time of launch, JWST cost $10 billion.
By comparison, a manned servicing mission would likely cost in the mid hundreds of millions, or about 1-10% of the cost of a new telescope. It's unlikely that a one time injection of cash would buy much additional functionality for future satellites. By comparison, buying an extra few years before you need a proper replacement satellite would allow you to build a substantially better telescope at the same annual funding rate, or build the same telescope at a lower annual funding rate.
- WalterBright 4y agoThings only cost that much per unit because they are one-offs. The trick to saving pots of money is to build duplicates, which will not incur research, design, tooling, test rig, etc., costs.
- WWLink 4y agoThe other problem with these is the big super high quality optical mirrors. Going to a production line with those would be really interesting! I don't think you'd get a big enough economy of scale to mass produce them in a just-in-time pipeline though.
- WalterBright 4y agoOnce you've designed and built the grinding machine (I saw a picture of it, it fills a special room) you've done most of it. Same for the custom test rig. SpaceX shows what happens to costs when you re-use designs and tooling.
- zopa 4y agoTrue but there's also decreasing marginal utility for each duplicate. A second telescope in any given class would be awesome but it's always going to be less groundbreaking and useful than the first one.
- WalterBright 4y agoThe universe is so big, and so many things to look at, I find it hard to believe we couldn't productively use 100 Hubbles.
- mhh__ 4y ago100 Hubble's would be great but 100 Hubble's and nothing else would not be
- jjk166 4y agoWell if we had built a warehouse full of Hubbles, then launching a duplicate would make a lot of sense, but we didn't and now the cost of making a replacement after all the custom tooling and talent has been lost is just as expensive as the first time around.