A cut too far.

So your question then amounts to what direct benefits does studying Cosmology and Astrophysics have for the average person.

Is that your criteria for the usefulness of science?

 

The JWST also has passive cooling, unlike Spitzer.

It's what that big sunshield they've built is for.

 

Yes I do. you're just missing the point.

Did you understand the significance of anything else I said?

Like... The role international politics plays in all of this? Or what happens if the Russian company that manufactures Soyuz runs out of money for making more - which has already nearly happened once?

 

:Facepalm:
Again, you prove my point that you don't understand what's left to do.
Nothing you have said contradicts anything I have actually said, only what you think I have said.

The Majority of the technology is ready to go, now, test articles of all equipment except the spacecraft bus have been completed. Flight articles for most of the equipment, except the spacecraft bus have been completed.

The only place any of this contradicts NASA's 2018 launch date is in your head. Get it?

Just because the test articles and flight articles have been manufactured, doesn't contradict the fact that there is still a crap ton of work to be done - for example, they may have tested the individual devices, but they still have to fit them in the part of the frame they'll be mounted in, then that integrated component needs to be tested, and so on and so forth. Yes, there is still a crap ton of testing and construction to be done, but the technology, the components and devices that make up the dam telescope are ready to go.

Are you beginning to understand yet?

This statement: "Nope, if it was mostly ready to go, then the soonest launch date wouldn't be 7 friggin years away" is bullshit because it completely ignores the magnitude of what remains to be done once the technology for the telescope is ready.

The most ridiculous thing of all is that my assertion, that the technology is mostly ready to go can be verified by spending 5 minutes with google - the STScI have a website that timelines the progress of hubble right back to the '80s.

Again, we come back to the point that I've outlined the status of the various components of teh JWST and why I think it supports my assertion, meanwhile, all you've done is wave your hands, and make spurious statements like "It can't be or the launch wouldn't be 7 years away".

The MOST my statement implies is that if NASA were to skip all of the testing, and build the spaceship out of what they currently have they could launch a dam site sooner than 2018, but the mission would have a substantially lower probability of succeeding. Even NASA have aknowledged this by suggesting that if they skipped some non-critical parts of the testing, then they could launch sooner.

Assuming, of course, that it hasn't deorbited due to atmospheric drag first.

 

You don't see a contradiction here?

 

Maybe, maybe not.

Could have beens are irrelevant.
The point is that the technology was developed for Hubble, and implemented elsewhere, therefore its a spinoff.
If we apply your logic more broadly, then there is no such thing as a true spinoff, because the same (or similar) can be said of any spinoff.

 

It's not an extra space telescope, it's a replacement space telescope. It's always been a replacement space telescope.

It's the answer to the question - well what happens when we can't ressurect Hubble?

And as for your 90% figure...
1. Substantiate it.
2. It's probably about the same percentage of the population that thinks that NASA gets 20% of the Federal budget.

And where, precisely do you get this bullshit from?

if you think I don't understand the importance of good national defense then you've completely missed my point and need to just... Shutup, now.

There's a key difference though - you don't have to completely fuck national defense to have the space telescope, get it?

 

Yes, I get it.
But nothing I have said has actually contradicted that figure, has it.

Yes, I understand it perfectly.

Correct, but saying that the technology is ready doesn't contradict that, does it?

The Seven years of work consists of integrating the technology, making sure that it all plays together as it's supposed to, making sure that the sunshield and the mirror deploy as they're supposed to, making sure that the the spacecraft as a whole will survive the condutions of launch, and the conditions it is expected to encounter, and still function as expected, mating the spacecraft to its launch shroud, and running some tests on that.

Strawman hypothesis here's what I originally said:

I didn't claim that the JWST was ready for launch, or mostly ready for launch, I said, and have said the whole time that the technology was mostly ready to go - and it is.

All of the science instruments, the sunshield, the frame, everything except for the spacecraft bus has been constructed as test articles, and much of it has been constructed as flight articles.

Again, not what I said.
I didn't say they can skip the testing - implying that it's plausable to do so.
I said the could skip skip the testing - aknowledging the possibility, and pointed out the consequences of doing so. The first consequence of doing so is that they would get there a dam site quicker, the second consequence of doing so is the greatly increased risk of failure - the point which you have chosen to re-iterate, and seem to be presenting in the context of it contradicting me.

http://www.pddnet.com/news-ss-white-technologies-hubble-space-telescopes-de_orbit-080910/

It was originally expected that Hubble would be returned by the Shuttle in 2010, however no it is expected that de-orbiting will occur in 2013.

:Shrug:

 

WTF?

Where do you get this from? I didn't claim it was the reason that the JWST was being built in the first place - so far, you're the only person that has made this claim.

Again, you don't see the contradiction here?

And you know damn well that, if we take any project - the hubble for example, spinoffs won't occur until after it's launched and private companies have had the opportunity to play with the technology involved and more fully understand its capacity.

What you're doing is so ridiculous (or at least it seems that way to me) that I can't even come up with an effective analogy to illustrate just how ridiculous it actually is.

 

I can't find the exact quote right now, and I'm out of time to spend looking for it, but it was something the the CEO of SpaceX said, and it goes back to my comments about the root of NASA's problems being about American companies and the cultures there in.

He said, in essence, that when SpaceX commences its operations resupplying the ISS, that any cost over runs will be born by them, and not passed on to NASA, as opposed to the culture in say, Nothrop-Grumman, where cost over-runs caused by the company are passed on to NASA.

:Shrug:

 

Here we go:

http://www.spacex.com/updates.php

Don't you think, that if, for example, Perkin-Elmer agree to build a Mirror for NASA, to certain stadards, in a certain time frame, for a certain cost, that any cost over-runs should be born by Perkin-Elmer, rather than Perkin-Elmer being rewarded by being given more money and more time? Personally, I think Perkin Elmer should be penalized.

To use the house building analogy which keeps getting dragged up, as piss poor as it is, personally, if the electrician I had was unable to do the wiring of my house in the time frame, and for the price we had agreed upon, I would have a contract worded in such a way that I would be able to get another one.

Why should tax payers have to bear the burden of the inefficiencies of American companies, and why should NASA be punished for it?