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Hubble Replacement on Slow Track
iamlucky13 writes "The targeted launch date for the James Webb Space Telescope, an infrared space observatory currently nearing the completion of the design stage, has been pushed back 2 years to help deal with a price tag that has grown to $4.5 billion. This advanced telescope is designed to build upon the achievements of the Hubble after its retirement, peering into deep space with it's large 6.5 meter primary mirror from the L2 point 1.5 million kilometers from earth. As the highest priority science mission on NASA's agenda, a decision was made to spread the extra cost over additional budget cycles rather than compromise it's instrument package. Regardless, some of the lower priority missions may feel the impact of the JWST cost growth."
Please remember that "Energy is liberated when an individual breaks through rules of conditioning with some glorious act of disobedience or blasphemy. This energy strengthens the spirit and gives courage for further acts of insurrection. Help me defile gOd and his name.
Jehovah fucking Yahweh, I curse you in the name of Satan the Almighty. Evil lives in me and I walk with Satan all the days of my life cursing and mocking you god (the dog), filthy fucking maggot. My hate grows by the second as I dream of the day when you are under my feet begging for my cock.
God I rape you and hurl blasphemy into your mind. I demand you to come down from heaven right now and get down on your stomach in front of me, lifting your asshole up to receive my cock. God I promise to fuck you and I long to rip your eyes out, kick you in the face, mutilate you, and bathing in your blood. Listen to me, I'm screaming
in your ears to come to earth and in this room for I will have my way with you, oh most cursed god of heaven (you foul piece of shit). Satan is my God and he will force you to drink cum from my dick. I will never stop sinning and blaspheming your name, presents, existence, and most of all the rotten, putrid holy spirit that fucked the mother of gOd and pregnanted that slut with jesus christ.
I stand before all the angles and saints, gOd, jesus fucking christ, mary the whore of gOd, the filthy holy spirit, and they are witnessing my denouncement of you gOd, and my ongoing blasphemy of the holy spirit. I am purposely cursing the holy spirit and its purity and will defy you god and the holy spirit all the wicked days of my sin filled life. My soul is full of evil thoughts and sins, its black with pure hatred of anything holy.
God, I will find new ways to defile and blasphemy you, because I'm seeking evil every second of my life. That is all my mind can think about. You're pain is my desire, you're name I mock, your son I defy, your mother I fuck, and your spirit I cum in.
The only prayers from me are prayers of hate and blasphemy, evil is a part of me, it dwells in my soul, cursing everything about you is the most important part of my existence, total darkness is inside of me. gOd I will rip you out of heaven and force you under my feet you fuck pig. You will listen to all my demands. I will slip into heaven and I will rape all the angels and saints and will kill them in your unholy putrid name. God I will kill you and bath in your blood. Holy spirit I demand you to listen to my hatred of your foul existence, drink my cum, and remember my blasphemy against you, you putrid, rotten, vile spirit of gOd.
I'm the meaning of gOd's pain. This is the way that you will die dog gOd. It will be a slow death, the joy of killing you will make my cock hard, I know you will feel my showers of hate and you will feel extreme pain as I beat your body and make every inch of your body black and blue. I force you bastard Jehovah to the ground and I will
put you under my feet where you belong, you putrid bastard. God you will try to run but I will strap you down and fuck your soul before I rip it out of your body. God "the dog", your life is worthless, for I'm the angel from your new God "Satan". I destroy everything holy, you are felling my hatred pierce your mind intensely, inferior god "dog" you fucking maggot. You will be screaming in pain as I strap you down under my feet, you will look up at me and I will piss down your throat.
I'm so consumed with hatred of you that I will masturbate, and when I feel that I'm about to cum, I force my evil cock full of Satan's cum down your mouth and fill it up with my vile hot cum. I will be pumping your body full of my hot cum. Inside your brain is my blasphemy. The pressure in your skull begins push through your eyes,
burning your flesh, and I laugh as it drips away. Heat burns your skin; your mind starts to boil with my blasphemy, and pure evil hatred of your fucking existence. You will not last long; it's just a matter of time until your ripped apart with my h
$4.5 billion? That's far too expensive. I mean, we could keep our troups in Iraq for almost another month for that kind of money! What are they thinking, wasting it on a stupid big telescope.
This is what happens when a handful of tenured scientists and engineers trying to manage a huge project to support a hundred of their favorite people carried over from other projects.
We must ask them for what they have spent $4.5B. I would not be a least bit surprised that the large portion of it went down to pay the salary for support staffs (*) to continue on science projects, not directly to the R&D for the telescope and its instruments. Come on, from the last I heard, they don't have any flight modules being built yet! This is simply outrageous.
(*) To be fair, for each and every space mission, the largest portion of the expense always goes to the labor fee. The more you need to support, the greater the expenditure you must pay. The good thing is that, even if the mission is lost, the money would be well spent since the experience remains with the trained, supported staff in R&D...but here is the thing; I'm not certain that how much of $4.5B is being used to do pure R&D for next generation instrumentation. I hope they are not spending to cover "JWST scientists" to continue on their science with other ad-hoc instruments.
IMHO, delaying the execution of projects only makes them cost more
With some great techniques for correcting the disturbances our atmosphere creates and a lot of huge (e.g.http://www.gmto.org/) ground based telescope slated for construction, it seems that super expensive space telescope will fall out of favor. I think we def need to continue with the JGW scope though - or at least send something to Lagrange point 2 before china does.
Space watches YOU!!
They can make the mirror part, real cheap too.
I can see how support staff make up the bulk of the cost but you have to realize that once they send this thing up into space it has to work; there is no warranty. If things aren't quadruple checked and all the scenarious played out you may end up loosing the whole project. I'm not a big fan of spending so much money on things such as these (there are worse like the war in Iraq), especially with 10's of thousands of people dying of starvation everyday, but if we're gonna do it we have to do it right.
Judging by the latest sneak peek photo from NASA, it looks like money well spent.
Who cares about what it costs, just spend the money.
This may sound a bit jaded...but I read an opinion piece (can't find the link..sorry) talking about the fact that the deficit and overall debt is considered by many economists to be so far gone that we'll crash no matter what we do. So, why not just run up the credit card while it lasts? Pay for the space telescope (new one), get that fence up along the border. Spend...Spend...Spend...Seriously! I think the most accurate analogy was that when falling 50 yards the first 30 really are'nt that bad (where we are now). The U.S. is gunna crash and it's going to take the rest of the world economy with it. We might as well just enjoy the "card" while it's still good.
I hear this a lot about the space program, but if you quickly crunch the numbers:
1,000 staff x $100,000/year (generous) = $100 million/year.
So where is this $4.5 billion really being spent? I think it raises a lot of questions. Setting aside, say, $500 million for the launch itself (again, generous), and $1 billion for 10 years of operating costs (still pretty generous), can the materials and construction of a telescope really cost more than $2.5 billion?
I hate to be cheeky, but if I could pay 1,000 people $100k/year, I could build you a seriously awesome space telescope for a lot less than $2.5 billion.
A-Bomb
...there are no atmospheric effects such as seeing. The atmosphere is especially problematic for an infrared telescope such as the JWST, as a significant portion of the infrared spectrum is absorbed by the earth's atmosphere.
If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, where does the road paved with evil intentions lead to?
What's not to like about that?
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
I just watched "ST Nemesis" yesterday on DVD.
My Suck-Alarm was ringing, but I ignored it. Woe is me.
So I think NASA should re-imburse me for the movie rental. They obviously have the disposable cash, and aren't they supposed to help make space travel look appealing? Sheesh.
-FL
Does it run on linux?
rewriting history since 2109
I can't help but notice that our neighbors south of the border are so totally obsessed with really really big things. Now take this telescope for instance. I've been hearing about this since forever. So someone help me out here, I'm really trying to understand this...
First off, what need is there for such a big telescope anyways? I mean, who do you need to watch? or probe?
Second, it's not how big it is, isn't it all in how you use it?
Third, why's it so hard to keep it up? Can't you use something like Viagra?
And finally, it's ok to be gay. Heck, in Canada, you can even get married!!
---
Just a migrant Canadian trying to understand...
[Aside to other Canadians: Please, don't piss'em off! 'cause we know what happens to countries they don't like!!]
Since the US is currently dumping $6 billion a month in Iraq ($9 billion+ of which can not even be accounted for since the war started,) why not launch an initiative to launch a satellite by an organization other than NASA?
Provide an incentive (say cash) to find a cheaper way to design and launch a satellite into space. NASA, as an arm of a bogged-down and partisan government, is clearly not using innovative and cost-cutting solutions to further its own goals. Take the US government funding out of the equation and maybe something will get done. If NASA has too much on its agenda, its time to find other qualified people who can do the job.
In my humble opinion, space exploration is just as important scientific study as any other out there. The images that the Hubble has delivered to the world are indeed beautiful, amazing and priceless.
See: http://heritage.stsci.edu/gallery/galindex.html
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
and we look out far enough, will we see ourselves?
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
HST's instruments deal with several different portions of the spectrum. JWST is dedicated infrared. Those of us who actually work in astronomy keep pointing this out, but oh well. ;)
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Really think about what is 4.5 billion these days ?
The us national debt increases more that 100 times that amount every year and they cant fund the hubble.
The problem probably is the people in power want the budget to be 45 billion but it will need to goto a no bid contract.
it's = it is
its = possessive
really, you make fun of people who can't grasp concepts that are much harder than that!!!
Another important factor is that Lagrange 2 is a saddle point. You can't keep an object there without constant monitoring and course correction (aka thrusters). Given that there's no way to send a resupply shuttle, our dear rocket scientists will absolutely have to get it right the first time. That means perfectly arranged mirrors (unlike Hubble), long-lasting gyros (unlike Hubble), and of course big honking fuel tank.
So whatever the final cost is, the project managers absolutely must resist the urge to cut corners. I'd rather see us spend $5B on a successful mission than $4B on an unintentional lunar impactor.
So are you suggesting that we should abandon Mike griffen (engineer) and go back to somebody like Sean O'Keefe (accountant/Columbia) or Beggs(MBA/Challenger)? I will take the scientists/engineers everytime. By definition, they are already brighter and more capable.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The Right will only support funding for the new Hubble if it's used to find proof of the firmament. And of course the Left will only support it if it's used to find voters. Essentially, it's a huge quagmire.
But hopefully the issues can be solved so scientist can use it to search for what remains of freedom in the US.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
It is interesting to note, that the telescope in question is named for perhaps the greatest administrator NASA ever had, who ran the agency during the critical years of the Apollo program and quit in 1968 shortly before the Apollo 8 mission which first sent men around the Moon. James Webb was, by the admission of many in NASA at the time, the best administrator they could have had, even though he was not an engineer but a politician. I suspect if he were still around, he'd be able to get his telescope built on time.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
I tend to believe that between reagan's and gwb's deficits, that yes, they may have killed us. Now, with that said, I am concerned that if we run it up too much, AND elect another GWB type at the wrong time, they may elect to start a war to hide things (wag the dog). It certainly would not be the first time that a president did that.
One interesting time frame, was when the USSR invaded Afghanastan, Carter cut off USSR from easy credit and all grain. In doing that, we were economically killing off USSR. Reagan came in and rolled those back. That allowed the USSR beast to continue for another decade. Of course, this also allowed for glastnot and a slower pace decay, which may be why it ended fairly peacefully, instead of forcing the top admin to start a war.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Ok, so now that James Webb is delayed by two years (and I'd bet more before it launces) and the shuttle has been cut back so much that there are not enough flights left to finish the space station, shouldn't they restart the mission for robotic repair of the Hubble telescope so it stays functional until the replacement gets launched?
NASA is trying to save money, but they are ignoring all of the money that has been already spent on partially completed projects, both in hardware that will never launch and for breach of contract fees to subcontractors.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
It's is not possessive!
...but, JWST IS NOT A HST REPLACEMENT!!
People have had that misconception for years now.
Benefits make up a large portion of the cost of employees (health care, retirement, etc.). Also because the government uses contractors for lots of the work, the contracting company is making a profit on top of what it pays its employees. Try again.
The same can be said about the cost of the war. What about you, and you're time then--you can be using this time reading slashdot to feed the poor!
What's your opinion on the where telescope are going long-term - very long term. Would the moon be an ideal place for telescopes? Radio telescopes would be shielded from most of Earth's chatter and lens based scope's could be constructed even larger because of weaker gravity. It's nice to wonder what we might see with a telescope that had a 1 kilometer aperture. By the way, I envy your line of work.
Recently, the DIRBE instrument on the COBE satellite confirmed earlier IRAS observations of a dust ring following the Earth's orbit around the Sun. The existence of this ring is closely related to the Trojan points, but the story is complicated by the effects of radiation pressure on the dust grains. The Lagrange Points
Not working on JWST or even a NASA project right now, I can't delineate costs for you personally, but I would have modded you down as well. Maybe not for being a troll, but for being uninformed. People on projects don't cost their salary alone. And we're not even talking about just some small overhead. These people all work at institutions (NASA centers, universities, etc.) that are funded by projects like this. You forgot to pay for their benefits, retirement, health care, etc. You forgot to give them a place to work, which may exist right now, but you still have to effectively pay for them to work there, which is not limited to the use of that place's equipment, computers, electricity, water, heat (well, for us right now), and toilets. You're talking about factors of 2-3x their salary, not just 1x. And yes, there certainly are more than 1,000 people contributing to JWST if you counted the secretaries and janitors.
All that's pretty good to do the R&D with little serious equipment purchases. Now as they're getting close to actually building space-worthy components, the equipment costs and contracting associated with that part goes up dramatically. A building, even the world's tallest, has parts you can replace and repair at will, pretty much. Although there's serious engineering and lots of clever bits that must go into it, there is still a difference. Plus, the techniques for making buildings are by-and-large not being developed from scratch like what is typically done for most space-based astronomy projects today.
The mirror isn't 8-feet in diameter (that's HST), it's 6.5 meters. And it's not one piece (which would be too large to launch), it's 18 pieces. It's not made of glass, it's made of beryllium. For it to work as promised, it's surface has to be accurate to incredible tolerances, and you have to ensure that the 18 segments together form an effective surface to those same levels of tolerance. And it has to be highly efficient at reflecting infrared light, which in this case is being done with a layer of gold.
After that you have a telescope, but nothing to do with it. We don't use eyepieces or even just a CCD camera these days, you know. Last time I looked, JWST had 3 instruments being built for it. Each one typically has its own set of complicated optics, detectors, hardware, and software. Although I don't know the exact numbers, these days instruments are typically a significant cost of telescope projects. I would not be surprised if each one costs a least 1/2 the cost of an operating JWST mirror.
As it's being built, you're also paying people to make sure it's going to be useful after it's launched. There's all the software and ground hardware that goes into the setting up an infrastructure for the community to propose their science, the planning and taking of observations, data reduction tools, etc. You don't start that bit the day after it's been completed. And those costs are ongoing, like they are with HST right now.
Now do you want to do some science with it? That costs money too. And unlike your buildings, we astronomers don't (er, can't) pay rent. JWST doesn't make money like your building, and it's cost is not subsided by anyone like your buildings likely are. Every dollar, euro, sweat, and tear is launched up to space with a wish and a prayer. And all we get out is some random new facts about the universe. Hope you like our work.
Now, I can't speak for high-level government officials or contract companies, but I can pretty confidently say that 99% of us in the field who drive the science for these machines are not in it for the money. There are very few personal perks aside from the coolness factor of working on something that a lot of people find fascinating. To a good approximation, this is the c
On this page, check out the smart tag on "hubble telescope" on the caption for the picture of Ceres
Wonder what the reserve is like. And what about the shipping?
These scientist are taking the billions of dollars, and doing nothing except browsing the internet and modding you down.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
You are not taking into account of overhead.
Right now I think there are about 2,000 scientists, engineers and administrators (plus civil servants) working all over the nation. Some get paid more (senior engineers and civil/administrators), while others get paid less (scientists and secretaries). So 100k per person isn't a bad guess (e.g., a senior engineer would get paid over 200K, for civil, around 140K, for admin...geez).In each institution, there is an overhead charge that goes into the bill (to cover benefits, etc). The overhead rate varies from institution to institution...but about 100% overhead (or for spending $1, it costs $2) is quite a decent figure.
Now this mission has been around for a while (at least five years).
Let's add that up:
5 yrs * $100K * 2.00 * 2000 ppl = $2 billion
So it's not that off from the estimate of $4.5Bn, really. They were supposed to cost $2B at this point. They ended up spending twice more...