Slashdot Mirror
Mirrors Finished For James Webb Space Telescope
eldavojohn writes "On August 15th, sendoff ceremonies were held at Ball Aerospace (subcontractor to Northrop Grumman) for the 18 gold-coated, ultrasmooth, 4.2-foot (1.3 meters) hexagonal beryllium primary mirror segments that will comprise the 21.3-foot (6.5 m) primary mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Over 90% of the back material was taken out of these mirrors to make them light enough so that 18 could be launched into space where they must operate at minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 240 degrees Celsius). The mirrors will be adjusted by computer controlled actuators that are vital to JWST producing high-quality sharp images. The tennis court sized JWST will reside at L2 and is hyped to allow us to see 'back to the beginning of time.' NASA has provided a video of the computer animated metamorphosis with many more videos at the JWST site."
...Perkin-Elmer didn't provide any consulting services, especially in the verification process...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I hear they've installed a docking connector just in case.
Would also be nice to know how many libraries of congress per second the telescope will be able to send back to Earth
Wish it had been named after an astronomer, like the Hubble was, not a NASA administrator.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The Hubble mirror was the most precisely and uniformly shaped mirror ever made up to that time. They just happened to make it precisely to an incorrect shape.