Astronomers discover super-Earth around Barnard's star

Re:Astronomers discover super-Earth around Barnard's star by aphextron on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @03:03PM (#18453320)

My recurring dream for the JWST is that we switch it on and get immediately overwhelmed with indirect spectroscopic evidence of biology within multiple exoplanets, ushering in a whole new era of science. Watching that launch will be the most heartstopping moment of my life.

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Re:Astronomers discover super-Earth around Barnard's star by ryanmercer on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @03:43PM (#18453730)

My recurring dream for the JWST is that it actually ever launches. :(

>Watching that launch will be the most heartstopping moment of my life.

You got that right. When Elon launched the car I was like "eh this will be just like any other launch" then as the launch started I was perched on the edge of my chair shouting "CLIMB CLIMB CLIMB BABY CLIMB" at my phone. JWST will be one of the most nerve-racking moments of my life if I watch the launch due to it's many delays.

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Re:Astronomers discover super-Earth around Barnard's star by bgirard on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @03:56PM (#18453862)

I can see why people would focus on the risk of a flashy explosion, but I think the real risk will be with the deployment process and having gotten everything right with JWST. ESA launches are very reliably, JWST is a one time design.

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Re:Astronomers discover super-Earth around Barnard's star by ryanmercer on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @04:19PM (#18454053)

I think as long as we are using rockets to lift things from our world, there will be some level of fear of failure. After all, rockets are essentially an explosion attempting to be controlled.

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Re:Astronomers discover super-Earth around Barnard's star by de_watcher on Thursday November 15, 2018 @04:40AM (#18458046)

> JWST is a one time design.

I wish they've invented notebooks or something. So we could build a second JWST at a smaller cost.

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Re:Astronomers discover super-Earth around Barnard's star by ddalex on Thursday November 15, 2018 @06:29AM (#18458456)

The problem is that the technology that JWST is built with is no longer available. The development cycle moved so fast that the industrial bits needed to manufacture JWST are no longer there, even if we have complete and detailed plans.

Very similar with how building a Saturn V today is logistically impossible, even if we can build more modern, efficient and cheaper rockets.

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Re:Astronomers discover super-Earth around Barnard's star by ceejayoz on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @04:19PM (#18454058)

On the bright side, a failed deployment might make us expedite deep space manned mission tech in order to go fix it.

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Re:Astronomers discover super-Earth around Barnard's star by hughes on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @07:33PM (#18455731)

There is not a single crewed vehicle in operation or even planned that supports spacewalks. If it's not next to the ISS, people aren't going to be able to fix it.

At best we could send a robot, which would probably be more easily operated from the ground.

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Re:Astronomers discover super-Earth around Barnard's star by ceejayoz on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @07:45PM (#18455825)

There've been several proposals for an Orion-mated orbital module with an airlock, as well as an ESA one based around their ATV. After all, the eventual goal of Orion is to allow deep-space missions to asteroids etc.

Even coming up with something from scratch is unlikely to cost the $10B we'd lose from a failed JWST.

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Re:Astronomers discover super-Earth around Barnard's star by gorn on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @03:40PM (#18453694)

I dream to be there during the launch as well. Could you enlighten me on how JWST could find the evidence of life?

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Re:Astronomers discover super-Earth around Barnard's star by aphextron on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @03:55PM (#18453853)

>Could you enlighten me on how JWST could find the evidence of life?

Near Infrared Spectroscopy [0]. JWST will be the first instrument in space capable of performing NIR spectroscopy, which will be used to analyze the starlight shining through exoplanets' atmospheres for evidence of biological molecules.

[0] https://dms.cosmos.esa.int/COSMOS/doc_fetch.php?id=3372219

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