The dark side of the JWST (where all the instruments are) will be operating very close to absolute zero and in near-absolute darkness which, of course, is the entire point of the mission.
A selfie camera there would need to function in that environment, while also somehow not polluting the instruments on that side of the camera with heat.
It's surely do-able, but it's a more complex engineering task (and would therefore require more tradeoffs) than operating a camera in the relatively balmy environment of Mars, where heat pollution is of no concern because of the different nature of the mission.
Keep in mind that doing this on the JWST also need to have been accomplished with decades-old technology, given the extremely long design and engineering lifecycle of a complex space mission.
It's only good if you ignore the cost, and look only at the benefits.
And yes. Hubble being deployed was a big deal.
Even Hubble didnt really have any of that that I am aware of. Most of the pictures of hubble itself are from servicing missions.
Sure you have some rover selfies on Mars, but thats not the sole purpose of the instruments, quite the contrary really.
According to the mission director SmarterEveryDay interviewed on his YouTube channel recently, the James Webb Space Telescope is so sensitive it could detect the heat signature of a bumblebee at the distance of the moon.
I’m pretty sure if you asked the astronomers if you could put a 5 Watt webcam on the dark side of their sun shield for the social media clicks, they’d tell you to fuck right off to L3…
So no, it can’t detect a blue whale… ;-)
The recent filming of EDL of the Perseverance rover was spectacular, but a significant aim of that mission and indeed most of the recent mars rovers has been to inspire an interest in exploration and science in the public, a significant part of that is getting happy snaps of events as they happen. The pictures taken were also of significant interest to the engineers involved as they showed events that were extremely dynamic, video being one of the best methods to gain information about the events without impacting the operation.
Web is more aimed at direct science, the products of which will, as happened with Hubble be used to make pretty pictures, which in themselves have limited scientific value, but are of enormous value in engaging the public. This combined with the difficulty and risk of capturing meaningful images given the environment makes live video a non starter.
Since you've indicated an unwillingness to read the blog post I'll summarize briefly:
A camera on the "light" side of JWST would need its own heat shielding and wouldn't show us any of the instruments.
A camera on the "dark" side of JWST would need to function at temperatures close to absolute zero. It would somehow need to do this without disturbing the ultrasensitive instruments on the JWST.
This would have been needed to be accomplished with, essentially, 10-30 year old technology as the designs for spacecraft like this need to be locked in far ahead of time due to the incredible complexity of deep space launches.
In both cases the cameras would need power and data cable routing, and given the various harsh constraints involved (complexity, budget, liftoff weight, size) would have involved compromises in some other area.
I’ve read the article and I’m not criticising NASA’s decision. I’m just pointing out that a cam wouldn’t need to bring significant complexity, not in the insane context of this project.
That 10 billion was funded by taxpayers, and the assertion that at the very least there should have been a possibility of those taxpayers seeing the fruits of their money through pictures instead of some intractable telemetry is a fair one.
taxpayers seeing the fruits of their money through pictures
It's a telescope, you see.
That's why I don't understand this debate. You'll be getting lots of spectacular images from the earliest moments of the universe. Is that clear? We are getting a time machine here. We're just not getting selfies.
What if the public funded it and tolerated
the cost overruns
You'd still face the hard payload constraints of the launch vehicle itself. Every kilogram and centimeter devoted to this camera system (and the associated power and shielding requirements) would represent kilograms and centimeters that would need to be chopped elsewhere. You'd need to compromise or eliminate other aspects of the spacecraft, and/or tolerate the increased complexity and risk resulting from the inclusion of a zero-science-value selfie camera.
I would expect HN readers, of all folks, to be really familiar with the concept of the harsh realities of engineering solutions for resource-constrained environments.
Anyway, the armchair spacecraft designers among us clamoring for a selfie camera might as well go full armchair spacecraft designer. Tell us which of the JWST's instruments you would have compromised or scrapped in order to accommodate the selfie camera.
Your position is that they should have added significant complexity to a maneuver that was already the most complex of its kind. A maneuver with $10 billion and two decades of work on the line. In order to make the first 30 days of a 10+ year mission marginally more entertaining.
You propose this while fully aware that the "entertainment" in question consists of things unfolding in extremely slow motion, in total darkness.
I mean, okay.
(Thought experiment: when you think about the Hubble, do you think about the day they shoved it out of the shuttle's cargo bay, or do you think about those groundbreaking images it captured during its multidecade mission?)