News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Greg Robinson fixed NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, reluctantly. Parent comment

Re:Greg Robinson fixed NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, re... by JacobThreeThree on Friday July 15, 2022 @04:42PM (#32112580)
I think OP is saying they would have had the space to simply built one large mirror instead of many different mirror segments that require complicated motors and moving parts to deploy into position.

The mirror segment deployment technology is surely a significant percentage of the cost.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Greg Robinson fixed NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, re... by wolverine876 on Friday July 15, 2022 @04:46PM (#32112621)
> surely

Is there a more common or obvious trap of reasoning? If 'surely' worked, we wouldn't have needed the Enlightenment, science, or the JWST to learn about the universe.

IIRC (much stronger evidence than 'surely', but still lacking), it's in fact not significant to the cost.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Greg Robinson fixed NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, re... by JacobThreeThree on Sunday July 17, 2022 @05:38PM (#32131626)
>IIRC

Is there a more common or obvious trap of reasoning? If 'IIRC' worked, we wouldn't have needed the Enlightenment, science, or the JWST to learn about the universe.

[ Parent | on HN ]