If does have some relevance:

> Incidentally, Euclid was not supposed to launch aboard SpaceX at all. As late as February 2022, the mission was manifested upon an Arianespace Soyuz (provided by Russia) for a March 2023 launch in French Guiana. Russia's unsanctioned invasion of Ukraine forced a stop to most such space collaborations aside from the International Space Station, pushing Euclid's team to look for another ride to space.

Why write about launches? We could wait until it starts gathering data because that’s what really matters, right?

Given that it’s a rocket launch, crediting the company that did the launch makes some sense.

Why not write about launches? It is not every day ESA launches a telescope to a Lagrange point after all.

Why write about when it starts collecting data? We could wait until actual worldview changing research results surface because that’s what really matters.

The fact of the matter is worldview changing results will likely not ever surface, just as they didn’t from JWST. So instead press departments pretend all the steps along the way are important because it helps improve public sentiment for the financing of these “moonshots” (which hardly even deserve the name, we haven’t accomplished anything remotely like placing a man on the moon in decades).

> The fact of the matter is worldview changing results will likely not ever surface, just as they didn’t from JWST.

What do you count as worldview changing result? Who promised you that the JWST will deliver such things?

You are also quite quick to write off a mission with a 20 year design lifespan.

The worldview changing result of Hubble was HUDF and the revelation that it doesn’t matter how deep you look it’s all the same damn spirals and shit.

I wouldn’t know what JWST’s result would be, if I knew it a priori it wouldn’t be much of a result would it? But I don’t expect much. Happy to be pleasantly surprised.

> The worldview changing result of Hubble was HUDF and the revelation that it doesn’t matter how deep you look it’s all the same damn spirals and shit.

Interesting. What was your world view before this and how did it changed? Did you for example believed earlier that only the galaxies we have mapped so far do exist?

> if I knew it a priori it wouldn’t be much of a result would it?

Yet you are already certain it “did not materialise”. What was the latency between the photons of HUDF hitting Hubble’s mirror and your worldview being changed?

I had hoped that looking closer might revel something different than what we already saw. It didn’t.

Certainly nothing has materialized yet, which is all I claimed. Do you feel anything of significance has come from the project?

Something has materialised, those "damn spirals and shit" were around way earlier than thought. Maybe it is damn spirals and shit all the way down into the primordial quark soup? Need a bigger telescope to find out but that is just the way these things work. I say go for that bigger telescope, more of this type of research and "moonshots" and all. This is the final frontier we're talking about, the place where dreams go. They may go to die but we'll only find out if we try so try we should. Without this type of research all that is left is to take a microscope to this pale blue dot we live on which would be fine were it not for the fact that the microscope would most likely be taken over by the same prophets of doom who cry woe over all the human race does. Let us look outward as well as inward to gain some perspective, let the doom-criers realise that the universe is big and dark and full of places to park.

> those "damn spirals and shit" were around way earlier than thought

You’re telling me someone with exposure to HUDF saw more spirals and shit longer ago via JWST and said “wow that’s unexpected, who could have guessed spirals and shit would go further back”? And you believed them? If so, I have a bridge to sell you…

Either they have no pattern recognition/projection capability, or (more likely) they’re pretending to express shock at the exact result they expected because it results in more media attention and funding.

Consider, what gets more media attention: “JWST finds more of the exact same stuff Hubble already found everywhere, but this time at the slightly lower frequency for which it is tuned” or “Breaking News! Scientists working on the JWST say they have found signs of early galaxies that have been around for far longer than anyone ever imaged before!”? If you look closely, the two messages are the exact same. But to the media/layperson something interesting is happening in the second one.

> This headline makes it sounds like SpaceX is more that a freight carrier here, undoubtedly for clicks.

How many commercial freight carriers do you think are options right now?

I would love for rocket launches to be as mundane as hiring a trucker... but they aren't.

This is an important milestone for a science project that has been 20 years in the making and might yield a few nobel prices. I think it's worthy enough for HN.

Here ya go:

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Euclid...

Here's the lead scientist who originated the idea:

https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/en/persons/adam-amara

You're just salty because it's related to Elon Muskuito. That's okay, I am too.

Wow, some people just can't get over their musk hate.

It actually is remarkable that SpaceX is doing it, because this would almost certainly be done by a European launch vehicle, except that Ariane 5 is sold out, Vega-C has had a launch failure and is in stand-down due to investigation of the failure, and Soyuz has been problematic ever since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. (Russia has pulled personnel, plus there are sanctions.)