The nature podcast a few weeks ago interviewed one of the schedulers for the Web. People that are interested in getting images from the Web apply and get their projects approved and then put into the project plan. Some projects need multiple days of exposures, some need images at very very specific timing, and some are more simple 1 cycle and done.
Youâre going to see a mix of results as all of the projects get time for images, and Iâd guess weâll see things that require less image processing and fewer cycles first.
I found an interview with NPR (itâs possible I conflated it with the nature podcast, or they also did an interview.) Worth a quick listen:
Generally, researchers who win time on the telescope get the data to themselves for one year to publish findings. After that, the data goes into the public domain, as it is funded by taxpayers.
There was a deal made with the very researchers on the very first photos. Like, âyou get the very first projects on the Webb, but we have to go public immediately because we need to show some results ASAP.â
Thatâs probably why there hasnât been a lot since then.
Itâs doing that stuff too. But itâs pretty clear we actually donât know what closer stuff looks like, because we are always getting better at doing the looking. The improvements may be incremental, but thatâs how science works.
Thatâs⌠fine. But we can take a picture of Jupiter with a telescope from our backyard. This seems like a waste of the Webbâs time.
I just want to see something new!
Moonlight is reddish (compared to âwhiteâ light). However the intensity is so tenuous our âredâ receptors donât trigger. But the âblueâ rods are more sensitive. So we see a physically reddish light as bluish.
A more intense moonlight would make the moon look somewhat closer to that image (it would still be mostly white, the reddish shift is small). I guess thatâs what they did (exaggerate the spectrum).
We canât take a picture with the gear on the Webb, though. The pics we can get from here are not as good and tell us less than what we can get from space. I guess my position is that all of this knowledge is valuable. I do not necessarily think that ânewâ is always better.
But once weâre at Alpha Centauri, we canât go elsewhere. The drones need us. They look up to us.
jpinard
5445
I am absolutely chomping at the bit to see an exoplanet. Man I hope Iâm not disappointed.
Matt_W
5446
JWSTâs angular resolution is about the same as Hubbleâs (but at about 3x the wavelength). Both are about 1000x less sharp than would be needed to image a single-pixel image of a Jupiter-sized planet at Proxima Centuri. We wonât get any exoplanet images unless we go there. (Spoiler: we absolutely never will.) Space is big.
Grunden
5448
You know what I find curious in the space thread?
Absolutely no talk about the Artemis I launch next week. I mean how is Boeing and company going to continue to grift the taxpayers if the first SLS launch is barely a news item?
Fair point. I think this article sums up my views on Artemis decently well at least in terms of how much of a waste of taxpayer funds itâs been.
Interestingly the author proposes the idea that NASA basically had to pay this corruption tax to escape the old model of rocketry and move to their newer model going forward where they can utilize commercial space launch services to get a hell of a lot more results for a hell of a lot less money. Iâm not sure I buy that, since itâs premised on the idea that institutional corruption is inevitable and unavoidable.
Grunden
5450
I live in Huntsville, AL, so you cannot throw a brick in this town without hitting someone involved with the SLS. Even here the mood is âmehâ amongst the engineering inclined. Basically the success of SpaceX in recent years, plus all the cost/schedule overruns has really dampened enthusiasm even amongst the hardcore NASA types.
It was palpably different during the shuttle years.
On the plus side, I game with the guy who designed the JWST sunshield. It also had serious cost and schedule problems, but success makes everyone forget about that.
Romalar
5451
I know for my part and in some circles Iâm familiar with the concerns with the schedule and cost were with regard to the growing complexity and risk, whether it would all work and would be worth it, and whether all of the delays would introduce new problems making it less likely to succeed. There were many worries about the opportunity cost vs. many years of eating up NASA budgets if it couldnât in the end deploy fully, things like that.
But basically success in doing things nobody else has ever done puts all of that to bed. It proves that when the teams claimed that much of the time and cost was due to taking great care to ensure success, they were right. Even if it hadnât quite worked essentially 100% like it has so far, it probably would have silenced those questioning it. I know Iâm impressed by their now-proven design and testing work, not just by the images.
I donât know about that, I think itâs more that JWST is the only thing that can do what it can do, and likely will be for decades, whereas Artemis is âjustâ a heavy lift rocket, basically the sort of thing we built in the 60s, and will likely be obsolete as soon as SpaceX manages to get Starship going.
This.
Dejin
5453
Iâm excited we might be going back to the moon soon. Iâm somewhat excited about the upcoming Artemis launch, but would be more excited if it were manned. This upcoming shot really seems like a very expensive technology demonstrator. If they think they need to run it in order to ensure safety on a future moon mission, so be it. But Iâll be much more excited for the next manned mission.
Grunden
5454
This is a fair point, especially when you consider cost versus payload weight. Iâve read many accounts of how the shuttle program essentially screwed NASAâs manned space flight program over by sucking all the oxygen (i.e. funding and r&d effort) away from rocketry.
Look at Russia: they made a half-hearted attempt with a space plane with the Buran, but spent most of their effort perfecting the Soyuz program.
Matt_W
5455
The STS was a rocket-based system. Weâve never launched anything to space without a rocket. The SLS that will launch next week is using refurbished engines from the STS program and is also using refurbished solid booster casings from the STS program. About 2/3 of all of the people who have ever gone to space rode on the Space Shuttle. The ISS could never have been built without the shuttle.
