OrbWeaver on 4/8/2006 at 12:33
Quote Posted by littlek
I think we need Mars to Attack to unit humanity.
I'd rather they just eliminated it.
Phydeaux on 4/8/2006 at 19:46
Quote Posted by littlek
I was at a star party recently and one of the astronomers said the funding to replace the Hubble with the
James Webb Space Telescope is no longer available. I made a half-hearted attempt to find written proof to support this statement and did not find it. Has anyone else heard of this?
I know that the firm that was awared the contract for the optics is already bungling things up. Typical government contracting -- award contract to the lowest bidder, which really can't even do the job properly, can't stay within the budget, and we end up with a shoddy result that cost more than another firm's bid that could have done it properly. I'm bitter because my dad's shop (the U of Arizona) didn't get the contract, despite having already done
prototype optics for the JWST (on time, within budget). Just as well for him I guess, since he's leaving the U of A to work for another shop, but bummer for everyone. The irony is that the firm with the JWST optics contract might have to sub-contract some of the work to other firms, including the shop at the U of A.
Bulgarian_Taffer on 4/8/2006 at 22:21
How do I cancel Bulgarian Taffer G|\ \| |\| 3 zz RSS feed?
littlek on 5/8/2006 at 12:02
Phydeaux I was in Tucson during June and visited U of A briefly. Nice place. The star party I talked about was at the Canyon. At dusk we watched the sunset and a slide show of Hale-Bopp pictures then all those stars made their appearance. I wanted to go to Kitts but never made it. I did go to Biosphere and was disappointed that it is on the brink of closing down with a luxury home community being planned for that area. I do hope the politics of getting the JWST up there works out.
Phydeaux on 6/8/2006 at 02:14
Ok, here's the deal.
Northrop Grumman is the big dog, running the project for NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canada)
Ball Aerospace is assembling everything.
ITT (not the vocational school) is doing the alignment of the mirror segments
**Tinsley is doing the finishing of the optics. Taking the rough milled curves and making mirrors out of them.
Axsys is doing the milling and rough shaping of the mirrors.
Brush-Wellman is providing the blanks (unshaped optics) for the JWST mirrors. The material is beryllium, and it's being honeycomed from the back to lighten it up.
**Tinsley will be doing the job my dad's shop would be doing if they'd gotten the contract. Tinsley basically only got the contract because Ball was chosen as the assembler (corperate backscratching). The stuff my dad did was three "demonstrators"; prototype optics to give different ideas and to see what's feasable. One was a beryllium mirror, basically the same as what's going to be used in the JWST except it wasn't honeycomed.
Here's the problems so far:
So far we're about 3 years behind where they originally hoped. Axsys is having problems milling the beryllium. Not sure if this is their fault, or there's problems with the beryllium itself. As of yet, Tinsley hasn't received anything from Axsys to finish. Which is probably just as well, because Tinsley doesn't have the manpower to do their part anyway. Ironically, a year or two ago, Tinsley flew my dad out to San Fransicso to try and hire him (but couldn't offer even remotely enough money), and if he took the job, he'd almost certainly be doing the JWST. My dad knows personally a few of the guys who Tinsley did hire, but there's still not nearly enough people. He's reasonably sure that Tinsley will do an acceptable job with their part of the JWST (but not as good as he could make it ;) ), but it's almost certain that it'll take too long and be over budget--if they even ever get the stuff from Axsys.
Right now the estimated completion/launch is 2013. My dad is far less optimistic, and it's his guess (perhaps jokingly, perhaps not) that it might never even launch.
So there you have it. Not quite from the horse's mouth, but from a horse in the same corral.
Fafhrd on 6/8/2006 at 09:59
In the interest of derailing this thread from it's current course of "OMG NASA SUX" and back to "Hey, pretty space pictures!" <a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f213/Fafhrd42/scorpius060406.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting"></a> Taken by me a block from my house. Two minute exposure with a Nikon D50, tweaked a bit in WinGIMP.
littlek on 6/8/2006 at 17:55
I certainly hope it gets launched Phydeaux and I thank you for the inside info. :D
That is a great picture Fafhrd...there is certainly a lot of light at night. ;)
metal dawn on 6/8/2006 at 23:47
<a href="http://imageshack.us"><img src="http://img481.imageshack.us/img481/8638/iculolroflck4.gif" border="0" alt="I C U" /></a>
Scots Taffer on 6/8/2006 at 23:54
I hate you.
