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Comment by JesseObrien | Hacker News Reader

I'm unsure why this is being downvoted. I think it's a completely fair assessment given what happened with Hubble. At that time we had the Shuttle to head up and actually fix things that were broken. I have doubts that SLS is going to be as quick as they want it to be, and crewed Dragon isn't operational yet either. By the time this thing launches we might see trials of both, but certainly there won't be something readily available for service operations on the JWT at the time it launches.

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"What Would Elon Musk Do" is a tiresome theme. Mostly because the guy is a total anomaly.

He and his company have accomplished a lot but that does not mean NASA is wrong for running space programs the way they run them. This stuff is complicated, NASA doesn't always get it right but that doesn't mean they need to reinvent themselves in the image of a technocelebrity.

With regards to SLS, I do trust the NASA professionals; they originally argued against the system, and then were forced by direct Congressional mandate (pushed forward by representatives of places building the hardware) to develop the thing anyway.

Appeal to authority is a dumb argument, whether Musk or NASA fans are using it.

JWT is suppose to be at Earth-Solar L2 Lagrange point. Anything that's not a failure in the initial earth orbit would require a repair mission that involves sending astronauts further than we've ever sent them (Earth-Solar L2 is significantly beyond lunar orbit).

Indeed! At minimum we would need the Mars Dragon or Orion with a long range trunk attached to carry supplies and repair pieces. It would be really interesting to see an orbital pairing (a-la the Lunar Module/Command Module) for an L2 repair mission.

L2 is about 4 times further away than the Moon, to be precise.

Also, it's not being made to be serviceable.

That was a feature after HST.

>By the time this thing launches we might see trials of both, but certainly there won't be something readily available for service operations on the JWT at the time it launches.

Servicing the JWST with astronauts like we did with Hubble will be impossible, as it will be parked in one of earth's L2 points, not in LEO. Basically, everything has to work absolutely flawlessly on the first try, or that's it. Billions of dollars and decades of work gone.

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