The science output of a given device usually shows heavily diminishing returns. I would say 12 Hubbles would have had at most twice the impact of 1 Hubble, probably less.
> “The telescope allocation committee would never have approved such a long, risky project,”
Other similar "high risk" experiments would be more likely to occur if time constraints were not such a concern.
[0]: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2015/04...
The bigger question is whether the requisite resources could have a larger combined impact elsewhere by delivering similar advances in astrophysical missions, for which I suspect the answer was correctly judged to be "yes".
We just need to figure out how to repair the Hubble.
Whenever it breaks it’s done.
Call the James’s Webb whatever you want. The point is that it would be useful to have both for decades
Most of the price of JW is research and development anyway. It will not be 2x the price, it will be much less, so even if we ignore the possible scientific output, from a purely financial perspective two would be a bargain.
I just don't understand why we build one JW, and one Hubble, but we can afford 12 KHs and god know how many other spy telescopes...
If only this was true.
nicely done.
They significantly impacted how I grew up seeing the universe though, and I’m sure I’m not alone on this.
That and the countless unexpected insights and connections between seemingly unrelated pieces of knowledge that can happen long after an initial discovery.