Hacker News Reader

Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

If you start planning your rocket launches around religious holidays then that is going to be a bit of a problem, there are just too many of them:

https://nationaltoday.com/religious-holidays/

View on HN

How about planning around the single most celebrated holiday in the US, religious or not: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_holidays_in_the_Unite...

Ariane 5 is a European effort, not a US effort, it will launch from French Guyana, not from the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5

Cool.

Webb will be monitored and operated by NASA in Maryland.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#T...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Telescope_Science_Inst...

I really don't get your fixation about this: the people involved are all most likely extremely happy to see their creation fly and to have Christmas take a backseat to that.

Let's just hope it all goes well, this is one of the most complex space endeavors we've ever tried, and if it fails it will have many negative long term implications.

I did not get your real or feigned ignorance that Christmas is a much more significant holiday to the vast majority of the people involved than the Feast of the Ass.

I also hope all goes well. Cheers.

I couldn't care less about Christmas, but I do care about the JWST, and I can't wait for first light.

If you worked on something since 1996, do you think you would give two flying figs what day it launches on?

my personal preference is irrelevant. my comment was regarding whether it is tractable to plan around Christmas, or unreasonable because there are too many holidays of comparable significance.

Too many holidays might be a factor but I really doubt it's a large one. The bigger reason is you just don't delay a 20 year $10billion project for any holiday.

Some of the grunts might be disappointed but having worked on way less important things that were launched on holidays, I can guarantee anyone significantly involved in the project is just happy to see it get off the ground no matter what day. You have a good window for launch, you take it

Reply on news.ycombinator.com