James Webb Space Telescope launch [video] | Hacker News Reader

James Webb Space Telescope launch [video]

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Where is Webb? dashboard: https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/whereIsWebb.html

Cool link thanks

Also Japanese Hayabusa2 mission's dashboard. I so admire the elegant design. http://haya2now.jp/en.html

Elegant I agree, but a failure in readability.

- Nova+Mono is the wrong font for a display like this.

- Those characters in very light gray make incredibly difficult to read and contrast specially at the bottom part of the display were they just fade into the dark the blue background.

Notice the difference and much better result, with the color choice for characters in the James Webb pages posted above.

This is very obviously designed with some nostalgic/artistic intention. Spacecraft operations displays use fonts similar to those and they are perfectly readable (they do use different colors though).

It also seems to me that the faded out section at the bottom is like that because none of the stations are online with the spacecraft.

Yes, I agree that readability could have been better.

Thanks for the link. No temperature data, that's ominous?

> NOTE: temperature data will begin updating 1-2 days after launch. Displays will read "---" until that point.

Nope. It says it’ll start reporting temp data 1-2 days after launch.

My wife is an astrophysicist here in Australia and had been looking forward to this launch for over a decade. She plans on using James Webb and gravitational lensing to observe galaxies at extremely high redshifts. Basically one looks behind single or clusters of closer galaxies for very young galaxies in the early stages of forming, not long after the Big Bang. The gravity well of the closer cluster acts as a giant lense, acting as an additional optical element to the telescope propelling us even further into the distant past.

As we watched the launch I asked her what James Web means to astronomy. Her answer? "It will fundamentally change what we know about the universe".

This is amazingly exciting

Would she know about any list of projects that intend to use the new measurements?

I look forward to that link being posted on HN (if it exists)

Do you mean an observation schedule?

I mean projects that are going to use the data. An observation schedule would be cool too.

I was thinking something in the lines of:

"We'll test hypothesis y by observing x, that would help us understand whether theory A or B (or neither) is right"

It's always inspiring to see what can be accomplished by large groups of people working for years and years to create things that have never been made before. And then the elation of success, after years and years of work, delays, and more work.

Watching the launch made me feel the wonder of spaceflight I felt as a child- and the holiday timing felt even more perfect.

Yes, it has been in the works for a long time.

“Development began in 1996 for a launch that was initially planned for 2007”

“Construction was completed in late 2016, after which an extensive testing phase began”

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

While it’s great that it’s finally up, we should re-evaluate why it takes such a long time to develop these projects.

The pace of innovation appears to have slowed greatly in recent decades.

We are slow because we need to send stuff in orbit and so they need to survive launch and fit into the launcher. That adds 99% of the complexity.

If, instead, we would build stuff in orbit it would be much cheaper and faster as you don't need origami like folding, high Gs resistance, and a malfunctioning piece can be replaced easily.

There is building stuff in orbit and there is learning to build stuff in orbit. We’re still figuring out the later. Microgravity factories and construction have many benefits. We just haven’t figured out the how just yet.

The construction was finished in 2016.

It’s not just this project, NASA, for example, hasn’t had the capability to put humans in space since the Shuttle retired.

Anyway, we are all aware of the Manhattan Project, Space Race, SR71 development, …

Someone mentioned this book yesterday, maybe it has some of the answers

https://www.amazon.com/Where-Flying-Car-Storrs-Hall/dp/19539...

Well, the capability is back now with Crew Dragon and maybe even Starliner eventually.

> If, instead, we would build stuff in orbit it would be much cheaper and faster as you don't need origami like folding, high Gs resistance, and a malfunctioning piece can be replaced easily.

Are you sure it would be cheaper? Building orbital build facility would be so expensive. Housing staff to build in the orbit or investing in robotics isn't cheap (or possible) either. So it's cheaper to include hardening against high-G launches than build orbital facility for the amount of launches that need this kind of preparations.

>If, instead, we would build stuff in orbit it would be much cheaper and faster as you don't need origami like folding, high Gs resistance, and a malfunctioning piece can be replaced easily.

I am expecting still is much more cheaper to create bigger rockets then move the factories,the workers and everything they need in orbit.

Near term - yes, long term you want to use those rockets to put the people, factories and general infra in place to build the really massive telescopes, in the hundred meter to kilometer size categories.

Not to mention crazy long range VLBI radio setups or telescopes at the edge of the solar system using the gravity lensing of the Sun to observe things.

>long term you want to use those rockets to put the people,

Sure, maybe in very limited capacity, like why not build stuff in giant parts like giant lego blocks on the planet and have some robots and a few people assemble it in orbit.

Rather then have 10K people work extremely inefficient and dangerous in zero gravity(I am assuming you mean we capture asteroids and we build stuff from bare minerals up). Imagine what extremely expensive factories you need that work in zero gravity(things fly everywhere at a small bump) , so maybe first we build a giant rotating space station using parts made on Earth.

In the long term we should have better rockets , maygbe we pt a space station in the important points in our solar system and send them this big lego parts so they can just assemble them.

Personally I see no way humans can live and work more efficient in space compared to live and build stuff on Earth and pay some guys to build big rockets and move the stuff into space, even in long term. What we are missing today is the ability to have guys present when the telescope unfolds to help with problems and manually do fine calibrations, if we could have that we could build a giant mirror made from small parts and have people just help connect the parts

Targets get constantly closer to physical limits, that makes pace of innovation always decelerate. I can only see 2 situations where pace of innovation accelerates: a new discovery like was the transistor or a new area of research like was with the radio.

There are innovations which feed back on themselves, usually involving greater precision or density. Microprocessors are the cononical case, where reducing the size of transistors reduces distances, energy requirements, heat management, and increases (to the square) component density enabling more capacity in the same volume.

The picture becomes rapidly less impressive when we look at where that processing goes, in many cases much of it is consumed with processing that's not directly related to useful output, though one area that has benefitted greatly has been usability: a computer user used to be a very highly skilled and trained position, now infants and those with severe cognitive or other impairments can make productive use of computers --- a lot of processing power goes into simply expanding the potential user-base.

(This isn't a slight or dig at who computer users are at present, though I admit some frustrations with how this transforms mass-market platforms, devices, and software away from power-user capabilities and interests.)

Network-dynamics systems (which microprocessors arguably are) can also see similar types of dynamics, at least over a range of scale.

In many other domains though, the engineering possibility frontier is one of sharply diminishing returns, after even only a fairly trivially small amount of initial progress. Occasionally there are bursts of progress, often as two separte areas of technological develoopment are integrated together, but even that often provides only a brief period of high returns.

What I see lacking is even a rudimentary model of what domains within technology do and do not afford for accelerating returns to scale, or what the bounds and limits of the exceptions might be, or what the actual delivered net benefit of such accelerating returns might be.

Machining (specifically, lathing) is an even earlier example of improving precision feedback loops. See “Machine Thinking” on Youtube, very well produced and entertaining.

That's an excellent channel, I've watched a number of the videos and strongly second the recommendation.

Precision generally is an area of positive feedbacks just as you describe. I only know a small amount about the practices, but the ability to measure and control with high degrees of precision have brought forth a tremendous set of advances, microprocessors being amongst them, but hardly the only.

The pharmaceuticals industry relies on precise control over feedstocks, process, consistency, and logistics chain (especially where temperature-controlled distribution is required).

Metallurgy similary developed with control over the quality of feedstocks, temperatures, pressures, and overall processing, as well as the ability to directly assess outputs, crystal structures, and the like.

Microsurgery relies on tools, sensors, and measurement, as well as coordination amongst a surgical team.

Tunnelling and mining can now occur with phenomenal precision through solid rock.

That's just a handful of examples off the top of my head as someone outside the field. I'm missing numerous highly notable examples I'm sure.

The pace of innovation should slow, as innovations become increasingly more difficult. The low hanging fruit naturally is discovered/built first.

Fusion power harder than Fission, Webb harder than Hubble, bigger particle smashers harder than smaller. Sometimes earlier innovations allow you to accelerate the next innovation but eventually you get diminishing returns.

We older tech and science nerds need to be careful not to fall in the “kids these days” traps. The kids are allright, the innovations of the past were full of chaos irrationally and mistakes as well.

some things are worth taking their time.

Let's be honest the James Webb space telescope was not a priority like the Manhattan project or Apollo program was.

Innovation happens when there is a threat to civilization or national prestige.

The skillset required to do Difficult a Thing, Fast is independent to the skillset required for being a smart scientist.

Moving quickly requires very specific managerial skills & risk appetites.

Legacy scientific institutions (like NASA, or most universities) have basically succumbed to extreme Peter Principle: everyone has been promoted to their level of incompetence. Excellent thinkerw can make catastrophic managers.

This is a known issue in startup land, and mitigations have a been learned. Examples: independent, deep career paths for mangers and contributors. A funding model that is milestones based with minimal barriers to entry.

SpaceX of course being some sort of proof in this regard.

It's not just NASA of course. Look at ITER--a fusion project started in 2007 with an expected completion date of 2025. Or the Second Avenue Subway, or any number of infrastructure projects.

If you wrote a company manual designed to maximize the odds of failure, you'd end up with something pretty close to the way academic and govt projects are run.

The problem with this comparison is that most people don’t know enough to understand how much more difficult a project like ITER or the James Webb telescope is than what startups try to do.

It's quite amazing that a few hundred ksloc of Javascript gluing together a bunch of npm packages can be valued on the same order of magnitude (in the billions) as a multi-decade scientific/heavy engineering undertaking.

With an online business you're not placing the value on the software created, but on the potential to create lasting addiction.

The same way when you see news of large drug busts, the numbers floated around are based on how much the confiscated load could fetch on the street (iow. end of the chain, with addicts paying through the nose) - not on how much it cost to manufacture.

Doing things the first time is always more expensive then doing them the 10000th time even if the 10000th is slightly different than the 9999 before it.

Project like Webb and ITER are doing things that simply haven't been done before which makes it much more difficult. They are also beholden to politicians for funding.

It's a ridiculously complicated machine built to peer into the beginnings of the universe and sniff out indications of life across our galaxy. I think people could cut them a little slack. I'm sure they had amazingly complex issues and obstacles to overcome.

it took 3x+ longer than the apollo program took to put somebody on the moon

So what? Was the Apollo program more complicated than the instruments on JWST? They are two very, very different missions with different requirements. In many ways, each mission is unique in its own ways and I don’t see much value in comparing them on such basic metrics. Why is the time it takes important?

it supports the OP's statement that the rate of innovation is slowing down, it's not a moral claim

No, the rate of funding is slowing down, and unlike Apollo there's no political urgency to the JWST. With 5x the funding you could afford to have less stringent manufacturing and verification (resulting in less cost-per-telescope and build time) and just accept that even if one of the telescopes fails, you can just build and send up another (or another five).

these are not mutually exclusive claims

Absolutely yes. The apollo's feat, of landing a lander in a different body, with people in it, and making sure that lander lifted off the moon, and got back home safe was astonishing accomplishment.

Especially with the rudimentary computers and calculations of the time. The James Web Telescope, is a great feat, but not in the same league as the moon landings.

Apollo was amazing and the feat in guidance and navigation computers was astonishing. No one will dispute that. But let's not glorify it and discount all present missions.

Building an observatory is VERY difficult. Nevermind the "avionics" for an L2 mission, the manufacturing of the sensors, mirrors, and all the other mechanical parts are one-of-a-kind.

Webb is without a doubt an amazing feat of engineering and the engineering teams had to confront problems that were not even thought of for Apollo. Massive respect to them.

once again, not a moral claim or even disputing that apollo was exceptional — but that does not change the fact that this reflects a slower rate of innovation

Yep, I agree. I was replying to my parent comment that said Apollo was more complicated than Webb. I think they are very different amazing missions that you can't compare.

Given that Apollo landed on the Moon during the Cold War and the space race with Russia, it's incredible what injecting a percentage of the US defense budget into NASA can accomplish.

> not in the same league as the moon landings.

Why not? It seems an amazingly complex bit of engineering. The Apollo missions are impressive in their own right, but are they really that much more complex from an engineering perspective? The tolerances and precision required for JWST to be functional must be incredibly tight.

I suppose Apollo spent significantly more money, measured as a part of the US GDP. It was done in a lot of hurry.

> It was done in a lot of hurry.

Indeed, we must keep in mind that the tolerance for failure was higher even as the cost of failure was higher. Do not forget the astronauts taken by Soyuz and Apollo.

Apollo also cost $280B inflation adjusted, so like 25x. And Apollo was a mad dash, with many risks taken. JWST is slow and steady. Like I'm a space buff and even I was pretty surprised when I learned how cowboy the moon decent in particular was. They had one shot, and had to fly the lander by hand, without any actual experience (they had to rely on a super cool craft which offset the weight to act like 1/6g).

Like... Apollo was utterly bonkers, bordering on full-Kerbal, in so many ways. It cost lives (5 training flight accidents, 3 in Apollo 1 fire), almost lost another 3 in Apollo 13.

JWST is proving out tons of new science and technology, but at a much more pedestrian peace.

I am still surprised when people underestimate the absurd complexity of this project.

This is a novel masterpiece of science and engineering, not a jet fighter or rocket destined for mass production and deployment. There will only ever be one, so there's literally zero room for error. Better to measure twice and cut once, so to speak.

These projects are subject to incredibly rigorous post-mortem investigations, and each cost and time overrun is _already_ documented thoroughly and publicly. Congress doesn't give this money away lightly. We know exactly why, and when, things took longer than expected, and those lessons learned are already being applied to subsequent observatories like Roman.

> The pace of innovation appears to have slowed greatly in recent decades.

Nope. We as a society have just re-evaluated what is the innovation we want. In the old days it was moon programs and nuclear technology (for good and bad). Later we deemed circumventing financial regulation and getting people click ads more important.

Important goals can take long efforts to achieve. For something as novel and complex as JWST, I don't find its quarter-century development time surprising or odious.

Cathedral Notre Dame was begun in 1163, took 182 years to complete. We moderns recognize it as a thing of beauty (pre-blaze), but I'm sure it was a tour de force for technology of the times, with many unexpected problems that delayed the project.

I'm glad each project's sponsors saw them through to completion. I hope humanity continues to sign up for hard goals that take time to reach.

A better lesson to take here is second system syndrome [1].

JWST took so long because it was so ambitious. Hubble has a 2.4m mirror. JWST has a 6.5m mirror. No rocket can launch that fully assembled so you've automatically added a bunch of complexity to unfurl and assemble that in space.

There's a whole bunch of other new things that simply have never been done before. Any one of these is a challenge. Doing them all at once with almost no margin for error and no possibility of intervention and repair drastically increases the complexity and cost.

Another example: the instruments are so sensitive that after fairing release it has to be rotated to keep them away from direct sunlight. That'll continue on the journey to its final orbit.

Also the sunshields are tennis court sized.

It is mind-bogglingly complex.

Arguably what they should've done is launch something slightly less ambitious sooner.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect

Dude, we're talking building a space machine to observe objects light years away.

100 years ago, they would pick up trash on horse carriage.

500 years ago, they'd burn witches if the cows caught a virus in the village.

2000 years ago, Europe didn't write, in most countries...

It took 20 years to build this insane machine. Did we truly slow down :D Maybe americans have become biased, but as a French, just launching this thing in a machine that can launch 80 successive and productive payloads in space is a positive sign of progress compared to how far our country was 2000 years ago compared to its peers in Asia and Africa.

Congrats to launch team, Webb has just separated from Ariane 5. Perfect ride!

How many single points of failure left after getting Webb on its way to L2? :)

A lot less than there was 40 minutes ago ;)

Also a lot less explosive fuels, shaking and G stress as well :)

Several hundred (mostly related to unfolding stuff)

And cooling stuff.

Serious question, if the sun shield does fail for some reason, would the telescope still operate but just at reduced sensitivity? Asking to the infrared astronomers out there…

Not an IR astronomer, but this is a 'no'. The delta between the 'hot' and the 'cold' side of the telescope is very impressive if the sunshield is working, without that the mission would be a failure because the IR sensors need to be that cold to work. You might still get some visible light work done but the IR part of the mission would be over because the sensors would effectively be blind.

For reference:

https://www.inverse.com/article/42894-sunshield-rips-keep-ja...

Not an IR astronomer, but enthusiast astrophotographer. As I understand it there is a bit of leeway in the sunshield. They added strips of "duct tape" going across layers to prevent potential tears from spreading and telescope can still achieve full science power with few tears in the sunshield, depending on their location and sizes. With bigger tears it might be possible to still carry out observations in visible spectrum and near-IR but not in mid-IR as thermal radiation would crush the signal. Mission would still be considered failure in that case.

Think of it as the body of a camera cracking. Some amount of light will leak in and expose the film/sensors. Just depends on how much.

That analogy only works for a small part, the light would not do damage if it didn't fall on the film or sensors directly or through reflection, whereas with IR it doesn't really matter where it falls on the telescope it will cause the whole thing to warm up and the rejection mechanisms can only cope with so much of it.

I read some more about the effect of sunlight on the telescope structure and the optics. They would actually be damaged beyond use by direct sunlight, which is one of the factors that they had to take into account when launching the JWST:

"The James Webb Space Telescope is launched on a direct path to an orbit around the second Sun-Earth Lagrange Point (L2), but it needs to make its own mid-course thrust correction maneuvers to get there. This is by design, because if Webb gets too much thrust from the Ariane rocket, it can’t turn around to thrust back toward Earth because that would directly expose its telescope optics and structure to the Sun, overheating them and aborting the science mission before it can even begin. Therefore, Webb gets an intentional slight under-burn from the Ariane and uses its own small thrusters and on-board propellant to make up the difference."

This is a very delicate machine.

Here are most of the big ones, with timing: https://planet4589.org/space/misc/webb/time.html

This is very helpful. Looking at the table, my guess is that the scariest moments will be over by "launch +10 days". The sunshield is unfurled by "launch +8 days".

Hard part is done- now for the really scary part.

Hundreds of deployment steps will follow. Each one has to go perfectly. If it doesn't, the JWST fails and tens of billions of dollars and 30 years wasted (by some definition of 'waste').

But for every single one of those steps, an incredible amount of work has been done to ensure that it cannot fail.

But if any step fails, there's no repair mission possible for at least a decade or more.

>there's no repair mission possible for at least a decade or more.

There's no repair mission possible, period. It only has enough fuel to keep orbiting L2 for around 10 years.

You don't think SpaceX would formulate an attempt to fix it?

Why is there this obsession for a private company to be the champion of public science? Am I the only one that hasn't bought SpaceX shares?

AFAIK there is the goal for NASA to work on a robotic refueling system, I don't know how official is that, but they have 10 years to come up with something.

SpaceX is not a public company so almost nobody is able to buy shares

Ummm Maybe it’s because SpaceX is able to innovate faster than any government entity?

They can, but why does anyone think that they actually would, without an absolutely massive contract from NASA? It would be a total departure from what they are currently working on, and would basically be a one off mission. There is no reason to think they would want to do this.

Who do you think nasa would contract it out to if it wasn’t SpaceX?

Just watched "Don't Look Up" on Netflix last night. It's about a space mission designed to save the planet from a comet. It did a nice job of satirizing the misplaced faith so many Americans have in eccentric billionaires.

Yes, somewhat stressful: "JWST has 344 single-point failures, 80% of which are in deployment systems"

I said it on a different thread...why not build two (while they're at it)?

Either it works and that would be a waste of additional billions, or it doesn't and there would be no guarantee the second wouldn't have the same critical mistake. This is not about rolling the dice, it's about putting every bit of effort and attention you can muster into one attempt - splitting that, even a little, reduces the odds of the main attempt working.

If it does end up failing, and let's pray to Bill's god and others it doesn't, we're better off trying something else in a few decades, or something simpler and more focused sooner.

Main NASA stream is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nT7JGZMbtM

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29682051

Seems I cant get a stable stream in AU from this link. (youtube stream) Twitch works though https://www.twitch.tv/nasa

In our house it was like; they’re launching the Webb! Do you think they’re gutted about working Christmas? No, I think they’re enjoying the best Christmas present ever.

Congratulations to all involved.

Also on NASA TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21X5lGlDOfg

Which has a smaller delay than ESA's stream (~31 seconds).

There's also Arianespace's stream which is 6 seconds more current than Nasa's stream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J70xqApTUow

Watching the NASA stream I find it amazing that they as a science organisation are still using non scientific units. All this talk about miles, miles per hour etc.

They rely on funding from the US tax payer, they have to speak in US customary units otherwise they get complaints and then pressure in congress and reduced funding.

I’d imagine that’s for the benefit of the viewing audience more than anything.

The paying viewers, possibly. The vast majority of viewers are surely metric?

Yeah that was pretty surprising. Also at the end of the launch the head of NASA came on quoted the Christian bible and then talked about how the telescope is going to look back into (his) gods creation! I was really taken back by that and a little offended that his religion was brought into such an important scientific event.

This one snuck up on me. After being long aware of this project and how massively ambitious/difficult/cool it was and how much trouble it was having due to that ambition, subconsciously I must've parked it away as "not going to happen for a while".

Time has passed while not paying attention, and it has actually launched. Well done to everyone involved!

Tout est nominal ! See you at Lagrange point L2 !

Thanks to this I realized Youtube website is purposefully breaking the picture-in-picture playback on a phone.

Yeah, that's annoying. But there's another app, YouTube Vanced, that works.

29 days until it reaches L2.

180 days (6 months) until it starts working

I’m confused as to how they are still able to see back 13 billion years. I thought all the light from the original Big Bang has already passed us.

Space is expanding faster than the speed of light. This means we’ll be able to see the same time in the past, just from further and further away.

This is true regardless of expansion, the important thing is that the space be infinite.

If space is finite (i.e. is a four-dimensional sphere), the same light will continue passing us again and again (just fainter and fainter).

The big bang didn’t happen at any particular location. It happened everywhere all at once. Thus light from the big bang (or rather, what’s currently the cosmic microwave background) will continue passing us for all eternity. (That is, until the EM waves become stretched too long due to cosmological redshift.)

The launch is in half an hour, at 12:20 UTC.

There are some alternative links (YouTube, French, Spanish) on https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Webb/W...

Congratulations to STSI and all the dedicated men and women who've worked so hard and long to make this happen! Through all the setbacks and difficulties, they've overcome them all. Now, let's get some great science!

I have a question seeing how this project has been decades in the making. Wouldn't newer technologies have been discovered in the meantime? Do they still send whatever devices they built years ago? How exactly does it work?

20 year old technology has had 20 years of testing and improvements, something that a piece of tech invented today doesn't have.

The cost of failure is so high you want to succeed at all costs rather than have the most advanced tech money can buy.

The technology standard is something in between the absolute high tech of the development start which is way ahead of the general consumer parts.

3...2...1.. : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nT7JGZMbtM&t=1h22m08s

Looks like GDSCC will receive the all important imagery.

Already 140,000mi from Earth? Impressive!

décollage !

Anyone know why there seem to have been some sort of politician reading from seemingly the bible (or similar religious textbook) and how that's relevant to a space mission? Seems wildly out of place from the usually grounded NASA and ESA.

Edit: The person in question seems to have been Bill Nelson, former United States senator but now NASA administrator, the highest ranked official in NASA. Which makes this whole thing even more weird, should that person strictly be a person of science, not religion?

Edit2: Seems stream is over now, here is the exact timestamp for the speech/reading: https://youtu.be/7nT7JGZMbtM?t=7222

No idea. It did seem extremely out of place though.

Yeah, not sure how I'd feel if I worked on the project for years and then someone starts ranting about "the glory of god", "handiwork of god", "god bless planet Earth" and similar stuff.

Not only out of place but it even felt downright offensive for some of us European folks. No different than quoting the Quran and praising Allah for the JWST.

How about praising NASA, CSA, ESA and CNES for this brilliant endeavor?

It was Bill Nelson, head of NASA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nelson

I assumed it was intended for the American audience.

As an American I find any religious expression by government officials in the course of their duties to be offensive and harmful to our nation.

Understood, but it's still there, and is obvious to foreigners and visitors. We see "In God We Trust" printed prominently on the money, senior politicians emphasizing their religious credentials, and much more visible religion in daily life.

See, for example, the chart at [1], for the number of people who pray daily.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/07/31/americans-a...

Ok? So we agree? I have seen American money. I find it particularly distasteful that we also carved “In God we trust” into the halls of Congress. I’m missing your point though.

"In God We Trust" was added to currency in the mid 1950s as part of the "Red Scare" and anticommunist sentiment.

Before 1957 the national motto was E PLURIBUS UNUM - One From Many. Too commie!

This was the same time that "under god" was added to the pledge of allegiance, which before just read "... One nation, indivisible"

It turns out Barry Goldwater was right about the preachers.

I feel the same but it’s futile to be resentful.

Ironically, the 1st amendment of the US Constitution will protect his speech. As Americans we have the RIGHT to express religion free from government intrusion, that includes officials of the government contrary to what the Freedom from religion crowd believes.

I do wonder, do you feel the same about members of congress from the Islam religion wearing religious clothing, and symbols while conducting Official US Business? How about Jewish members?

Or do you reserve your offense only for Christians?

He can say what he wants on his own time. When he speaks in an official capacity he needs to leave religion out of it. Unless he wants to also thank Satan, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, and Sauron.

So why would those 3 fictional characters be ok, but the fictional character of God not be OK?

It is also telling you refusing the answer the question about other religion so I will go ahead and assume your like most and save your ire for only Christians making you a hypocrite in 2 ways.

So at the end of the day you are just bigoted against Christians, and are using secular desires as a cover for this bigotry, it is not religion that bothers you, but Christianity

I think mulmen is wisely ignoring your ridiculous and baseless claim. They wrote "any religious expression".

But they claim Satan would be OK, Satanism is recogized religion in the US, even has Tax Exempt status.

So if NASA was headed by a Satanist, and they proclaim "Thank Satan" then according to mulmen that would be OK.

Given this context I am not sure how my claim is either ridiculous nor basless

No, in effect they argued mention of God is no more okay than bringing up Satan, spaghetti monsters, etc, and that none of them are okay.

I believe that is Bill Nelson, the director of NASA. Definitely an embarrassing moment. I turned it off.

That was NASA administrator Bill Nelson trying to recreate the awe of the Apollo 8 Genesis reading. A bit out of touch...

Even Apollo 8 was inappropriate and NASA has very deliberately avoided those kinds of embarrassments since.

Agreed. It was pompously Abrahamic, evidently as much for political show as a heart-felt expression of wonder. We all do feel the wonder, but let’s avoid the Christmas kitsch and the tacit “God, the father” image he evoked.

Yeah, it was odd. Then again, people can believe what they want and make links that don't make sense to everyone. He seems like a fairly progressive guy and an actual astronaut - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nelson

Buzz Aldrin took communion on the Moon. Not everything is Either/Or

It’s referring to the Christmas Eve broadcast of Apollo 8, the first manned mission in orbit around the moon, another large milestone in spaceflight and for humanity overall [0]. The American space program likes to refer to its past accomplishments and this is the biggest and most complex space telescope ever launched. It’s also tradition to use “big” and inspiring language, so calling back to that era makes for a more compelling message.

0 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8

That broadcast seems to even have it's own Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8_Genesis_reading

> On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 read from the Book of Genesis as they orbited the Moon

Seems no one was happy with what they came up with, so they ended up going with Genesis part from the bible instead. Not everyone was happy with that though:

> Madalyn Murray O'Hair, founder of American Atheists, responded by suing the United States government, alleging violations of the First Amendment

Ended up being dismissed by all the courts though.

But still, I cannot believe that people who are supposedly scientists start quoting the bible when they are themselves involved in maybe one of the greatest scientific achievements of our time. How does that resolve?

I'm an Atheist. At some point you will have to realize that religious people exist, and many astronauts are devout Catholic.

> But still, I cannot believe that people who are supposedly scientists start quoting the bible when they are themselves involved in maybe one of the greatest scientific achievements of our time. How does that resolve?

As atheist: even if you don’t believe in christianity, the bible is still a book with some stories that have made a massive impact and which can evoke deep emotion in many readers/listeners. Especially in such an emotional context as venturing out into space.

The same would be true for the Torah, Quran or any other major religious text (including non-Abrahamitic ones) - would you have brought the same defense, if only one of those had been quoted, if you are perfectly honest?

I’m a pretty strong atheist. It’s odd to me too. However I’m answering why the Bible over other religious texts. That one at least feels obvious.

The people reading it were likely Christian. The majority of the people listening would’ve been Christian. The majority of the people that footed the bill would’ve been Christian.

Like others have said, you don’t have to believe in the existence of a diety to feel moved by words from some religious texts.

The Book of Genesis is from the Torah though, isn't it?

Genesis is common to all abrahamistic religions, so it has the widest appeal.

Personally I’d have appreciated a quote from any other text equally, but I’m going to assume that a US government official reading a non-christian text publicly might have effects on coming elections.

I don't believe in an Abrahamic creator-God but I think the reading of Genesis on Apollo 8 is extremely moving. I don't interpret it as being particularly religious or Abrahamic. "Let there be light" is, IMHO, a universal notion of our strange existence in the cosmos. Maybe it means creation to some, the big bang to others. It's 3-4000 year old poetry (likely long predating the old testament in oral tradition).

Oppenheimer quoted the Baghavad Ghita in his first statement after the Trinity test. Scientists are humans too.

Funnily, that is probably the only religious text that is not religious.

The local knee jerk reactionary downvoting is hilarious and expected given the faux intellectualism that is now rampant here. Since I can't edit my original comment, here you go.

There is a ton of wisdom in the Gita.

https://michaeldevfay.medium.com/the-bhagavad-gita-for-athei...

I've read the Bhagavad Gita and it spends a significant amount of time talking about karma and reincarnation. Not sure how you could see it as non-religious unless you did to it what Thomas Jefferson did to the Bible.

There is a lot of non religious content in there.

https://michaeldevfay.medium.com/the-bhagavad-gita-for-athei...

The point of Gita's message is to NOT worry about karma and reincarnation.

And there's plenty of non-religious content in the Bible, but no one in their right mind would call it a non-religious text.

That famous Oppenheimer quote is from 1965, not 1945.

After the Trinity test he went on to work for the US government for some years on nuclear weapons, which goes against the usual "what have we done?" sentiment that quote is meant to convey.

It would be hard to be a scientist without being human

It may be confusing because of the attitude toward empirical science of some prominent strains of American fundamentalism (and the way the media often reduces that to a narrative of a fundamental religion vs. science conflict), but having religious belief about the metaphysical nature of reality and pursuing scientific understanding of its physical nature have often been things that go together. I mean, consider Georges Lemaître.

>But still, I cannot believe that people who are supposedly scientists start quoting the bible when they are themselves involved in maybe one of the greatest scientific achievements of our time. How does that resolve?

"A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion." - Francis Bacon

And for a clearcut example of this, Isaac Newton figured out calculus and classical mechanics, but also spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find secret messages hidden in the Bible.

From my understanding, Newton eventually decided he'd figured out everything there was to figure out (which was kind of true), then he got bored, so he started to dabble in alchemy and bible things.

Being a scientist and being religious are not mutually exclusive.

True, but the intersection of the Venn diagram has only shrunk throughout history.

Has it? That would be an interesting diagram but I wouldn’t assume anything

You'd be surprised how many scientists throughout history were motivated by the notion of better knowing the nature of god.

Also seems quite nationalistic after what was broadcast before that. As a European quite unappealing.

If it’s worth anything I am American and also find it unappealing.

The reality is the Americans footed most of the bill. That gives them certain authority.

Even as a member of a highly involved country (Canada) I can acknowledge that on this road trip, they're the driver of the vehicle and they get to decide what's on the radio.

It would be nice if the Americans were more considerate, but that's a general problem and not specific to this. (I kid, I kid).

Because we have a representative government and most of our population still thinks this is a reasonable way to view the universe

He ended his speech with "God bless Planet Earth".

I view this as quite progressive for a bureaucratic representative of the fed and an encouraging sign of the times.

"God bless Amer...er, the Earth"

He's a 80 year old American politician. It's the demographic of people that see religion and God everywhere, even when talking about an international, deeply scientific endeavour. It's a cultural quirk I guess.

I don't agree with much Trump did as president but damn if I didn't respect Jim Bridenstine so much more than this guy.

I liked Bridenstine too but Bill Nelson has been an ardent space supporter longer than Bridenstine has been alive. And Nelson has actually flown in space.

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

Politician-turned-astronaut seems more like space tourism though.

I don't know if his stunt is something that should be applauded. The original payload specialist was an engineer who had worked on the actual payload at Hughes. After the second time being bumped from a mission to be replaced by a politician, he was reassigned to the Challenger where he died.

It's a giga-budget space telescope, mostly paid for by U.S. taxpayers. Most of whom are not nearly so interested in science geekery than the average HN'er. If it can be sold (as worth funding) to a bunch of the more-religious taxpayers as "a pilgrimage to discover and admire the handwork of God", or something similar, that's a plus in my book. The country is already suffering far too much "science vs. religion" divisiveness.

I don't think tricking people into funding things they don't want is a good social contract.

They've already been tricked, and they donate every Sunday. They may as well also donate to what's really going on in the sky.

It's not, especially when you're funding things that are fascinating, but are inherently not useful. I love astronomy and physics, but much of it is now being spent on pure knowledge. The discovery of the Higgs boson hasn't improved any lives or led to new technology, but it did eat untold amounts of money that could have been spent on other things in science.

I recommend this book https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/3319155237?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_... . It makes a clear case why trying to aim certain objective, when it comes to innovation, doesn't necessarily work and we still need "aimless wandering" and the pursuit of pure knowledge is a good guidance when it comes to that.

It is not a trick, just a matter of perspective. Finding an atheist universe beautiful is not in conflict with finding beauty in a universe which is created by a deity.

Until China starts launching large scale space telescopes perhaps such readings are required to keep the more conservative politicians voting for science funding.

> seemingly the bible (or similar religious textbook)

You seem to be going out of your way to demonstrate your atheistic bonafides by expressing an affected ignorance of some of the most important texts in human history. Understand that these can be read as metaphors and many people find pleasure in the words and sentiments even if they don’t accept their literal truth.

Important doesn't mean good.

Because the books within the ketuvim/Hagiographa are basically a mishmash of stuff that doesn't fit within the Torah or Prophets, I think a bit of confusion is understandable and not inherently dismissive. I've read a good chunk of the bible (as a kid my parents made me skip some parts that they felt espoused immoral sexual behaviors) and still needed to look up the taxonomy of the 5 books within the Book of Psalms

For further reference, here's the only part in the entire New Testament referencing the old testament's Psalms 19 (which NASA's Bill Nelson referenced here), more specifically Psalms 19:4. And that part is Roman's 10 (more specifically 10:16 to 10:21), given here in the Modern Literal Translation, which (mostly, not always) avoids fucking up the Ancient Greek:

http://www.modernliteralversion.org/bibles/MLV/Romans10.htm

The NASA administrator is a political appointee, so they will be as religious as the president wants (or allows) them to be. Positions like these are sometimes given as reward for loyal party members who supported the president’s election campaign rather than the most qualified candidate.

However, Bill Nelson is an astronaut so he probably is the most qualified (politician) for the job. I’m sure he works hard to get NASA the funding it needs regardless of his personal beliefs (and it would be illegal to make atheism a job requirement). Aside from awkward speech giving I think most people are optimistic about how he’ll do as administrator.

Calling Bill Nelson qualified since he is an astronaut is hilarious to read.

Consider that the other, legitimately qualified people on that mission gave him the nickname "ballast" and it is widely regarded that the only reason he went up is by strong arming his way in since he had a powerful congressional position.

He is not considered a great NASA admin and it was pretty disappointing when he was chosen.

I was weirded out by this as well.

Ask Isaac Newton whether a religious person can do science

Thanks. For the curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Isaac_Newto...

I wonder what he would say about the missing of any mention to Dinosaurs in the Bible...

Using Set terminology, religious knowledge and scientific knowledge are just intersecting sets. It's not necessary that one of them contains the other. As such, it's not surprising that there is no mention to Dinosauirs in religious textbooks.

Not really. If the Deity dictated a book, telling how the world come to be, and to guide all aspects of the life of their disciples...So much the participants of the religious group believe it comes directly from their creator...Would have been nice to mention this major change of mind, after letting these creatures roam free for 200 million years..And some mention of the real earth position and structure of the solar system would have been nice.

To my knowledge only the ten commandments are considered divinely dictated. The rest are written versions of oral histories, letters, and such by human authors.

> To my knowledge only the ten commandments are considered divinely dictated

Both the entire text and the composition into the canon are pretty universally (within Christianity) considered divinely inspired (even by groups that disagree on what the entire text of the canon is.) The exact meaning of that inspiration and the degree to which it admits human error is...variable across different interpretations of Christianity.

The text of the decalogue as recorded—in more than one place, and not identically—in the Bible generally isn't considered any differently than the rest of the text. The text as it was inscribed on the stone tablets may be, but it's pretty clear that the human authors of the relevant Scripture didn't all correct their text with the tablets.

Whether or not the text is "divinely inspired" is a different point than whether it is divinely dictated, which is what I was responding to. Of all the books of the Bible I can think of, none of them even claim to be divinely dictated - except for the ten commandments.

> Whether or not the text is "divinely inspired" is a different point than whether it is divinely dictated

Thar actually depends rather strongly on whose understanding of divine inspiration you accept. While the term used is consistent, the range of beliefs as to what that term means is broad and extends the whole way to divine dictation.

> Of all the books of the Bible I can think of, none of them even claim to be divinely dictated - except for the ten commandments.

The decalogue isn't the only piece that claims to be directly quoting material that came directly from one or another person of the Trinity. (There's bits of the Creation story, the burning bush, and some other things scattered in the OT directly quoting the Father beyond the decalogue, and a whole lot of the NT directly quotes the Son.)

The decalogue is the only reference to a separate external document which was not merely divinely dictated by but written by the Hand of God, but it doesn't have any special claim of divine authorship beyond that of any of the other places God’s words in any form are quoted.

Science doesn’t need to be scared to acknowledge religion. It’s a humble, enduring relic of our past, a part of our shared history, and it helps to punctuate the magnitude of our growth and accomplishments as a species.

> The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

This is what is confounding you, or is offensive to you as an atheist? This one line from Psalm 19, which is just a consideration or an awe of creation? I would expect any competent and honest scientist to admit that they just don't know. This is the fundamental problem and fatal flaw of atheism, claiming knowledge that is unknowable. Not very scientific, is it?

Why are Europeans controlling this?

It's their launch facility.

They needed something on the equator, right?

AS much as anyone, yes. Your total energy expenditure is reduced lose to the equator. And having un-inhabited/-developed area below the dangerous early stages of launch is a bonus.

Why not?

I thought it's a NASA project.

International

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/webb/about/index.html

One of the European contributions to the mission is the launch vehicle.

IIRC also at one point the project was in a big trouble due to cost overruns. Europe joining the effort by providing the launcher, one of the instruments and part of the project team saved the whole project from cancelation.

ESA have the best rocket that can fit it in

NASA, like most US companies, outsourced flying things to space to other entities, since flying things to space it's not it's core competency anymore.

Ariane 5 was the best rocket for the job

Naive Q: what makes Ariane 5 better than Falcon 9/Heavy here?

Its track record is almost perfect

It existed and was already a reliable launch vehicle when the project was being designed and constructed.

Falcon didn’t exist when the choice was made, which makes Ariane automatically better.

80 something flawless launches in a row

Falcon 9 does not have enough capacity; the JWST is too heavy for it to launch all the way to L2. So F9 is out.

Falcon Heavy does have enough capacity, but:

1. It was not really available for bookings when the JWST mission was planned and

2. even if NASA could choose again today, Ariane 5 has a track record of 106 successes out of 111 launches (107 out of 112 now I guess) and Falcon Heavy is still relatively untested with only 3 launches (all of which were successful, but still only 3). For something super critical you might want to go with old but dependable technology over the newest hotness.

When they made the choice of rocket, Ariane 5 was the most reliable rocket in the world that was capable of lifting it. Given the sticker price, they decided that cutting risk was more important than purchasing domestic.

"The [Ariane 5] launch vehicle had a streak of 82 consecutive successful launches between 9 April 2003 and 12 December 2017."

Then one partial failure on 25 January 2018, and another consecutive stretch of successful launches, including today.

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

It was far from the "most reliable" when this decision was made!

>"Faced with a grim record of 4 failures from just 14 Ariane 5 launches, some observers were starting to ask if Europe's 25-year-old rocket programme is more trouble than it's worth."

>"Although developed primarily for the commercial market, a new class of heavy-lifter rockets will also be used to launch the next generation of deep-space research probes, such as the planned James Webb space telescope, Southwood says."

https://www.nature.com/articles/420723a ("ESA weighs up future after Ariane explosion") [2002]

4 failures in the first 6 years of operation, and only 1 in the following 20 years is a good track record. How were the other launch vehicles faring in 2002?

You are being downvoted, possibly for sounding vaguely nationalistic, but this is actually a good opportunity to ponder the timescale of the entire program.

The idea of JWST was conceived around 1990, when Hubble was freshly flown into space and people started thinking about its successor. Development in earnest started in 1996 and JWST should have been ready to launch in 2007. This date was pushed back many, many times. (Much like with construction of nuclear power plants - megaengineering projects tend to suffer from this kind of slip-ups, cost overruns and delays.)

This means that the definite launch arrangements were done before SpaceX was the giant it is today. Space Shuttle was discontinued, so the most reliable rocket of that time simply won. This is no ordinary payload and you really do not want to lose it to launcher failure.

Even if they were going to pick a launcher today, the Ariane 5 would still probably be the choice. F9 cant get JWST to where it needs to go, and Falcon Heavy is still new and relatively unproven with only 3 launches. There really arent any other good choices for it

I got up this morning to watch the launch. I’m used to seeing the pageantry and showmanship of a SpaceX launch and I was left… underwhelmed.

Don’t get me wrong: this is a mold-boggling complex device and launch. It’s an amazing technical feat.

But YouTube had a 720p stream. There was pretty limited video. After a few seconds it was above the clouds and lost to view so we were just watching animations.

Compare this to the first Falcon Heavy Launch. Synchronized booster landings. video from the Launch vehicle and of course Starman in the Tesla.

Say what you will about Elon, he can put on a show.

Anyway, I really hope the JWST well. There is still a ton to do and a ton that can go wrong in the coming months. The Launch is a massive milestone. Fingers crossed.

> I was left… underwhelmed

What the hell are you talking about. I have seen the launch with my kids and it's been the most awesome thing of the last few years!

SpaceX launch broadcasts have much higher production quality and have video from on-board the rocket after ground tracking loses sight of it which is what the grandparent is referring to.

If people are awed, I doubt this is caused by the production value of the video stream though.

It is likely that "production value" is negatively correlated with actual value.

> Don’t get me wrong: this is a mold-boggling complex device and launch. It’s an amazing technical feat.

> But YouTube had a 720p stream ..

This is ridiculous. This telescope is not a show, it is made for science, and they have made the right priorities by not spending on entertainment value.

I appreciate the sentiment here. If I may offer a different perspective: the public has paid a _lot_ of money for this thing, and getting a good stream of the launch set up (seems like it should be) a drop in the bucket. I don't think it'd be a wasted effort -- getting and keeping people interested and engaged with space science is a worthy endeavor

They used taxpayers money to build the thing, which means they've left aside just enough for a barebones show, and hopefully every last dime has been invested in the project, and that is exactly how it should be.

If you spend more on marketing, you spend less on science. It's called a "budget".

By keeping taxpayers engaged, they'll hopefully be more willing to provide a bigger budget in the future.

>If you spend more on marketing, you spend less on science. It's called a "budget".

The snark isn't appreciated. Happy holidays!

>I’m used to seeing the pageantry and showmanship of a SpaceX launch and I was left… underwhelmed

The SpaceX launches broadcasts are made for largely uneducated lay people. No one should be entertained by that. They all feel like infomercials.

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