> But the JWST was not designed or tested in a vacuum
this is false. NASA has a house-size vacuum chamber that was used for testing. Also the author got the price tag wrong.
I wonder what else about the article is incorrect.
this is false. NASA has a house-size vacuum chamber that was used for testing. Also the author got the price tag wrong.
I wonder what else about the article is incorrect.
So far I think NASA has done a great job, trough blog posts, videos, websites explaining and visualizing different aspect of JWST in a way that is tangible for laypeople.
Just test it once right side up and once upside-down ;-)
"not designed in a vacuum" was a figure of speech, meaning that testing it was done in the context of previous missions.
> But the JWST was not designed or tested in a vacuum (pun only partially intended)
It's not the clearest writing, even though they are going for a joke.
JWST was not "designed or tested in a vacuum" [in isolation without knowledge of prior art]". But it was designed for vacuum and its parts were tested in a vacuum, including I believe bringing the whole assembly down to cold vacuum.
Designing in a literal vacuum sounds painful for the designers. :)