Comments by "Lepi Doptera" (@lepidoptera9337) on "The Insane Engineering of James Webb Telescope" video.

  1. Because JWST development began in 1996 and Elon Musk didn't start SpaceX until 2002. If they wanted to achieve the same science goals today, they would plan for launch on a Starship and the design would be completely different, have a much lower complexity and a much lower risk and cost. It would probably look a lot more like a supersized Hubble.
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  2.  @polymathpark  “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future!”. Having said that, I would agree that the JWST is a typical product of the less healthy side of government/private industry relations. It is congress spending money for spending's sake rather than as a result of careful deliberations. It has taken a lot of money away from other science programs that would probably have been just as, if not more important. That's just my two cents.
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  3. Look, Ma! I found an armchair coach.
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  4. Can you list the patent numbers that you think are the most important? ;-)
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  5.  @polymathpark  One could argue that in an alternate history in which the Saturn V program had been continued, much cheaper, much larger instruments could have been launched decades earlier... Skylab, for instance, had over ten times the mass of the JWST... just imagine how much telescope we could have lifted into orbit on a Saturn V...
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  6.  @h.dejong2531  So that's what now? 2% of the total system cost? I would call that a great deal for ESA. :-)
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