Launch in 20 minutes
Yeah all good so far. I'm always amazed at how precise they can calculate everything that will happen.
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just watched a vid on the engineering, holy shit.
First course correction burn was successfully completed about 12 hours ago. Next step is the main antenna being deployed some time today.
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Antenna succssfully deployed!
Next up is the second course correction burn, coming up some time tomorrow.
btw, that was the video i watched above
JWST is probably one of the most ambitious and exciting projects we will see in our lifetimes. I really hope it succeeds despite having ~350 single points of failure.
Hubble exceeded our expectations, which sets the bar pretty high for JWST.
Last edited by XDurionX; 2021-12-27 at 06:08 PM.
Second course correction burn was also a success. Next step is the process of opening up for the heat shield, which is the real nailbiter of this mission. That process will begin today and continue over several days.
Sunshield pallets have correctly opened up. Deployment itself will happen over the next few days.
In other good news, the Ariane 5 launch was so precise that the expected lifetime of the telescope is now "significantly longer" than the original estimated 10 years, due to fuel savings.
Interesting - but badly named.
It gives lots of information, but it's a progress tracker and doesn't say where it physically is, but more how far into the deployment it is; that's why it looks as if it is 16% from Earth compared to Earth-L2 (as it is on day 5 of 30) - when it has completed 42% of the distance, which should indicate that it will slow down from 829.4 m/s and while writing it just went down to 825.6 m/s.
That's... strange.
What could theologians possibly tell, that random people from the street, can't? And what does one even do with such information? Alien life exists, but not tell anyone, because people might freak out? Alien life exists, but tell it in some religious way? Or is this just some odd way or trying to secure more funds in the future?
I just don't understand...
If/when alien life is discovered it will shake the worldview of many people. Atheist, theist, doesn't matter. You will see positive and negative reactions from both. NASA is in the business of scientific communication so it doesn't hurt to study and plan for how to handle the press release of alien life. It is not about denial, approval, or censorship.
I think seeing 'theologian' makes people immediately think of a specific religion/denomination'. Probably a group or sect that rejects science. I think NASA is addressing theism. Part of science is exploring many 'what-if' scenarios.
Last edited by PACOX; 2021-12-30 at 11:42 AM.
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Given that most of the world believes in religion and therefore some kind of god/deity/whatever, tapping into those leaders to find out how to eventually reveal the existence of alien life is a good idea. Not really telling them aliens exist, but more of how to message the tell, if that makes sense.
You pretty much said why I think it doesn't make sense. "Some kind of god/deity/whatever". How can you possibly tailor a message around even half of all that, when the message is "aliens are real, here's what we know"? People are going to react how they are going to react.
Besides, whatever awesome message they are going to make, it's going to get twisted regardless, from whatever news (or "news") outlet they prefer watching. And the religious leaders are going to either call it fake news, or just accept it with a spoonful of "God moves in mysterious ways".
It's pointless.
There's some common misguided idea that religion offers a meaningful answer to big questions; like death, the universe and everything.
It might also be an attempt to not have religious people freak out about alien life, while ignoring how alien life will feel about religion - assuming they are sentient it's unlikely that they share religious beliefs with the earthly theologians.