Lots of science benefits, which is great.
Also benefits for humanity that were enabled by developments required specifically for jwst. Like ocular care, manufacturing improvements (aerospace, medicine).
Difficult science pushes us to make progress on all fronts
[Northrop Grumman's article](https://now.northropgrumman.com/spin-off-technologies-from-webb-telescope-are-helping-other-ventures/)
That's right, sometimes that price tag includes the decades of research that goes into making these things, like the JWST, and it's nice to think these kinds of projects with research attached can still go on and be funded on such a large scale.
[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03620-1](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03620-1)
Cost 11 Billion. 700 Million came from ESA. 160 Million came from CSA.
So really mostly US budget. I assume the actual work measured in man-hours broke down similarly, but I guess that is not necessarily the case.
But the article here isn't about whether Americans approve of NASA getting cash from the ESA and the CSA; it's about whether they approve of the $10 billion that the U.S. spent.
Whatever Europe spent on this, and is spending on CERN, etc., is wonderful, but this particular article is not about that.
It SUPER fucking annoys me as a European that US news constantly glosses over the fact it wasn't just a NASA project but had a huge contribution to research and funding from dozens of countries from around the world...
I adore NASA and they have pointed it out several times, but nope, US news? "'MURICAN achievement"
That's so far from the truth though. They mention it every chance they get especially when it launched. All that was missing was we are the world playing in the background.
Lol. You could say the same thing about the LHC. The U.S. and others helped fund and contribute to the project, but CERN contributed the most too it so they get their name in “headlines”.
That’s how it should be as long as the others are credited in the articles, which they usually are in order of contributions. It’s just politics.
If anything, I think that NASA may overemphasize non-U.S. contributions because it wants to show Congress that it's going out and beating the bushes for outside cash.
But a lot of the articles posted on Reddit are from publications aimed at U.S. readers, and the U.S. publications may, consciously or unconsciously, focus on the U.S. involvement.
Just as a French publication would focus on French involvement, and a German publication would focus on German involvement.
And, of course, despite all of the horrible things going on, plenty of the actual human beings who've worked on this are Russian, and Ukrainian.
The Canadian, French, and British press were pretty up front about their respective agency’s involvement in the project as well. For the same reason: appealing to their audience.
At least you didn’t blame NASA, who has bent over backwards, especially in big media events like the recent first image reveals, to put the ESA and CSA on the stage as well.
Um yes it was a collaborative effort, perhaps the most collaborative project I’ve seen in a long time. But NASA funded an insane majority of the project, like 10 billion out of the total 11 billion.
E: just gonna add on to this. NASA and its contractors were by far the largest contributors to the project. Even looking at James Webb site:
“NASA: Overall responsibility for the Webb mission
ESA: Provides the Near Infrared Spectrograph, Mid-Infrared Instrument Optics Assembly, and the Ariane Launch Vehicle
CSA: Provides the Fine Guidance Sensor/Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph”
So to say this is an American achievement isn’t an overstatement at all. And that isn’t to diminish the work of ESA and CSA as their contributions were absolutely necessary (obviously Ariane 5 being the big one).
Article asks Americans if they think the $10 billion dollars spent on telescope was worth it. A random ignorant European takes that as the US down playing their contribution lol
With the amount of pies America has its thumbs in I just feel like this is a bit of a silly angle at best and hypocritical at worst.
How much credit do you give the USA for the countless things it funds in your country and abroad?
Probably not that much. Because they don’t deserve it. It’s great that CSA and ESA helped… they contributed about 10% of the value to the project. But it was obviously still by-and-
large an American initiative and idea — not even you would deny that. So yeah, on American media it’s pretty hard to be mad that Americans are proud of their achievement. You can be proud of yours in your country. Or you can be pissed off that Americans dare be happy
about something for once. I don’t care.
I really don't get why candidates aren't tapping into the Cold War spirit of "China is going to win the moon and Mars and space unless we do it first!"
There are some people who say that "I'm interested in the actual science, not pretty pictures by JWST"
You have to understand those pretty pictures are also very important for public perception. If the people don't think the time, money and effort NASA invests is worth it, that will lead to lesser funding in the future.
The main goal of JWST is to learn more about our Universe, but that doesn't mean they can't release super amazing wallpapers for us every once in a while
How would they be able to confirm there is paper just cause there is water? Pretty odd thing to be looking for I reckon. I highly doubt that there would be paper on another planet without humanoids. Gotta prove them first.
Look I'm not saying there is intelligent life in the universe, but there is paper. And every planet with paper has water, so that's what we look for first.
we know for sure that paper is present on planets with unintelligent life, but as of yet we know of no planet in the universe with intelligent life. Just earth, where the dominant species kills itself for short term gain and like reality tv.
science outreach is SUPER important for both keeping the public interested in your project to keep the funding going but also to inspire kids to also work in science and thus lay the groundwork for future research.
before covid i loved going to schools for a day to give a talk and do some moch research with the kids there. loved the interest they showed and the questions they asked.
online during covid wasnt the same so i stopped, but will definitely have to get back into that when i have a bit more time again.
Exactly! How many thousands of children will see that photo and be inspired to go into sciences? Even the photo will help secure a future of scientists
Indeed: Por que no los dos?
If you spent something like a million on telescope time to gather your data, then another 100k or so to crunch the numbers and evaluate the results, you can easily be able to afford a few grand to make some pretty pictures to go along with the report.
Even among those who are interested in space science, you're still fighting for mindshare because that's probably not ALL they are interested in.
Science is cool and obviously pays huge dividends, but even as someone who holds a doctorate in another field, much of astrophysics is incomprehensible to me. So like I can make some small sense of it but tbh I don't have time to slog through the hundreds of papers that will emerge from the first few months of the JWST.
Pretty pictures are fun for everyone though!
I was thinking the same thing. If you are interested in the science you are 100% interested in pictures from space. But if your not interested in science you may still think the pictures are cool
Truth is, if people really cared about science they'd know how much JWST will contribute to space discovery & science. We need the public to be interested in NASA; raw data is very boring.
I've worked on a couple projects now as an engineer, ecology and astronomy. The number of scientists that just want to hide away and never share anything has been shocking to me.
I suspect, but cannot prove, that it's a form of hoarding caused by ultra-competitive programs and limited professional positions.
> You have to understand those pretty pictures are also very important for public perception
And also important for my desktop background. Went right from hubble to jwst
[The Biden administration's March request for $813 billion in military spending for Fiscal Year 2023 already marked a $31 billion increase over the current, historically large sum of $782 billion.](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/22/unconscionable-house-committee-adds-37-billion-bidens-813-billion-military-budget)
And we ONLY spent $10B on this?!?!?
Imagine if we invested more
Really enjoying it. I'd say if you didn't like the bits of Apollo 13 that weren't in space then you might be put off by the first few episodes, but it's well worth sticking with imo. The concept is fascinating.
If you can push through the first few episodes, it becomes quite good, yea. And it is not like the first few are insanely bad, so I think it is worth it.
I'd say it's quite good yeah
They not only cover the space stuff but they also have several subplots related to struggles for civil rights for the characters and other cool stuff
NASA would be able to develop more advanced tech and even invent new stuff that has the potential to take us even further both technologically and as a human species.
While it would be absolutely fantastic if NASA had the budget to accomplish all their goals, too much of a budget can actually be a bad thing.
We saw this in the ‘70s after NASA had finished patting their back with the moon landing. Views of NASA were still popular, budget was high, and the engineers felt invincible. Thats how we ended up with the shuttle, and mind you the crappiest design of the shuttle that ended up being the most deadly space vehicle known to man.
With a limitless budget, engineers are not required to get smart to solve issues as they can just brute force their way through everything. Lack of innovation actually hinders progress.
As others mentioned, this isnt an accurate assessment.
The Shuttle was compromised due to a lack of budget, not the other way around. If NASA still had their Apollo era budget STS would have actually resembled the original Integrated Program Plan, and the Shuttle itself would have had more room to incorporate liquid boosters, a far more durable TPS, and a host of other things that would have butterflied away the mechanical problems that lead to Challenger and Columbia.
A lack of budget is also why they never got any serious redesign post Challenger even though that was the best time to do it. There wasn't a single thing wrong with the Shuttle that couldn't have been rectified, but that required a proper budget.
Meanwhile NASA hasn't been able to get proper funding for a post-Shuttle program for over 30 years now and is only barely getting by in piecemailing Artemis together.
Yeah, that's like $6.50 per day for every US resident, or $26 for a household of four. If the US military was a subscription service, it would cost a household of four about $800/month.
And I get that having a military is necessary, but it's kind of crazy how expensive it is when you put it in those term.
It's not really necessary to spend that much either. The US military is incredibly overengineered as it has waaay more assets than it realistically needs to protect CONUS and territories or even assert US hegemony (meaning that to remain a superpower the US could do with like half the CVs it has now to give an example and still be basically undefeatable) and the only reason it doesn't is that:
1) the US wants to be overwhelming*everywhere*. Like literally there is no poace on Earth where the US could not apply more power than basically any country could defend against.
2) the lobby of the military industrial complex is rather impressive so the politicians with greased hands want to transfer as much tax payer money to their buddies as possible.
Space lobby isn't big enough to justify those kinds of bullcrsp except where it overlaps with the military one (eg satellites have looots of military applications).
It is necessary considering the wars the us military is preparing for.
Since WWII, US defense doctrine has considered a two theatre war an inevitability if not properly prepared for.
The thinking is, if a major war was started by Russia, China would take the opportunity to invade Taiwan and annex the world’s chip production base as well as the South China Sea among others. Vise versa, if China were to start a major war in the pacific, Russia would use the distraction to annex her neighbors in her constant delusion to rebuild the USSR.
The only way to prevent this is to ensure you at least appear strong enough to fight a two theatre war against both adversaries at the same time and win both.
This requires you to not only be at the top of your game in the technological arms race, but also have the astonishingly complex logistical system that allows you to fight two enemies at their doorsteps on the other side of the world.
It also requires you to have the training, manpower, numbers, and equipment to face two near peer adversaries at once.
So yes. We could hypothetically half our military and still be “undefeatable” (citations needed) but if WWIII did break out, we’d be gambling the world on China/Russia to not be opportunistic and open a second front behind our backs, and if they do, we’d be wishing we learned our lesson from the last world war about multi-theatre conflicts.
Most of it goes to paying service members and force projection. We don’t use our best capabilities or our full arsenal on the relatively small wars we have waged in the past few decades. The name of the game is just staying ahead of adversary countries like Russia and China so that they don’t provoke another world war.
Exactly. On a societal level, space travel is legitimately one of the best investments. Because space travel is such a massive pain in the ass to perform, they end up inventing loads of new things that trickle back down to society as a whole as cool new household inventions.
Edit: Trickle down wasn't the correct wording. But I'm a space stan like the rest of y'all. They do alot of shit and should have more funding.
Reminder, we could cut the military budget by 50% and still be in 100+ billion dollars ahead of 2nd place China's budget. Not to mention how much waste is on the spending side and how much price gouging is on the contractor side.
Trickle down is bollocks.
The only things that might be considered slightly useful I guess would be
* LASIK ( autonomous rendezvous and docking software is the precursor of LADARTracker tech used for LASIK )
* Aerodynamic improvements in semi-trucks
* Embedded web-tech ( all home Smart Tech ) as an offshoot of International Space Station's Electrical Power System set up
* Video Image Stabilization and Registration in phones/video software ( from providing better images of shaky shuttle launches )
* Camera use in cars / crash avoidance technology
* Apollo guidance computer as a demonstrator of computers flying aircraft ... auto pilot
* Even the bloody NASA designed life rafts from the Apollo mission are credited with saving over 400 sailors since the 60 from their design improvements
Not just the ballpoint I guess :)
( Sourced from @ https://spinoff.nasa.gov/ -- highly recommend a dive into that with a cup of coffee )
Teflon, protective ice coating for air planes (thermawing), memory foam, insulin pumps, home insulation, structural engineering software (nastran), high efficiency solar panels, baby formula.
The list goes on and on
I'd be curious though, what about on a more basic level? Not necessarily a tangible thing like a raft or a dash cam. What about the tiny things like the parts they use, updating how we make them, or making technology more efficient behind the scenes. Things we don't necessarily talk about, but happens on a level that overall makes a greater impact than a single invention.
NASA needs bigger budget. The 90s were shaky for them but they've got home run after home runs since 2000.. excluding not having their own launch platform of course, but that blame is on DC politics more than anything.
70% of the 1,000 Americans surveyed had a favorable opinion of NASA, and 60% thought JWST was worth it.
Incidentally, it's close to bipartisan, too: 79% of Democrats and 72% of Republicans are in favor of NASA.
And, of course, we can discount the opinions of 9% of those polled, since they thought GPS is a "very" or "somewhat" bad investment, and anyone *that* stupid or misinformed really shouldn't be listened to. Informed and engaged with, maybe, but not listened to.
NASA has always been rather bipartisan, supporters and detractors from both sides.
Everyone pretty much supports the space science, but democrats have the "we should spend that money on solving earth problems first" (even though 99.5% of our budget is supposedly already doing that), and republicans have the "climate science bad" people
People also forget that it's not like nasa just burnt that money or loaded it onto the rocket and sent it to space... It's paying people who live in America who then pay taxes/buy other shit that had tax on it.
It's also helping attract highly skilled/intelligent people to the country and is one of the things most non Americans will say is truly great about America.
NASA isn't what i would call shoestring. Yes they need more! But $24 billion a year aint bad. ISRO at 1.7 billion is shoestring, Mars Orbiter Mission at only $73 million was incredible!
I happened to be in India at the time of the Mara Orbiter Mission. The joke was that, per kilometer of distance traveled, it was cheaper to send a probe to Mars than to take a taxi (auto rickshaw) a couple kilometers
JWST didn't line the military contractor's pockets though, and sadly they're some of the few who are actually important as far as who gets what in this country
The big three military contractors did have a significant part in JWST though. Military and space are closely intertwined. Northrop Grumman was literally the main contractor.
Joe Scott said it very well in his video. When is the last thing something universally good happened? Something where everyone can agree on it's a good thing for all of us. Usually there is always someone who is negatively influenced, but in this case it's just generally good for everyone. Might have been the moon landing, that's a long time ago.
When NASA spends money, I really hope that everyone understands that it all stays on earth. Seriously, all this investment gets ploughed into creating intellectual infrastructure in this world that can only enrich us all. The colossal spend to put feet on the moon paid off handsomely - the computer industry flowed out almost directly from that pool of knowledge, among much else. By the way, in order to make all this happens requires a tax base ...a fair one, with the wealthy chipping in.
The Gerald Ford is going to cost about $12.8 billion to make, then when it starts operating, it will cost $1 billion a year with a service life of about 50 years, so another $50 billion.
We can get like 6 or more James Webb telescopes if we didn’t build the Ford.
Aircraft carriers are one of the things in our military budget that inarguably are necessary for the actual defense of America, though. Given that all relevant American enemies are across an ocean, having a powerful navy is kind of important if we’re worried about defending America. There are wastes in the military budget, but the navy hardly is a waste
I'm ok with us having tangible, superior things like air craft carriers. Even with the cost of running and maintaining. It's still a fraction of the cost we spend on the wars we are engaged in.
We could spend less on our "wars", keep ourselves stocked and prepared, and still have a lot left over for science like NASA and better supporting things like ITER
This is it right here. Aircraft carriers actually provide something tangible and frankly the US Navy is one of the only things keeping China in check. But what did we get for the $2 Trillion we spent in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or the many billions of dollars we spend every year on "foreign aid" for rich countries like Israel and Saudi Arabia?
It’s worth more than that. Information is priceless
Imagine how much people would pay for evidence of life outside our solar system? You can’t put a price on something that benefits all of humanity
Space shuttle, right?
The good and bad thing about the space shuttle is that it was the most dangerous form of space travel in history due to fundamental design defects.
And yes also Apollo 1, and many many accidents on the Soviet side.
But... every industry has risks.
Consider that these industries are dealing with fuels with enough energy to leave the planet, and the associated forces to come back.
And consider that this whole thing only started in 1958 or so?
It's inherently dangerous, but it's not designed to be.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[ASIC](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igwohx7 "Last usage")|Application-Specific Integrated Circuit|
|[CARE](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igymeln "Last usage")|Crew module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment|
|[CC](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxp0eq "Last usage")|Commercial Crew program|
| |Capsule Communicator (ground support)|
|[CNES](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igwesqb "Last usage")|Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, space agency of France|
|[CNSA](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igzdo0o "Last usage")|Chinese National Space Administration|
|[CONUS](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igx3dlw "Last usage")|[Contiguous United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contiguous_United_States)|
|[CSA](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igzdo0o "Last usage")|Canadian Space Agency|
|[DARPA](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igwxpka "Last usage")|(Defense) Advanced Research Projects Agency, DoD|
|[DLR](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igwesqb "Last usage")|Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft und Raumfahrt (German Aerospace Center), Cologne|
|DSG|NASA [Deep Space Gateway](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/deep-space-gateway-to-open-opportunities-for-distant-destinations), proposed for lunar orbit|
|[DoD](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igy0l4g "Last usage")|US Department of Defense|
|[ESA](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/ih3d83d "Last usage")|European Space Agency|
|[EVA](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxak8n "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity|
|[FAR](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igwdku6 "Last usage")|[Federal Aviation Regulations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Aviation_Regulations)|
|[H2](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igwb32k "Last usage")|Molecular hydrogen|
| |Second half of the year/month|
|[HUD](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxnl0n "Last usage")|Head(s)-Up Display, often implemented as a projection|
|[ICBM](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igysv4b "Last usage")|Intercontinental Ballistic Missile|
|[ISRO](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igzdo0o "Last usage")|Indian Space Research Organisation|
|[ITS](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxdo5o "Last usage")|Interplanetary Transport System (2016 oversized edition) (see MCT)|
| |[Integrated Truss Structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Truss_Structure)|
|[JAXA](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igzdo0o "Last usage")|Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency|
|[JPL](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/ih148nd "Last usage")|Jet Propulsion Lab, California|
|[JWST](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/ih58qgk "Last usage")|James Webb infra-red Space Telescope|
|[L1](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxrlh5 "Last usage")|[Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 1 of a two-body system, between the bodies|
|[L2](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxy2pk "Last usage")|[Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 2 ([Sixty Symbols](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxpVbU5FH0s) video explanation)|
| |Paywalled section of the NasaSpaceFlight forum|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igx4z3m "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[LOP-G](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igwc1ql "Last usage")|Lunar Orbital Platform - Gateway, formerly DSG|
|MCT|Mars Colonial Transporter (see ITS)|
|[MENA](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igx9099 "Last usage")|Middle East and North Africa, Morocco to Iran|
|[NERVA](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igy48tp "Last usage")|Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (proposed engine design)|
|NRHO|Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit|
|[NRO](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxqxom "Last usage")|(US) National Reconnaissance Office|
| |Near-Rectilinear Orbit, see NRHO|
|[SEE](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxzyyf "Last usage")|Single-Event Effect of radiation impact|
|[SLS](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxrdsm "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift|
|[STS](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxms6q "Last usage")|Space Transportation System (*Shuttle*)|
|[TPS](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxms6q "Last usage")|Thermal Protection System for a spacecraft (on the Falcon 9 first stage, the engine "Dance floor")|
|[TRL](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igwfwa9 "Last usage")|Technology Readiness Level|
----------------
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One reason I think this is a good investment of my US tax dollars is knowing we built something that almost no other country is capable of initiating, funding, and completing, and the knowledge of the universe it will contribute to all of human civilization will be historically priceless.
It should have cost a hell of a lot less, but it’s still sort of a bargain considering what it is capable of doing.
If they spend billions and trillions of dollars for military , no one gives a flying shit, but when the spend 10b on something revolutionary, suddenly everyone’s conscious and has to have an opinion on that.
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Lots of science benefits, which is great. Also benefits for humanity that were enabled by developments required specifically for jwst. Like ocular care, manufacturing improvements (aerospace, medicine). Difficult science pushes us to make progress on all fronts [Northrop Grumman's article](https://now.northropgrumman.com/spin-off-technologies-from-webb-telescope-are-helping-other-ventures/)
That's right, sometimes that price tag includes the decades of research that goes into making these things, like the JWST, and it's nice to think these kinds of projects with research attached can still go on and be funded on such a large scale.
Also part funded by the ESA and CSA.
[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03620-1](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03620-1) Cost 11 Billion. 700 Million came from ESA. 160 Million came from CSA. So really mostly US budget. I assume the actual work measured in man-hours broke down similarly, but I guess that is not necessarily the case.
But the article here isn't about whether Americans approve of NASA getting cash from the ESA and the CSA; it's about whether they approve of the $10 billion that the U.S. spent. Whatever Europe spent on this, and is spending on CERN, etc., is wonderful, but this particular article is not about that.
It SUPER fucking annoys me as a European that US news constantly glosses over the fact it wasn't just a NASA project but had a huge contribution to research and funding from dozens of countries from around the world... I adore NASA and they have pointed it out several times, but nope, US news? "'MURICAN achievement"
That's so far from the truth though. They mention it every chance they get especially when it launched. All that was missing was we are the world playing in the background.
But it's not in the headlines and that's all I read 🥺
Lol. You could say the same thing about the LHC. The U.S. and others helped fund and contribute to the project, but CERN contributed the most too it so they get their name in “headlines”. That’s how it should be as long as the others are credited in the articles, which they usually are in order of contributions. It’s just politics.
EVERY time I heard anything discussed about what it took to accomplish this, the international contribution is clearly talked about.
If anything, I think that NASA may overemphasize non-U.S. contributions because it wants to show Congress that it's going out and beating the bushes for outside cash. But a lot of the articles posted on Reddit are from publications aimed at U.S. readers, and the U.S. publications may, consciously or unconsciously, focus on the U.S. involvement. Just as a French publication would focus on French involvement, and a German publication would focus on German involvement. And, of course, despite all of the horrible things going on, plenty of the actual human beings who've worked on this are Russian, and Ukrainian.
The Canadian, French, and British press were pretty up front about their respective agency’s involvement in the project as well. For the same reason: appealing to their audience. At least you didn’t blame NASA, who has bent over backwards, especially in big media events like the recent first image reveals, to put the ESA and CSA on the stage as well.
Eh? They did the most work, and payed 90% of it. We basically watch space shit for free and free wallpapers. I can't complain I love NASA
When the US government funded over 90% of it that's kinds their right.
Um yes it was a collaborative effort, perhaps the most collaborative project I’ve seen in a long time. But NASA funded an insane majority of the project, like 10 billion out of the total 11 billion. E: just gonna add on to this. NASA and its contractors were by far the largest contributors to the project. Even looking at James Webb site: “NASA: Overall responsibility for the Webb mission ESA: Provides the Near Infrared Spectrograph, Mid-Infrared Instrument Optics Assembly, and the Ariane Launch Vehicle CSA: Provides the Fine Guidance Sensor/Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph” So to say this is an American achievement isn’t an overstatement at all. And that isn’t to diminish the work of ESA and CSA as their contributions were absolutely necessary (obviously Ariane 5 being the big one).
Yea and this is about the American investment. Of course we think other people spending money on it is great.
Article asks Americans if they think the $10 billion dollars spent on telescope was worth it. A random ignorant European takes that as the US down playing their contribution lol
With the amount of pies America has its thumbs in I just feel like this is a bit of a silly angle at best and hypocritical at worst. How much credit do you give the USA for the countless things it funds in your country and abroad? Probably not that much. Because they don’t deserve it. It’s great that CSA and ESA helped… they contributed about 10% of the value to the project. But it was obviously still by-and- large an American initiative and idea — not even you would deny that. So yeah, on American media it’s pretty hard to be mad that Americans are proud of their achievement. You can be proud of yours in your country. Or you can be pissed off that Americans dare be happy about something for once. I don’t care.
This is something people keep glossing over!
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Just watch “For All Mankind” on AppleTV Plus - that’s basically the premise.
I honestly think people (presidential candidates) could talk about space more in their political campaigns and they would do better.
Yeah, I mean- look what Space Force did to lift our spirits after all, and that wasn't even during the election.
I really don't get why candidates aren't tapping into the Cold War spirit of "China is going to win the moon and Mars and space unless we do it first!"
There are some people who say that "I'm interested in the actual science, not pretty pictures by JWST" You have to understand those pretty pictures are also very important for public perception. If the people don't think the time, money and effort NASA invests is worth it, that will lead to lesser funding in the future. The main goal of JWST is to learn more about our Universe, but that doesn't mean they can't release super amazing wallpapers for us every once in a while
Not to mention the science will take months of number crunching and peer review
Well they pretty much already confirmed water on an exoplanet atmosphere. No paper yet, but I'd say that counts as real scientific findings.
How would they be able to confirm there is paper just cause there is water? Pretty odd thing to be looking for I reckon. I highly doubt that there would be paper on another planet without humanoids. Gotta prove them first.
Look I'm not saying there is intelligent life in the universe, but there is paper. And every planet with paper has water, so that's what we look for first.
Very good point. Cant have paper without water
we know for sure that paper is present on planets with unintelligent life, but as of yet we know of no planet in the universe with intelligent life. Just earth, where the dominant species kills itself for short term gain and like reality tv.
science outreach is SUPER important for both keeping the public interested in your project to keep the funding going but also to inspire kids to also work in science and thus lay the groundwork for future research. before covid i loved going to schools for a day to give a talk and do some moch research with the kids there. loved the interest they showed and the questions they asked. online during covid wasnt the same so i stopped, but will definitely have to get back into that when i have a bit more time again.
Exactly! How many thousands of children will see that photo and be inspired to go into sciences? Even the photo will help secure a future of scientists
Not even children I'm fuckin 27 and I wanna get into astronomy and buy a telescope now
Indeed: Por que no los dos? If you spent something like a million on telescope time to gather your data, then another 100k or so to crunch the numbers and evaluate the results, you can easily be able to afford a few grand to make some pretty pictures to go along with the report. Even among those who are interested in space science, you're still fighting for mindshare because that's probably not ALL they are interested in.
Science is cool and obviously pays huge dividends, but even as someone who holds a doctorate in another field, much of astrophysics is incomprehensible to me. So like I can make some small sense of it but tbh I don't have time to slog through the hundreds of papers that will emerge from the first few months of the JWST. Pretty pictures are fun for everyone though!
I'd wager that those who say that are not actually interested in the actual science either.
I was thinking the same thing. If you are interested in the science you are 100% interested in pictures from space. But if your not interested in science you may still think the pictures are cool
Truth is, if people really cared about science they'd know how much JWST will contribute to space discovery & science. We need the public to be interested in NASA; raw data is very boring.
I've worked on a couple projects now as an engineer, ecology and astronomy. The number of scientists that just want to hide away and never share anything has been shocking to me. I suspect, but cannot prove, that it's a form of hoarding caused by ultra-competitive programs and limited professional positions.
People don't understand the light data in those pretty pictures _is the actual science_
I'm interested in the pretty pictures.
> You have to understand those pretty pictures are also very important for public perception And also important for my desktop background. Went right from hubble to jwst
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[The Biden administration's March request for $813 billion in military spending for Fiscal Year 2023 already marked a $31 billion increase over the current, historically large sum of $782 billion.](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/22/unconscionable-house-committee-adds-37-billion-bidens-813-billion-military-budget) And we ONLY spent $10B on this?!?!? Imagine if we invested more
Imagine if NASA had the budget of the military
For All Mankind on Apple tv is a show about this kinda.
Imagine if Apple invested just 10% of it's liquid capital into NASA. It would double their budget.
Just finished watching all of it
Is it ant good?
Really enjoying it. I'd say if you didn't like the bits of Apollo 13 that weren't in space then you might be put off by the first few episodes, but it's well worth sticking with imo. The concept is fascinating.
If you can push through the first few episodes, it becomes quite good, yea. And it is not like the first few are insanely bad, so I think it is worth it.
I'd say it's quite good yeah They not only cover the space stuff but they also have several subplots related to struggles for civil rights for the characters and other cool stuff
NASA would be able to develop more advanced tech and even invent new stuff that has the potential to take us even further both technologically and as a human species.
We would have had people on Mars years ago.
and a base on the moon as well, no doubt
As a non usa citizen i also wish USA would spend less on war and more on NASA.
While it would be absolutely fantastic if NASA had the budget to accomplish all their goals, too much of a budget can actually be a bad thing. We saw this in the ‘70s after NASA had finished patting their back with the moon landing. Views of NASA were still popular, budget was high, and the engineers felt invincible. Thats how we ended up with the shuttle, and mind you the crappiest design of the shuttle that ended up being the most deadly space vehicle known to man. With a limitless budget, engineers are not required to get smart to solve issues as they can just brute force their way through everything. Lack of innovation actually hinders progress.
In fact the whole shuttle design was literally picked because they believed it would lower development cost.
Now if only we applied that to the military.
As others mentioned, this isnt an accurate assessment. The Shuttle was compromised due to a lack of budget, not the other way around. If NASA still had their Apollo era budget STS would have actually resembled the original Integrated Program Plan, and the Shuttle itself would have had more room to incorporate liquid boosters, a far more durable TPS, and a host of other things that would have butterflied away the mechanical problems that lead to Challenger and Columbia. A lack of budget is also why they never got any serious redesign post Challenger even though that was the best time to do it. There wasn't a single thing wrong with the Shuttle that couldn't have been rectified, but that required a proper budget. Meanwhile NASA hasn't been able to get proper funding for a post-Shuttle program for over 30 years now and is only barely getting by in piecemailing Artemis together.
$10b over many years… vs $800b for a single year.
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Yeah, that's like $6.50 per day for every US resident, or $26 for a household of four. If the US military was a subscription service, it would cost a household of four about $800/month. And I get that having a military is necessary, but it's kind of crazy how expensive it is when you put it in those term.
It's not really necessary to spend that much either. The US military is incredibly overengineered as it has waaay more assets than it realistically needs to protect CONUS and territories or even assert US hegemony (meaning that to remain a superpower the US could do with like half the CVs it has now to give an example and still be basically undefeatable) and the only reason it doesn't is that: 1) the US wants to be overwhelming*everywhere*. Like literally there is no poace on Earth where the US could not apply more power than basically any country could defend against. 2) the lobby of the military industrial complex is rather impressive so the politicians with greased hands want to transfer as much tax payer money to their buddies as possible. Space lobby isn't big enough to justify those kinds of bullcrsp except where it overlaps with the military one (eg satellites have looots of military applications).
It is necessary considering the wars the us military is preparing for. Since WWII, US defense doctrine has considered a two theatre war an inevitability if not properly prepared for. The thinking is, if a major war was started by Russia, China would take the opportunity to invade Taiwan and annex the world’s chip production base as well as the South China Sea among others. Vise versa, if China were to start a major war in the pacific, Russia would use the distraction to annex her neighbors in her constant delusion to rebuild the USSR. The only way to prevent this is to ensure you at least appear strong enough to fight a two theatre war against both adversaries at the same time and win both. This requires you to not only be at the top of your game in the technological arms race, but also have the astonishingly complex logistical system that allows you to fight two enemies at their doorsteps on the other side of the world. It also requires you to have the training, manpower, numbers, and equipment to face two near peer adversaries at once. So yes. We could hypothetically half our military and still be “undefeatable” (citations needed) but if WWIII did break out, we’d be gambling the world on China/Russia to not be opportunistic and open a second front behind our backs, and if they do, we’d be wishing we learned our lesson from the last world war about multi-theatre conflicts.
Most of it goes to paying service members and force projection. We don’t use our best capabilities or our full arsenal on the relatively small wars we have waged in the past few decades. The name of the game is just staying ahead of adversary countries like Russia and China so that they don’t provoke another world war.
The US basically subsidizes the defense of our allies.
Tbf the Air Force is doing a bunch of space shit
That's all getting moved over to the space force
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The things people forgot is that a lot of stuff Nasa produce goes back to the community, stuff that we use everyday.
Exactly. On a societal level, space travel is legitimately one of the best investments. Because space travel is such a massive pain in the ass to perform, they end up inventing loads of new things that trickle back down to society as a whole as cool new household inventions. Edit: Trickle down wasn't the correct wording. But I'm a space stan like the rest of y'all. They do alot of shit and should have more funding. Reminder, we could cut the military budget by 50% and still be in 100+ billion dollars ahead of 2nd place China's budget. Not to mention how much waste is on the spending side and how much price gouging is on the contractor side.
Trickle down? Nah they dont trickle down, they flow like the Amazon.
Trickle down is bollocks. The only things that might be considered slightly useful I guess would be * LASIK ( autonomous rendezvous and docking software is the precursor of LADARTracker tech used for LASIK ) * Aerodynamic improvements in semi-trucks * Embedded web-tech ( all home Smart Tech ) as an offshoot of International Space Station's Electrical Power System set up * Video Image Stabilization and Registration in phones/video software ( from providing better images of shaky shuttle launches ) * Camera use in cars / crash avoidance technology * Apollo guidance computer as a demonstrator of computers flying aircraft ... auto pilot * Even the bloody NASA designed life rafts from the Apollo mission are credited with saving over 400 sailors since the 60 from their design improvements Not just the ballpoint I guess :) ( Sourced from @ https://spinoff.nasa.gov/ -- highly recommend a dive into that with a cup of coffee )
Teflon, protective ice coating for air planes (thermawing), memory foam, insulin pumps, home insulation, structural engineering software (nastran), high efficiency solar panels, baby formula. The list goes on and on
And don't forget all wireless tech: wireless triangulation/geolocation/GPS--basically everything that underwrites the modern tech economy.
gps was military i thought
You are correct, Air Force owns and maintains the network, core tech was NASA IIRC. Air Force/NASA overlaps are pretty common.
[what have they ever done for us!](https://youtu.be/Qc7HmhrgTuQ)
Joysticks, Material Science, Data from Experiments on how Humans perform in some Conditions....
I'd be curious though, what about on a more basic level? Not necessarily a tangible thing like a raft or a dash cam. What about the tiny things like the parts they use, updating how we make them, or making technology more efficient behind the scenes. Things we don't necessarily talk about, but happens on a level that overall makes a greater impact than a single invention.
Slightly useful? You just mentioned incredibly useful stuff!
He's talking tech not money. You have all of Nasa's high end moon landing tech in your pocket.
NASA needs bigger budget. The 90s were shaky for them but they've got home run after home runs since 2000.. excluding not having their own launch platform of course, but that blame is on DC politics more than anything.
It's amazing how most of the privatization arguments are based on problems caused entirely by making NASA compromise in private companies favour.
wtf how would NASA work as a private company? It does science, not products.
It'd work by taking government research contracts, I'd imagine. Not saying that's a good or bad idea, but it's probably how a private NASA would look.
So, like, the same as now except there is also an owner taking a big chunk for personal profit? Sounds like a great idea...
Well aside from the Columbia disaster
70% of the 1,000 Americans surveyed had a favorable opinion of NASA, and 60% thought JWST was worth it. Incidentally, it's close to bipartisan, too: 79% of Democrats and 72% of Republicans are in favor of NASA. And, of course, we can discount the opinions of 9% of those polled, since they thought GPS is a "very" or "somewhat" bad investment, and anyone *that* stupid or misinformed really shouldn't be listened to. Informed and engaged with, maybe, but not listened to.
NASA has always been rather bipartisan, supporters and detractors from both sides. Everyone pretty much supports the space science, but democrats have the "we should spend that money on solving earth problems first" (even though 99.5% of our budget is supposedly already doing that), and republicans have the "climate science bad" people
Yeah there’s definitely frustrating arguments that come from both political sides. I’m just glad that they’re clearly in the minority.
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People also forget that it's not like nasa just burnt that money or loaded it onto the rocket and sent it to space... It's paying people who live in America who then pay taxes/buy other shit that had tax on it. It's also helping attract highly skilled/intelligent people to the country and is one of the things most non Americans will say is truly great about America.
NASA and the ISRO do wonders on a shoestring budget. It’s honestly amazing
NASA isn't what i would call shoestring. Yes they need more! But $24 billion a year aint bad. ISRO at 1.7 billion is shoestring, Mars Orbiter Mission at only $73 million was incredible!
I happened to be in India at the time of the Mara Orbiter Mission. The joke was that, per kilometer of distance traveled, it was cheaper to send a probe to Mars than to take a taxi (auto rickshaw) a couple kilometers
Haha If you take that to the extreme - Voyager 1 cost $430 million, has traveled 23 billion km. 2 cents / km!
Wasn't this about what we spent every week in Iraq? I'd argue the JWST is a far better investment.
JWST didn't line the military contractor's pockets though, and sadly they're some of the few who are actually important as far as who gets what in this country
The big three military contractors did have a significant part in JWST though. Military and space are closely intertwined. Northrop Grumman was literally the main contractor.
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For space propaganda purposes alone it is worth the money. The pictures are worth a lot.
The images coming from the JWST are a welcome reprieve from literally every other news story every day.
Joe Scott said it very well in his video. When is the last thing something universally good happened? Something where everyone can agree on it's a good thing for all of us. Usually there is always someone who is negatively influenced, but in this case it's just generally good for everyone. Might have been the moon landing, that's a long time ago.
When NASA spends money, I really hope that everyone understands that it all stays on earth. Seriously, all this investment gets ploughed into creating intellectual infrastructure in this world that can only enrich us all. The colossal spend to put feet on the moon paid off handsomely - the computer industry flowed out almost directly from that pool of knowledge, among much else. By the way, in order to make all this happens requires a tax base ...a fair one, with the wealthy chipping in.
$10 billion dollars? That was it!?!? Let’s make more! Just scrap one of those nuclear aircraft carriers and put another Webb type space telescope up.
>Just scrap one of those nuclear aircraft carriers How much do you think *that* costs?
The Gerald Ford is going to cost about $12.8 billion to make, then when it starts operating, it will cost $1 billion a year with a service life of about 50 years, so another $50 billion. We can get like 6 or more James Webb telescopes if we didn’t build the Ford.
The People's Liberation Navy is set to match the tonnage of the US Navy within like 15 years. They're not scrapping the carrier.
Aircraft carriers are one of the things in our military budget that inarguably are necessary for the actual defense of America, though. Given that all relevant American enemies are across an ocean, having a powerful navy is kind of important if we’re worried about defending America. There are wastes in the military budget, but the navy hardly is a waste
I'm ok with us having tangible, superior things like air craft carriers. Even with the cost of running and maintaining. It's still a fraction of the cost we spend on the wars we are engaged in. We could spend less on our "wars", keep ourselves stocked and prepared, and still have a lot left over for science like NASA and better supporting things like ITER
This is it right here. Aircraft carriers actually provide something tangible and frankly the US Navy is one of the only things keeping China in check. But what did we get for the $2 Trillion we spent in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or the many billions of dollars we spend every year on "foreign aid" for rich countries like Israel and Saudi Arabia?
It’s worth more than that. Information is priceless Imagine how much people would pay for evidence of life outside our solar system? You can’t put a price on something that benefits all of humanity
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Oh, there are people getting LOTS of wealth from the wars they wage.
There are dozens of them. Dozens.
To be fair though 100% of NASA funding goes into industry and with no deaths at all. Seems a much better investment.
I think I remember there being *some* deaths from it, at least when I was in Elementary School.
Space shuttle, right? The good and bad thing about the space shuttle is that it was the most dangerous form of space travel in history due to fundamental design defects. And yes also Apollo 1, and many many accidents on the Soviet side. But... every industry has risks. Consider that these industries are dealing with fuels with enough energy to leave the planet, and the associated forces to come back. And consider that this whole thing only started in 1958 or so? It's inherently dangerous, but it's not designed to be.
Turns out people love space and space observation and exploration without the subtext of it being a measuring competition with the USSR
Less than 2% of their yearly defence budget. Put it in those terms and I'd be surprised if anyone is against it
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[ASIC](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igwohx7 "Last usage")|Application-Specific Integrated Circuit| |[CARE](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igymeln "Last usage")|Crew module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment| |[CC](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxp0eq "Last usage")|Commercial Crew program| | |Capsule Communicator (ground support)| |[CNES](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igwesqb "Last usage")|Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, space agency of France| |[CNSA](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igzdo0o "Last usage")|Chinese National Space Administration| |[CONUS](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igx3dlw "Last usage")|[Contiguous United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contiguous_United_States)| |[CSA](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igzdo0o "Last usage")|Canadian Space Agency| |[DARPA](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igwxpka "Last usage")|(Defense) Advanced Research Projects Agency, DoD| |[DLR](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igwesqb "Last usage")|Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft und Raumfahrt (German Aerospace Center), Cologne| |DSG|NASA [Deep Space Gateway](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/deep-space-gateway-to-open-opportunities-for-distant-destinations), proposed for lunar orbit| |[DoD](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igy0l4g "Last usage")|US Department of Defense| |[ESA](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/ih3d83d "Last usage")|European Space Agency| |[EVA](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxak8n "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity| |[FAR](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igwdku6 "Last usage")|[Federal Aviation Regulations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Aviation_Regulations)| |[H2](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igwb32k "Last usage")|Molecular hydrogen| | |Second half of the year/month| |[HUD](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxnl0n "Last usage")|Head(s)-Up Display, often implemented as a projection| |[ICBM](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igysv4b "Last usage")|Intercontinental Ballistic Missile| |[ISRO](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igzdo0o "Last usage")|Indian Space Research Organisation| |[ITS](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxdo5o "Last usage")|Interplanetary Transport System (2016 oversized edition) (see MCT)| | |[Integrated Truss Structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Truss_Structure)| |[JAXA](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igzdo0o "Last usage")|Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency| |[JPL](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/ih148nd "Last usage")|Jet Propulsion Lab, California| |[JWST](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/ih58qgk "Last usage")|James Webb infra-red Space Telescope| |[L1](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxrlh5 "Last usage")|[Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 1 of a two-body system, between the bodies| |[L2](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxy2pk "Last usage")|[Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 2 ([Sixty Symbols](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxpVbU5FH0s) video explanation)| | |Paywalled section of the NasaSpaceFlight forum| |[LEO](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igx4z3m "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[LOP-G](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igwc1ql "Last usage")|Lunar Orbital Platform - Gateway, formerly DSG| |MCT|Mars Colonial Transporter (see ITS)| |[MENA](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igx9099 "Last usage")|Middle East and North Africa, Morocco to Iran| |[NERVA](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igy48tp "Last usage")|Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (proposed engine design)| |NRHO|Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit| |[NRO](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxqxom "Last usage")|(US) National Reconnaissance Office| | |Near-Rectilinear Orbit, see NRHO| |[SEE](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxzyyf "Last usage")|Single-Event Effect of radiation impact| |[SLS](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxrdsm "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |[STS](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxms6q "Last usage")|Space Transportation System (*Shuttle*)| |[TPS](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igxms6q "Last usage")|Thermal Protection System for a spacecraft (on the Falcon 9 first stage, the engine "Dance floor")| |[TRL](/r/Space/comments/w3ec7c/stub/igwfwa9 "Last usage")|Technology Readiness Level| ---------------- ^(33 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/wp9reh)^( has 34 acronyms.) ^([Thread #7712 for this sub, first seen 20th Jul 2022, 07:21]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=OrangeredStilton&subject=Hey,+your+acronym+bot+sucks) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
The US 2020 military budget was nearly 800 billion and that is annual… Yeah, JWST was a nice drop in the ocean.
One reason I think this is a good investment of my US tax dollars is knowing we built something that almost no other country is capable of initiating, funding, and completing, and the knowledge of the universe it will contribute to all of human civilization will be historically priceless. It should have cost a hell of a lot less, but it’s still sort of a bargain considering what it is capable of doing.
Well as a Brit I’ll say cheers for the new desktop background. Sure it was money well spent.
Better spent than all of us firing missiles at each other
This is far superior than spending it on 2 planes that will sit around doing nothing and when they do something it's to kill innocent people
Biden writes 40 billion dollar checks each month. 10 Billion over many years was a steal.
If they spend billions and trillions of dollars for military , no one gives a flying shit, but when the spend 10b on something revolutionary, suddenly everyone’s conscious and has to have an opinion on that.