Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by RhodoYolo 2043 days ago
Do you have a list or link to any mega projects you are currently excited about?
2 comments
piyh 2043 days ago
Starshade is a crazy concept that could do more for the search for life than any previous approach by allowing us to block out a star to directly view its planets.

https://youtu.be/-jA2ABHBc6Y?t=3652

link
kristianp 2043 days ago
Non-youtube link. https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/resources/1015/flower-power-nasa...
link
aylmao 2043 days ago
Three that sound pretty exciting to me are ITER [1], the Extremely Large Telescope [2] and the James Webb Space Telescope. I'm sure there is also more I haven't heard of yet!

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Large_Telescope

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Large_Telescope

link
peterwoerner 2043 days ago
Roman Space Telescope, LISA.

[1] https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/

[2] https://lisa.nasa.gov/ , https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/LISA

link
aylmao 2042 days ago
I didn't know about these two. Thanks for sharing!
link
XorNot 2043 days ago
James Webb is the one I worry about the most. ITER has a taken a long time, but they're making steady forward progress with it.

Whereas I live in fear that James Webb will suffer a failure during launch or deployment that just turns it into a very expensive explosion.

link
aylmao 2042 days ago
I agree. Or even if nothing explodes, I'm worried that during the unfolding something will break or get stuck and, and unlike Hubble it won't be "easily" repairable (if at all). Hopefully this doesn't happen, because it is a once-in-many-decades project.
link