[justshowpost]

Yes, if you prefer eye candy photos to public safety. By the way will James Webb wield a modern eye candy capable sensor? Not sure about that.

There is few worth from remote sensing unreachable (even in theory) objects. Kepler already proved theoretized Goldilocks Zone rocky planets and, in general, provided a lot of data for non-field research (less exciting than Hubble photos indeed). Last, but not least, what's the JWST's mission exactly?

Also, from taxpayers' money perspective Kepler's component quality was complete disaster.

So, I'd better invest in more Martian/Jovian probes than in revival of obsoleted project. Such revival is very similar to Russian GLONASS (a competitor to 1970s NAVSTAR) programme reboot.

[whatshisface]

The JWST's mission is to see deep infared, which can pass through interstellar clouds. It will uncover things that have been veiled to us since the beginning of history. It can only be built as a space telescope because the frequency of its intended observations are so low that to a device sensitive to them, air radiates light of blinding intensity.

[RapidFire]

Thanks for this comment; that's a fascinating bit of information.

[justshowpost]

But that was just like saying what F-35's mission is to fly high in the skies, sorry.

This sort of proves my point, no one knows which exactly research JWST will do upon deployment, because original mission goals mainly became obsolete.

[mhio]

There is a long list of scientists that know exactly what research they are doing on JWST down to the minute [0]

For example, Dr Christine Chen et al will be using JWST for at least 34.9 hours to study the Icy Kuiper Belts in Exoplanetary Systems using near infrared spectroscopy [1]

[0] https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-progra...

[1] https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/phase2-public/1563.pdf

[Rebelgecko]

>This sort of proves my point, no one knows which exactly research JWST will do upon deployment

The research isn't a secret, JWST is already booked solid for like 18 months after it launches. You can see how that time is allocated across various projects here: https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-progra...

[justshowpost]

Yeah, I read that, just not impressed by minor projects with low outcome. It roughly equal to routine PhD-tier experiments done on the accelerator at some provincial lab.

Just look at breakthrough chances from, for example, 5 days trans-neptunian object search or the pointing of instrument at largely unexplored Uranus system for petty 30 hours.

[eganist]

I hate how shortsighted these comments tend to be, but I can understand them.

The money for projects like this, largely due to the sensitive nature of it all, still ends up staying local to the governments funding the projects, which means a significant minority of it still gets recouped in taxes two or three degrees down, and the balance that can't be recouped still ends up funding colossal technological advances, e.g advances in EM sensors, lensing, computing, electronic resiliency, power generation, the list goes on.

The reason governments spend on projects like this regardless of public opinion is because they're necessary to advance the state of science and engineeeing when investment returns are out of the question near-term.

Even defense spending operates this way, though the degree to which we pour good money after bad in defense is probably worth scrutiny. At least JWST will bring value, unlike the f35.

[justshowpost]

Well, all the tech advances brought by doing R&D of JWST happened already ~15 years ago and already are at the market. But its just the same thing as with R&D done for F-35. With notable exception F-35's R&D is still work in progress because of upgrades, while JWST will remain a piece of late 2000s tech to be taken out of the attic in early 2020.

[polytely]

Another important point to consider is that by having these big projects you maintain the ability to do them, capabilities need to be maintained by exercising them.