It's a ridiculously complicated machine built to peer into the beginnings of the universe and sniff out indications of life across our galaxy. I think people could cut them a little slack. I'm sure they had amazingly complex issues and obstacles to overcome.
Apollo also cost $280B inflation adjusted, so like 25x. And Apollo was a mad dash, with many risks taken. JWST is slow and steady. Like I'm a space buff and even I was pretty surprised when I learned how cowboy the moon decent in particular was. They had one shot, and had to fly the lander by hand, without any actual experience (they had to rely on a super cool craft which offset the weight to act like 1/6g).
Like... Apollo was utterly bonkers, bordering on full-Kerbal, in so many ways. It cost lives (5 training flight accidents, 3 in Apollo 1 fire), almost lost another 3 in Apollo 13.
JWST is proving out tons of new science and technology, but at a much more pedestrian peace.
So what? Was the Apollo program more complicated than the instruments on JWST? They are two very, very different missions with different requirements. In many ways, each mission is unique in its own ways and I don’t see much value in comparing them on such basic metrics. Why is the time it takes important?
No, the rate of funding is slowing down, and unlike Apollo there's no political urgency to the JWST. With 5x the funding you could afford to have less stringent manufacturing and verification (resulting in less cost-per-telescope and build time) and just accept that even if one of the telescopes fails, you can just build and send up another (or another five).
Absolutely yes. The apollo's feat, of landing a lander in a different body, with people in it, and making sure that lander lifted off the moon, and got back home safe was astonishing accomplishment.
Especially with the rudimentary computers and calculations of the time. The James Web Telescope, is a great feat, but not in the same league as the moon landings.
Apollo was amazing and the feat in guidance and navigation computers was astonishing. No one will dispute that. But let's not glorify it and discount all present missions.
Building an observatory is VERY difficult. Nevermind the "avionics" for an L2 mission, the manufacturing of the sensors, mirrors, and all the other mechanical parts are one-of-a-kind.
Webb is without a doubt an amazing feat of engineering and the engineering teams had to confront problems that were not even thought of for Apollo. Massive respect to them.
once again, not a moral claim or even disputing that apollo was exceptional — but that does not change the fact that this reflects a slower rate of innovation
Yep, I agree. I was replying to my parent comment that said Apollo was more complicated than Webb. I think they are very different amazing missions that you can't compare.
Given that Apollo landed on the Moon during the Cold War and the space race with Russia, it's incredible what injecting a percentage of the US defense budget into NASA can accomplish.
Why not? It seems an amazingly complex bit of engineering. The Apollo missions are impressive in their own right, but are they really that much more complex from an engineering perspective? The tolerances and precision required for JWST to be functional must be incredibly tight.
Indeed, we must keep in mind that the tolerance for failure was higher even as the cost of failure was higher. Do not forget the astronauts taken by Soyuz and Apollo.
