But did they transport it to the launch site in a US ship? Of course they didn’t
I mean more than $10B into building the thing but they couldn’t fund shipping it on a ship flying the stars and stripes? What about the DELTA MARINER for Christ’s sake…wasn’t she built and paid for for this very purpose?
It’s the RocketShip these days. I normally have a thing for wordplay like that, but this one doesn’t do it for me.
Maybe the Frenchie insisted on using a French ship if NASA wanted to use their launchpad??
Joke aside;
OK, so it makes more sense now …
MN Colibri leaving the Navy port at Seal Beach, CA, and beginning its journey to the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana:
WEBB arrived safely at Pariacabo harbour in French Guiana on 12 October 2021:
https://www.aerocontact.com/videos/100801-webb-arrives-in-french-guiana-for-launch-on-ariane-5👏
And why the fuck did this thing ended up being launched with a foreign made rocket anyway? Is this telescope an American funded project or another multinational one like the ISS?
Well, it ain’t easy, I just would have skipped away…but the use of the word “foreign” has made my brain boil.
Please keep in mind we are all humble passengers on this spaceship we call Earth.
For the scientific and fund contributors, it could all be found on NASA site…
Yes, very much international, like you.
There are 306 contributors to the project:
Design and planning started decades ago.
Ariane 5, from the European Space Agency, can fit a wider payload in its cargo bay than the Space Shuttle. Payload width was the limiting factor on the ultimate size of the telescope. While it was possible to fold and fit the telescope into the Shuttle bay the increased complexity was a major deterrent for cost, construction and point-of-failure reasons.
Ariane 5 had a high weight of payload to orbit. The Space Shuttle had more. However, had the Shuttle been used a transfer stage to push the telescope from low earth orbit to final orbit would be required. This added weight would have elimited most of the Shuttle’s additional lift benefit and added cost and point-of-failures. (SpaceX Falcon Heavy did not exist during the planning stage.)
The telescope is a collaboration between NASA, ESA and CSA.
The Ariane 5 was the best launch vehicles that existed or was expected to exist at that time to launch the telescope. This is lucky as the Space Shuttle no longer flys.
You would have known this if you used Google.
Well, the JWST started from Earth and after a couple of days it passed the Moon at increased speed and then it will arrive after a couple of months at the L2 point still orbiting the Earth in one plane and stop (?) there … to start orbiting the Sun … in another plane. It is a joke. You cannot leave one orbit around the Earth and start orbiting something else in the form of the Sun. But let’s agree that the JWST still orbits the Earth at high speed, when it arrives at the L2 point. It is not far from Earth. There is nothing at the L2 point to orbit around. Only the gravity forces of the Sun and Earth balance each other at the L2 point, so the JWST is fixed there, while it orbits Earth at high altitude, while Earth still orbits the Sun. Thus the JWST is just another NASA hoax.
Perhaps it because it is a joint venture? The US “defense” spends a trillion dollars a year and no one thinks anything of it The James Webb telescope has been developed over many years at a cost of about 10 billion and if it works as planned could give us insight into the universe. In the grand scheme of things the universe does not revolve around the USA, China or any other country. Perhaps the telescope will help people on the planet earth understand their place. I hope the telescope deploys as planned.
The James Webb telescope will orbit the point L2 (Lagrange Pont 2).
L2 in turn orbits around the sun in sync with the earth.
It pathetic, but typical of how inept our high cost government has become, that American astronauts must ride to the ISS on Russian spacecraft.
Equally, pathetic that we do not make the biggest and best rockets for delivering things into space.
Nor do we seem to make anything that does ppnot have critical components made in China.
I fear that we are a house of cards.
Not anymore. Since April they have been using the SpaceX Dragon 2 rocket and capsule, the most advanced launch system ever devised. Carries a crew of seven. Made in the USA.
The SpaceX is arguably the best rocket for delivering things into space, but it’s more complicated than that. Rockets are designed for a purpose, just as container ships aren’t designed for heavy lift capabilities. The most powerful rocket ever devised is still the 1960’s era Saturn 5. But to use it to supply the ISS would be like using a multi-billion dollar elephant gun to shoot butterflies.
I thought we were here to party
Ah, the things we miss while out at sea beyond cell service.
At sea you can see the Betelguese star/sun with your naked eye without any James Webb telescope. I explain why at moontravelb . Reason is that Betelguese is prettty big.
2022 is a big year for U.S. space industry. The Artemis I launch system will send an unmanned Orion capsule around the Moon, to test the system for landing a crew on the moon by 2025.
Also, Space X will test a rocket called Starship, built to rendezvous with Orion, land its crew on the moon, then take off again, unlike the lunar lander module concept Apollo used.
Both the Artemis rocket and Starship are more powerful than the Saturn 5 rocket.
The Starship is the most revolutionary design in rocketry since the 1950’s. Ironically, it looks like something out of a 1950’s sci-fi movie.
What is so fantastic about the Artemis 2022? That it is unmanned?
