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posted by martyb on Monday January 01 2018, @12:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the is-that-a-question-or-a-challenge? dept.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an infrared space observatory with an $8.8 billion budget, will be transported to South America to launch atop an Ariane 5 rocket, presumably in Spring 2019. The JWST was not intended to be serviceable at the Earth-Sun L2 point. Will there still be a "Golden Age of astronomy" even if the JWST fails?

[Due] to its steadily escalating cost and continually delayed send-off (which recently slipped from 2018 to 2019), this telescopic time machine is now under increasingly intense congressional scrutiny. To help satisfy any doubts about JWST's status, the project is headed for an independent review as soon as January 2018, advised NASA's science chief Thomas Zurbuchen during an early December congressional hearing. Pressed by legislators about whether JWST will actually launch as presently planned in spring of 2019, he said, "at this moment in time, with the information that I have, I believe it's achievable."

[...] Simply launching JWST is fraught with peril, not to mention unfurling its delicate sunshield and vast, segmented mirror in deep space. Just waving goodbye to JWST atop its booster will be a nail-biter. "The truth is, every single rocket launch off of planet Earth is risky. The good news is that the Ariane 5 has a spectacular record," says former astronaut John Grunsfeld, a repeat "Hubble hugger" who made three space-shuttle visits to low-Earth orbit to renovate that iconic facility. Now scientist emeritus at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, he sees an on-duty JWST as cranking out science "beyond all of our expectations."

"Assuming we make it to the injection trajectory to Earth-Sun L2, of course the next most risky thing is deploying the telescope. And unlike Hubble we can't go out and fix it. Not even a robot can go out and fix it. So we're taking a great risk, but for great reward," Grunsfeld says.

There are, however, modest efforts being made to make JWST "serviceable" like Hubble, according to Scott Willoughby, JWST's program manager at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems in Redondo Beach, California. The aerospace firm is NASA's prime contractor to develop and integrate JWST, and has been tasked with provisioning for a "launch vehicle interface ring" on the telescope that could be "grasped by something," whether astronaut or remotely operated robot, Willoughby says. If a spacecraft were sent out to L2 to dock with JWST, it could then attempt repairs—or, if the observatory is well-functioning, simply top off its fuel tank to extend its life. But presently no money is budgeted for such heroics. In the event that JWST suffers what those in spaceflight understatedly call a "bad day," whether due to rocket mishap or deployment glitch or something unforeseen, Grunsfeld says there's presently an ensemble of in-space observatories, including Hubble, and an ever-expanding collection of powerful ground-based telescopes that would offset such misfortune.

Previously: Space science: The telescope that ate astronomy
Telescope That 'Ate Astronomy' Is on Track to Surpass Hubble
Launch of James Webb Space Telescope Delayed to Spring 2019
Launch of James Webb Space Telescope Could be Further Delayed


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 02 2018, @05:32AM (1 child)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 02 2018, @05:32AM (#616628) Journal

    A LARGE portion of the business world is extremely conservative with regard to research and development.

    That says nothing about the LARGE portions which are not extremely conservative.

    but the first one that comes to my mind is hydraulically assisted power steering - developed, patented, demonstrated, and denied to the public by the major manufacturers until the patent expired.

    The "major manufacturers" was General Motors which didn't figure out [wikipedia.org] how to commercialize the product.

    Francis W. Davis, an engineer of the truck division of Pierce-Arrow, began exploring how steering could be made easier, and in 1926 invented and demonstrated the first practical power steering system. Davis moved to General Motors and refined the hydraulic-assisted power steering system, but the automaker calculated it would be too expensive to produce. Davis then signed up with Bendix, a parts manufacturer for automakers. Military needs during World War II for easier steering on heavy vehicles boosted the need for power assistance on armored cars and tank-recovery vehicles for the British and American armies.

    Chrysler Corporation introduced the first commercially available passenger car power steering system on the 1951 Chrysler Imperial under the name "Hydraguide". The Chrysler system was based on some of Davis' expired patents. General Motors introduced the 1952 Cadillac with a power steering system using the work Davis had done for the company almost twenty years earlier.

    Charles F. Hammond from Detroit filed several patents for improvements of power steering with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office in 1958.

    It wasn't the whole industry holding back power steering. It wasn't actually anyone doing that. GM just couldn't figure out how to make it work and Chrysler did it using GM's expired patents for info. We don't actually have a demonstration that the auto industry was bogged down in IP. Would Chrysler have developed their own variation of power steering without the clues from the expired GM patents? Signs are pointing to "no" since they based their work on GM's older work.

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 02 2018, @08:03PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday January 02 2018, @08:03PM (#616857)

    Thanks for fact-checking me, history is highly dependent on where you learn it, and that power steering tidbit came to me by way of the son of Charles Bancroft. In 1991, I sketched out an alternative rotary engine design - and then I went to the downtown Miami library and did a patent search on the microfilm archives. Of course, by 1991 a wide array of rotary engine designs were already patented, but those most similar to mine were patented by Mr. Bancroft [google.com] Being the early 1990s, instead of looking for his website or e-mailing him, I used directory assistance and came to a phone number in the town listed on the patents - when I called, Mr. Bancroft Sr. was already dead, but his son spoke with me for a time about his fathers' engine design, efforts to get it developed, and he told me the power steering story.

    Now, it would seem, Wikipedia has an alternate history compared to the one related to me by Mr. (can't remember his first name anymore) Bancroft, and all in all, I probably trust Wikipedia more than the son of a failed engine designer. But, it would be very interesting indeed if we could come up with the patents mentioned by Mr. Bancroft Jr., I don't know the current state of searchability of the patent archives from the 1900s-1910s.

    The story as related via telephone from a potentially unreliable source was that: a farmer from the midwest took delivery of his new model T in or around 1909, and shortly thereafter not only got the idea for hydraulically assisted power steering, but also built a functioning prototype on his model T, registered himself a patent on the idea, and drove himself to Detroit with his prototype to show it around and try to license the patent. Nobody was interested at all, just like when Mr. Bancroft pitched his engine ideas decades later.

    The interesting thing, to me, is: whether true or false, the timeline of the story is plausible. If his patent was being ignored by the major players it's not surprising they don't mention it as prior art.

    Another interesting tidbit came to me from my Grandfather, while he was working in heavy construction in Iraq in the 1950s, they used rotary vane air compressors very similar to Mr. Bancroft's engine designs that were patented some years later...

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]