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Space: The Final Frontier

James Webb Space Telescope project $1.5 billion over budget

A "badly flawed" original budget and a failure at NASA headquarters to spot the problems have allowed a $1.5 billion cost overrun and a year's delay in the agency's project to build its most powerful telescope yet, according to an independent panel.

In a report released Wednesday, the panel said the James Webb Space Telescope project — planned for launch in 2014 as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope — will likely cost $6.5 billion when all the bills are in, and is unlikely to launch until September 2015 at the earliest.

The budget accepted by NASA in 2008 failed to account even for all the potential costs the program's managers knew about, much less the unknowns they might encounter, the report said. And when the budget reached NASA headquarters, officials there "did not penetrate the flaws."

The agency "continues to function without the skill and authority required," the panel concluded.
Astronomers expect the Webb Telescope to be 100 times more powerful than Hubble. Webb science will likely be managed at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which now does that work for Hubble.

Unlike Hubble, Webb is designed to observe the universe primarily in the infrared band of the light spectrum, enabling astronomers to see into the farthest reaches of the universe. Light that has been traveling so far and so long across an expanding universe gets stretched and shifted from the visible bands to the longer infrared wavelengths.

To work at peak efficiency, however, Webb will have to be flown to a spot 1 million miles from Earth, where it cannot be repaired in orbit, like Hubble. It will have a huge and complex primary mirror that must unfold to its full 6.5-meter diameter — more than twice the size of Hubble's 2.4-meter mirror. And it must be sheltered from the sun's heat by a sun shade, which also must unfold in flight to the size of a tennis court.

All of that has made the project extraordinarily expensive, even by NASA's standards.

The best news from the review panel Wednesday was that they could find no technical problems with the telescope, which is already under construction.

"The JWST Project is in very good technical shape," said John Casani, chairman of the review panel, which included active and retired executives from NASA and the aerospace industry.
 
Yeesh...

I am really looking forward to the James Webb project and what its potential is. I really hope it doesn't get canceled or anything stupid like that.
 
Memphis Reigns said:
Yeesh...

I am really looking forward to the James Webb project and what its potential is. I really hope it doesn't get canceled or anything stupid like that.
I was lucky enough to see part of it being built at Ball Aerospace last week. Pretty awesome to see it in person.
 
MotorbreathX said:
I was lucky enough to see part of it being built at Ball Aerospace last week. Pretty awesome to see it in person.

Yeah it must be quite moving to see it in person. This thing might be able to directly image an extra solar planet and much more. Quite a feat of engineering. So what if they are a bit over budget :D
 
McNei1y said:
Man, I love all the stuff we are learning, taking pictures of, and discovering, but we really need to get our asses back out there.

I am writing a paper on Wernher von Braun and how he worked in NASA and was a big part of developing rockets and manned flights and such (still don't have a topic)... but some of the primary sources I am reading makes me feel bad for all of the ideas they thought we could do. They lived during a time of excitement of progression and attempting to orbit the earth and travel to the moon,which they did. Then they also thought we would be exceeding those limits and get further. To bad we haven't had any manned flights further than orbits. I want us to expand!
It's all about cash! Find a way to convince the public that exploration is worth the cost and we can do it. Good luck on that! Lol
 

Culex

Banned
We really need to have more countries pump in more money to space programs other than have NASA bleed all the money.

Projects like the international space station are step in the right direction, but it's progress have been well behind schedule.
 
Culex said:
We really need to have more countries pump in more money to space programs other than have NASA bleed all the money.

Projects like the international space station are step in the right direction, but it's progress have been well behind schedule.
A big reason it is behind schedule is because we relied on Russia. It wouldn't have happened without them, but it has been slow because of them. These days it's because of both of us.

However, I agree with multinational cooperation. Also, more commercialization ( ex. SpaceX).
 

thechemist

Member
NASA TV now guys!

MEDIA ADVISORY : M10-157


NASA Announces Televised Chandra News Conference

WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a news conference at 12:30 p.m. EST on Monday, Nov. 15, to discuss the Chandra X-ray Observatory's discovery of an exceptional object in our cosmic neighborhood.

The news conference will originate from NASA Headquarters' television studio, 300 E St. SW in Washington and carried live on NASA TV.

Media representatives may attend the conference, join by phone or ask questions from participating NASA locations. To RSVP or obtain dial-in information, journalists must send their name, affiliation and telephone number to Trent Perrotto at: trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov by 10 a.m. EST on Nov. 15. Reporters wishing to attend the conference in-person must have a valid press credential for access. Non-U.S. media also must bring passports.

Scientists involved in the research will be available to answer questions. Panelists providing analysis of the research include:
- Jon Morse, director, Astrophysics Division, NASA Headquarters in Washington
- Kimberly Weaver, astrophysicist, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
- Alex Filippenko, astrophysicist, University of California, Berkeley

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/nov/HQ_M10-157_Chandra_Update.html
 

shuyin_

Banned
I saw this during the news, about 5mins ago. Apparently a massive black hole has been discovered in the vecinity of Sol? Or was it all hyperbole from the TV station?

Edit: Apparently it's not massive, it's just young. And it is situated at about 50 million light years from Earth
 

owlbeak

Member
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have found evidence of the youngest black hole known to exist in our cosmic neighborhood. The 30-year-old black hole provides a unique opportunity to watch this type of object develop from infancy.

The black hole could help scientists better understand how massive stars explode, which ones leave behind black holes or neutron stars, and the number of black holes in our galaxy and others.

The 30-year-old object is a remnant of SN 1979C, a supernova in the galaxy M100 approximately 50 million light years from Earth. Data from Chandra, NASA's Swift satellite, the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton and the German ROSAT observatory revealed a bright source of X-rays that has remained steady during observation from 1995 to 2007. This suggests the object is a black hole being fed either by material falling into it from the supernova or a binary companion.

"If our interpretation is correct, this is the nearest example where the birth of a black hole has been observed," said Daniel Patnaude of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. who led the study.

The scientists think SN 1979C, first discovered by an amateur astronomer in 1979, formed when a star about 20 times more massive than the sun collapsed. Many new black holes in the distant universe previously have been detected in the form of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). However, SN 1979C is different because it is much closer and belongs to a class of supernovas unlikely to be associated with a GRB. Theory predicts most black holes in the universe should form when the core of a star collapses and a GRB is not produced.

"This may be the first time the common way of making a black hole has been observed," said co-author Abraham Loeb, also of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "However, it is very difficult to detect this type of black hole birth because decades of X-ray observations are needed to make the case."

The idea of a black hole with an observed age of only about 30 years is consistent with recent theoretical work. In 2005, a theory was presented that the bright optical light of this supernova was powered by a jet from a black hole that was unable to penetrate the hydrogen envelope of the star to form a GRB. The results seen in the observations of SN 1979C fit this theory very well.

Although the evidence points to a newly formed black hole in SN 1979C, another intriguing possibility is that a young, rapidly spinning neutron star with a powerful wind of high energy particles could be responsible for the X-ray emission. This would make the object in SN 1979C the youngest and brightest example of such a "pulsar wind nebula" and the youngest known neutron star. The Crab pulsar, the best-known example of a bright pulsar wind nebula, is about 950 years old.

"It's very rewarding to see how the commitment of some of the most advanced telescopes in space, like Chandra, can help complete the story," said Jon Morse, head of the Astrophysics Division at NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

The results will appear in the New Astronomy journal in a paper by Patnaude, Loeb, and Christine Jones of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and flight operations from Cambridge.

For more information about Chandra, including images and other multimedia, visit:

http://chandra.nasa.gov

and

http://chandra.harvard.edu
.
 

jett

D-Member
hylje said:
Are you watching the public stream? Go to "Media Channel". It is on there.

Yep figured that out soon after that post, thanks.

This is pretty interesting, wonder what will further observation yield.
 

sarcastor

Member
cupolaview_iss14.jpg


http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap101115.html

god dammit, i should have been an astronaut....
 
F#^K! That's the facebook profile picture to rule all facebook profile pictures :lol

Seriously though, amazing photo. I wish I was an astronaut too, I can't think of a more exciting profession.
 

Extollere

Sucks at poetry
sarcastor said:
cupolaview_iss14.jpg


http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap101115.html

god dammit, i should have been an astronaut....

Images like this fucking blow me away. It's so insane that bio-organic life forms from a planet are capable of propelling themselves above the stratosphere and looking back down on their world. It's like.. it's like a fucking germs in a petri dish climbing up and over it, and then looking back at where they came from and realizing what it is. So insane.
 

Scrow

Still Tagged Accordingly
Extollere said:
Images like this fucking blow me away. It's so insane that bio-organic life forms from a planet are capable of propelling themselves above the stratosphere and looking back down on their world. It's like.. it's like a fucking germs in a petri dish climbing up and over it, and then looking back at where they came from and realizing what it is. So insane.
quote of the thread
 

Alucrid

Banned
So I bought For All Mankind on Blu-Ray and goddamn is that some spectacular footage. It still blows my mind that back then we were able to go to the fucking moon. The fucking moon man. Some how we made this vessel to carry three people to the moon, land on the moon, then somehow make it back to earth in 1969. 41 years ago. It just keeps me thinking that we need to get to the moon. I want to stand on the moon. 41 years and this shit still hasn't happened. We need to make it happen.
 
Extollere said:
Images like this fucking blow me away. It's so insane that bio-organic life forms from a planet are capable of propelling themselves above the stratosphere and looking back down on their world. It's like.. it's like a fucking germs in a petri dish climbing up and over it, and then looking back at where they came from and realizing what it is. So insane.
Reminds me of one of my favorite images of Earth:

ISS-view-shuttle-2.jpg


To me, it looks like the tendril of a microorganism reaching out into the abyss to probe the surroundings (well, in the case of an amoeba, it's for food).
 

Extollere

Sucks at poetry
CharlieDigital said:
Reminds me of one of my favorite images of Earth:

ISS-view-shuttle-2.jpg


To me, it looks like the tendril of a microorganism reaching out into the abyss to probe the surroundings (well, in the case of an amoeba, it's for food).

It's just weird that the world produces people among other things. It's weird because we're literally an extension of the world. Everything that is in our bodies came from the Earth. We're like little world chunks, reformed, and reanimated in tiny separate bits. When I think about shit like this, it just blows me away how anyone can wrap their heads and minds around junk like creationism (not trying to start a controversy or anything), but the reality of evolution, and our strong tie to the planet below our feet is soul shaking... to say the least. Images from space are like looking at a self portrait in this way. I'd give almost anything to see it in person.
 

DarkKyo

Member
Extollere said:
It's just weird that the world produces people among other things. It's weird because we're literally an extension of the world. Everything that is in our bodies came from the Earth. We're like little world chunks, reformed, and reanimated in tiny separate bits. When I think about shit like this, it just blows me away how anyone can wrap their heads and minds around junk like creationism (not trying to start a controversy or anything), but the reality of evolution, and our strong tie to the planet below our feet is soul shaking... to say the least. Images from space are like looking at a self portrait in this way. I'd give almost anything to see it in person.
Go back even further and we are little star chunks!
 

owlbeak

Member
Alucrid said:
So I bought For All Mankind on Blu-Ray and goddamn is that some spectacular footage. It still blows my mind that back then we were able to go to the fucking moon. The fucking moon man. Some how we made this vessel to carry three people to the moon, land on the moon, then somehow make it back to earth in 1969. 41 years ago. It just keeps me thinking that we need to get to the moon. I want to stand on the moon. 41 years and this shit still hasn't happened. We need to make it happen.
This documentary is one of the best, if not the best, documentaries about space I've ever seen. Watch that movie and then buy the book Full Moon, you'll be thundastruck!
 

Extollere

Sucks at poetry
Orgun said:

I wanted to rehost a couple of these - I know there are plenty of people who pass over links, and for sake of convenience here are a few of my favs.

280622-3QCRCCZ.jpg


280630-HMSQBTH.jpg


280624-P4FXF2T.jpg


280627-7VOKQJV.jpg


280623-UYXBK3H.jpg


280626-DH2X2L3.jpg


It's so crazy to realize that right here, in this moment (and despite all of our problems), we are living on an alien world with highly advanced technology, and vast and wide civilizations. Not only are you and I speaking in a foreign tongue to each other, we are speaking in an alien one as well. And that here - on one miniature soap bubble - the entirety of the human species live their lives, each and every day, without paying it any mind.....

FUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Seriously. What the fuck.
 
Alucrid said:
So I bought For All Mankind on Blu-Ray and goddamn is that some spectacular footage. It still blows my mind that back then we were able to go to the fucking moon. The fucking moon man. Some how we made this vessel to carry three people to the moon, land on the moon, then somehow make it back to earth in 1969. 41 years ago. It just keeps me thinking that we need to get to the moon. I want to stand on the moon. 41 years and this shit still hasn't happened. We need to make it happen.

Is that the documentary where theres no interviews or anything, its straightforward footage and audio clips from mission control and the astronauts etc etc? If so, that doc is amazing. I was blown away seeing how high quality some of that footage was. When they are driving around in that vehicle, I couldn't believe it was taken over 40 years ago.
 
Alucrid said:
So I bought For All Mankind on Blu-Ray and goddamn is that some spectacular footage. It still blows my mind that back then we were able to go to the fucking moon. The fucking moon man. Some how we made this vessel to carry three people to the moon, land on the moon, then somehow make it back to earth in 1969. 41 years ago. It just keeps me thinking that we need to get to the moon. I want to stand on the moon. 41 years and this shit still hasn't happened. We need to make it happen.

The scene with the footage of Earth from about half-way to the moon with them talking about the "blue marble" suspended in space had me in tears.

Dechaios said:
Go back even further and we are little star chunks!

I've been meaning to ask this for a while: In his must-watch "A Universe from Nothing" talk, Lawrence Krauss says "Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded."

But isn't Hydrogen the most abundant element in our bodies (from water: H2O)? And Hydrogen was created at the beginning of time shortly after the big bang. So most of the atoms in our bodies did NOT come from a star that exploded.

Fake edit: I don't know if exploding stars expel hydrogen (I thought a supernova occurs after all the hydrogen and helium are used up?), if they do then I suppose it's possible that every atom in your body came from a star, but not all nucleosynthesized inside a star.

I know I'm nitpicking here. I understand that all the heavier elements were created inside stars, and I love the poetic notion of it, but this possible inaccuracy in saying "every atom in your body" has bothered me.
 

Alucrid

Banned
Lionheart1827 said:
Is that the documentary where theres no interviews or anything, its straightforward footage and audio clips from mission control and the astronauts etc etc? If so, that doc is amazing. I was blown away seeing how high quality some of that footage was. When they are driving around in that vehicle, I couldn't believe it was taken over 40 years ago.

They don't have interviews per say, but they do have certain astronauts talking over the footage. But yeah, it's that and a lot of music by Brian Eno. I was absolutely blown away by how good it looked on Blu Ray. I mean, it was real footage of space recorded 41 years ago...more than twice my age...it was a surreal experience watching it. I mean, yeah we all know we went to the moon and what not, but just seeing it with your own eyes is something else...almost an indescribable beauty.

Horsebite said:
This documentary is one of the best, if not the best, documentaries about space I've ever seen. Watch that movie and then buy the book Full Moon, you'll be thundastruck!

I'll have to check out the Full Moon book then, thanks. :D

Naked Snake said:
The scene with the footage of Earth from about half-way to the moon with them talking about the "blue marble" suspended in space had me in tears.

When Michael Collins was talking about how he had to stay with the command module while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin got to land on the moon I couldn't even fathom how disheartening that would feel. :(
 

Exano

Neo Member
Naked Snake said:
The scene with the footage of Earth from about half-way to the moon with them talking about the "blue marble" suspended in space had me in tears.



I've been meaning to ask this for a while: In his must-watch "A Universe from Nothing" talk, Lawrence Krauss says "Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded."

But isn't Hydrogen the most abundant element in our bodies (from water: H2O)? And Hydrogen was created at the beginning of time shortly after the big bang. So most of the atoms in our bodies did NOT come from a star that exploded.

Fake edit: I don't know if exploding stars expel hydrogen (I thought a supernova occurs after all the hydrogen and helium are used up?), if they do then I suppose it could be true that "every atom in your body came from a star", but not necessarily nucleosynthesized inside a star.

I know I'm nitpicking here. I understand that all the heavier elements were created inside stars, and I love the poetic notion of it, but this possible inaccuracy in saying "every atom in your body" has bothered me.


Well.. it's not exactly like Stars lack hydrogen.

And when a supernova goes off, the matter that it expulges is what makes up pretty much everything we see atomically.. every single star in our universe has the exact same makeup from a standpoint of the elements
 

owlbeak

Member
Alucrid said:
I'll have to check out the Full Moon book then, thanks. :D
It's a large coffee table book with super high quality prints of rare/never before seen photos from the Apollo missions. It's an amazing book.
 

Alucrid

Banned
Horsebite said:
It's a large coffee table book with super high quality prints of rare/never before seen photos from the Apollo missions. It's an amazing book.

Yesss. I love coffee table books despite me not having one. Only $16 too.
 

Extollere

Sucks at poetry
Dechaios said:
Go back even further and we are little star chunks!

Yes it is awe inspiring as well, however for some reason the Earth is more immediate to me. Before life there was Earth, and Earth was a result of Supernovae and slow accretion. Earth-adapted life is unique to Earth - so while we are as much a part of the Universe itself, and we come from the Universe - we are also very much a product of the Earth. We are the Earth's apples, so to speak.


Naked Snake said:
I've been meaning to ask this for a while: In his must-watch "A Universe from Nothing" talk, Lawrence Krauss says "Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded."

But isn't Hydrogen the most abundant element in our bodies (from water: H2O)? And Hydrogen was created at the beginning of time shortly after the big bang. So most of the atoms in our bodies did NOT come from a star that exploded.

Fake edit: I don't know if exploding stars expel hydrogen (I thought a supernova occurs after all the hydrogen and helium are used up?), if they do then I suppose it could be true that "every atom in your body came from a star", but not necessarily nucleosynthesized inside a star.

I know I'm nitpicking here. I understand that all the heavier elements were created inside stars, and I love the poetic notion of it, but this possible inaccuracy in saying "every atom in your body" has bothered me.

I'm not an expert, but while hydrogen was available after the beginning of the Universe I think it is likely that all the hydrogen in our bodies have passed through a star's life cycle. Stars convert Hydrogen into Helium primarily (and I think many of them - like our own star - convert up to the 8th element in their cores). The rest are fused and created in supernovae (aside from man-made elements and isotopes).

Yes there is still hydrogen in a supernova. A star does not use every last bit, and only a microscopic fraction of that is needed to create all the hydrogen (or all the water for that matter) that we see on Earth.
 
Exano said:
Well.. it's not exactly like Stars lack hydrogen.

And when a supernova goes off, the matter that it expulges is what makes up pretty much everything we see atomically.. every single star in our universe has the exact same makeup from a standpoint of the elements

You didn't add anything that wasn't in my post. Yes stars are full of hydrogen, but I thought all/most of it gets used up in nuclear fusion before a star goes supernova (I'm not sure, that's why I'm asking).

And again, like I said, I'm just nitpicking the literal wording of saying "every atom in your body"... Even if a tiny fraction of the hydrogen in your body didn't come from a star, then the saying is inaccurate. That's all I'm trying to figure out.


Edit: Extollere answered it. Thanks.
 

Extollere

Sucks at poetry
Naked Snake said:
And again, like I said, I'm just nitpicking the literal wording of saying "every atom in your body"... Even if a tiny fraction of the hydrogen in your body didn't come from a star, then the saying is inaccurate. That's all I'm trying to figure out.


Edit: Extollere answered it. Thanks.

I don't know if that particular question is knowable or not. If it is, I'm not qualified to give an answer. However, from my point of view, given that the early Universe; once condensed and filled with stars and galaxies - most, if not all, of the original hydrogen has probably been through several stars (This is my speculation based off of what I've read about the life of the Universe). I have no idea if there are still raw, unused, and untouched chemical matter in our bodies that came from the big-bang, without being re-processed somewhere else.

We live in a galaxy of 400 billion suns, constantly exploding and reforming. I'm not sure that there is any hydrogen gas floating around between billions of stars from the big-bang that somehow managed to never be touched or used by those stars, or our own sun for that matter - while it was coalescing. This would also seem to require the Earth to acquire that hydrogen without the sun sucking it in, or blowing it away with solar winds, before, during, and after the Earth's accretion.

Scientists say that all the atoms in our bodies came from stars (and going back even further from the big-bang), and I think that statement is probably true, even if it is within the tiniest margin of error. But again - I'm not scientist, I'm a layman, and these are just my thoughts on it.
 
Extollere said:
I don't know if that particular question is knowable or not. If it is, I'm not qualified to give an answer. However, from my point of view, given that the early Universe; once condensed and filled with stars and galaxies - most, if not all, of the original hydrogen has probably been through several stars (This is my speculation based off of what I've read about the life of the Universe). I have no idea if there are still raw, unused, and untouched chemical matter in our bodies that came from the big-bang, without being re-processed somewhere else.

We live in a galaxy of 400 billion suns, constantly exploding and reforming. I'm not sure that there is any hydrogen gas floating around between billions of stars from the big-bang that somehow managed to never be touched or used by those stars, or our own sun for that matter - while it was coalescing. This would also seem to require the Earth to acquire that hydrogen without the sun sucking it in, or blowing it away with solar winds, before, during, and after the Earth's accretion.

Scientists say that all the atoms in our bodies came from stars (and going back even further from the big-bang), and I think that statement is probably true, even if it is within the tiniest margin of error. But again - I'm not scientist, I'm a layman, and these are just my thoughts on it.

That's good enough for me. When I visualize it like that, yeah it's hard to imagine any or much "virgin hydrogen" left over from the big bang.
 

Extollere

Sucks at poetry
Horsebite said:
This documentary is one of the best, if not the best, documentaries about space I've ever seen. Watch that movie and then buy the book Full Moon, you'll be thundastruck!

I have a copy of this but haven't watched it. I noticed that there are two versions though. A narrated one, and one with the astronauts speaking (sounds like older audio). Are one of these versions better to watch than the other? I don't really want to watch the film twice back to back.
 
Extollere said:
It's so crazy to realize that right here, in this moment (and despite all of our problems), we are living on an alien world with highly advanced technology, and vast and wide civilizations. Not only are you and I speaking in a foreign tongue to each other, we are speaking in an alien one as well. And that here - on one miniature soap bubble - the entirety of the human species live their lives, each and every day, without paying it any mind.....

FUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Seriously. What the fuck.

What do you mean by 'alien'? How can something be alien if its indigenous to the planet.
 
Teh Hamburglar said:
What do you mean by 'alien'? How can something be alien if its indigenous to the planet.

He thinks our atmosphere is a miniature soap bubble. This means that not only is his grasp on reality unstable, but that--by his own admission--he is a member of an alien race of staggering enormity. And you want to question him?
 
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