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That may be true, but designing a mission based off that hypothetical is a bad idea. The reality is we currently don’t have the capability for humans to service satellites, and developing that capability would probably take years and cost >$100 million. And NASA can’t just decide to take on that endeavor, it would require congress and months of political bickering. JWST was designed for what is currently feasible and practical.

discuss

kaashif|4 years ago

> developing that capability would probably take years and cost >$100 million. And NASA can’t just decide to take on that endeavor

So what you're saying is, this could easily be funded by some billionaire, e.g. Jeff Bezos who already sells billions of dollars in Amazon stock per year to fund Blue Origin?

Not saying this should be done privately, but if funding is the problem, that problem can be solved.

Space travel is less expensive than most people think, it just isn't very high up on our list of priorities.

ultramegachurch|4 years ago

“Maybe Jeff Bezos could fund this” is not a good parameter to design a mission around.

BurningFrog|4 years ago

$100M is 1% of what JWST cost.

Looks like a reasonable repair cost (and only if) it turns out to be broken.

ultramegachurch|4 years ago

It’s still not that simple, unfortunately. Ironically, there are too many single pint failures. Maybe JWST broke in a way that can’t be repaired. Maybe congress doesn’t approve the repair mission. Maybe the repair mission would actually cost $1 billion. Maybe the repair mission fails. Now imagine you’re the mission designer. You could trade increased complexity for some small chance of a repair mission maybe being possible. Or you you could decrease complexity and just accept that repair won’t be possible. The answer becomes pretty clear.