Netflix has a documentary on the Webb space telescope. They don't
polish the warts, and the cost overruns. The story of the missing lock
washers that cost over a hundred million dollars to remove the bolts and
fasten them correctly is put up as an example. If the telescope had
been launched it would have literally fallen apart. It seems to have
been a miracle that the mission was successful. It was a stupid
mechanical issue. The same tech that has kept the bolts in the internal combustion engine of your car from coming loose for over a century was
not employed correctly. That is just mind boggling. I didn't know that
the telescope was first sold to the public at a cost of only 500 million dollars. Apparently, everyone knew that wasn't true because the Hubble
had cost 6 billion.

Time will tell if it was all worth it. Initial results are pretty amazing.

One of the things that was so amazing about the human genome project was
that it was accomplished years ahead of schedule and for less than a
third of the estimated cost. When it started some of the technology
that was used to succeed didn't exist. More efficient methods of
sequencing were developed. Once the tech had advanced enough to make
shotgun sequencing possible (making random fragments and sequencing
them) instead of plodding along a strand with identified cloned DNA it
turned into a race to finish the genome. They had to develop the tech
for the Webb telescope, but they didn't have private corporate stake
that the genome effort had. The biotech had profit incentive because
the tech could be used for medical research. You didn't have to
contract a company to figure out how to design an instrument. They were
doing it because the tech had a wider use than the genome effort.

Ron Okimoto

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Sun, 30 Jul 2023 09:17:53 -0500, RonO <rokimoto@cox.net> wrote:

Netflix has a documentary on the Webb space telescope. They don't
polish the warts, and the cost overruns. The story of the missing lock >washers that cost over a hundred million dollars to remove the bolts and >fasten them correctly is put up as an example. If the telescope had
been launched it would have literally fallen apart. It seems to have
been a miracle that the mission was successful. It was a stupid
mechanical issue. The same tech that has kept the bolts in the internal >combustion engine of your car from coming loose for over a century was
not employed correctly. That is just mind boggling. I didn't know that
the telescope was first sold to the public at a cost of only 500 million >dollars. Apparently, everyone knew that wasn't true because the Hubble
had cost 6 billion.

Time will tell if it was all worth it. Initial results are pretty amazing.

One of the things that was so amazing about the human genome project was >that it was accomplished years ahead of schedule and for less than a
third of the estimated cost. When it started some of the technology
that was used to succeed didn't exist. More efficient methods of
sequencing were developed. Once the tech had advanced enough to make >shotgun sequencing possible (making random fragments and sequencing
them) instead of plodding along a strand with identified cloned DNA it >turned into a race to finish the genome. They had to develop the tech
for the Webb telescope, but they didn't have private corporate stake
that the genome effort had. The biotech had profit incentive because
the tech could be used for medical research. You didn't have to
contract a company to figure out how to design an instrument. They were >doing it because the tech had a wider use than the genome effort.

Ron Okimoto

Your comments above identify two different types of projects. As you
say, the HGP was motivated in part by profit motive. Short-term
profit is how businesses justify investments. As long as businesses
are required to make a profit, self-interest inspires them to reduce
costs.

OTOH short-term profits are not and should not inform government
projects. Instead a role of governments is to install policies that
support their long-term goals, which are almost by definition beyond
the reach of short-term profits. Something like JWST is absolutely
necessary to challenge the bleeding edge of space technologies and
cosmological research. ISTM it would be virtually impossible to make short-term profits from them, and for that reason alone are outside
the scope of profit-making businesses.

--
You're entitled to your own opinions.
You're not entitled to your own facts.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Science fiction: _Buying Time_, also titled
_The Long Habit of Living_. by Joe Haldeman.

A doctor devises an expensive process to reverse
diseases of old age. He decides to give old rich
people ten years of healthy life in exchange for
/all/ of their money. This has a less than complete
effect of controlling the social scourge of rich people
and also controls medical science, because this
doctor owns the medical process that everyone
wants, and he can buy up or sponsor and basically
own all future medical science as well, specifically
anything that relates to his process or improves on it.

Enjoy the moral paradoxes while the rich patients
then flee expensively from mysterious assassins.

Imagine owning cancer. Privately. Forever.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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