James Webb Space Telescope

NASA is building a telescope to be the successor to Hubble. It’s called the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). There’s one little problem: the telescope’s mirror is too big to fit into any existing rocket, so to make it more compact, the mirror is formed of 18 small, hexagonal mirrors and is folded up like origami. When the telescope gets to space, it will unfold itself into the correct shape. The telescope will have a sunshield that is also folded up. It too will unfold once it gets to space.

In theory.

This folding/unfolding process is very complicated and has caused delays and cost overruns. If only those telescope scientists had come to me for advice. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m good at many things, and especially at telling people how to do stuff. They could have sent me an email:

Dear VirtualWayne, we have a problem. Our new telescope is too big for the rocket’s nose cone, so we’ve designed it to fold up. Then when it gets into space, it unfolds itself. The problem is: that’s really hard to do! What is your advice? —Your friend, NASA

I would’ve tossed out the folding telescope design. Who came up with that? I would’ve advised NASA to send the telescope mirror up into space in pieces. Have it dock with the International Space Station. The astronauts there, who are probably bored to tears, can go outside the Space Station and assemble the mirror, attach it to the rest of the telescope, attach a rocket motor, and off it goes to the Earth-Sun L₂ LaGrange Point, where it will be parked and begin operating. No folding/unfolding in space by itself—just assembly and testing by humans. And if something doesn’t work, we don’t lose a multi-billion dollar telescope and years of work. Rather, we fix it in orbit.

Just saying: that’s what I would’ve done. But I’m a civilian, so what do I know?