Interesting article on construction of James Webb Space Telescope

[n2doc]

ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2010) — Imagine building a car chassis without a blueprint or even a list of recommended construction materials.


In a sense, that's precisely what a team of engineers at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., did when they designed a one-of-a-kind structure that is one of nine key new technology systems of the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM). Just as a chassis supports the engine and other components in a car, the ISIM will hold four highly sensitive instruments, electronics, and other shared instrument systems flying on the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA's next flagship observatory.

From scratch -- without past experience to help guide them -- the engineers designed the ISIM made of a never-before-manufactured composite material and proved through testing that it could withstand the super-cold temperatures it would encounter when the observatory reached its orbit 1.5-million kilometers (930,000 miles) from Earth. In fact, the ISIM structure survived temperatures that plunged as low as 27 Kelvin (-411 degrees Fahrenheit), colder than the surface of Pluto.

"It is the first large, bonded composite spacecraft structure to be exposed to such a severe environment," said Jim Pontius, ISIM lead mechanical engineer.

more
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100928160958.htm

Can't wait to see the images this beast produces.....

[HereSince1628]

1. Rhetorical Bullshit. Designing IS making the blueprints and

creating the schedule of components.

How fucking stupid to talk about it this way.

[zipplewrath]

2. I have to admit, I don't understand their metaphor

I'm guessing they were asked to design a structure for housing the four instruments without any guide on performance (i.e. stiffness, relative motion, etc.). I'm finding even that hard to believe. At the very least though they had guidance on envelope, total mass, and one would think geometric stability.

[HereSince1628]

4. Popular publishing requirements meets science/technology reporting

is an obvious first place to look in the hyperboly

[HereSince1628]

3. design (v.) 1540s, from L. designare

"mark out, devise, choose, designate, appoint," from de- "out" (see de-) + signare "to mark," from signum "a mark, sign" (see sign (n.)). Originally in English with the meaning now attached to designate; many modern uses of design are metaphoric extensions. As a noun, from 1580s, from M.Fr. desseign

IOW, Designers are SUPPOSED to be creative problem solvers who mark the way for those that do things and make things.