Everything in your paragraph is speculation. You are so positive - saying "will be" and "is higher", based on a single data point that I laughed out loud. NASA's risk analysis hasn't expressed any of what you've said. But please, don't let me stop you from creating facts and trends from a single datapoint. Note that this is the first spacecraft to be positioned in L2.

What's most interesting to me is that we ourselves are moving at an incredible velocity through space where for time being appears as a very stable and slow transition. When NASA says stuff like "larger than expected" they are nicely saying their models are clearly not accurate. People of course will argue until the bitter end and speculation becomes sword and shield because their fact finding ability has been exhausted.

 

The Webb is at a Lagrange point. That makes it more prone to collisions i believe.
I talked about this with a friend back before it was launched and this is one thing we both feared. IF it gets hit too much, bye bye space birdie.

It may be possible to fix the telescope, but even so that would be one hell of a job. Jesus.

In the meantime those panels should be inspected and sampled. The source of this "debris field" MUST be identified if we are to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. Just think...had that been a manned spacecraft, this could have been a much more tragic story.

 

When NASA says stuff like "larger than expected" they are nicely saying their models are clearly not accurate.

Are their models really not accurate? If their models say, once per million years we'll get a rock that size hitting the telescope and, this week one hit? You cannot tell me their models are not accurate until the next hit - a half million years from now, or 10 million years from not, or Tuesday.

 

It may be possible to fix the telescope, but even so that would be one hell of a job. Jesus.

In the meantime those panels should be inspected and sampled. The source of this "debris field" MUST be identified if we are to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. Just think...had that been a manned spacecraft, this could have been a much more tragic story.

It would likely be easier and cheaper to send up a second telescope - unless the first one has enough fuel to get most of the way home. This telescope is currently further from earth than any human has travelled.

 

Are their models really not accurate? If their models say, once per million years we'll get a rock that size hitting the telescope and, this week one hit? You cannot tell me their models are not accurate until the next hit - a half million years from now, or 10 million years from not, or Tuesday.

I was arguing for your point not against it. NASA has brilliant people doing things far beyond my scope. It's a commonality of anyone with even a sniff of ego to embellish as well as save face. For example, you are a smart guy and I like conversing with you, yet how much do you really know about NASA operations? Furthermore the discussion of orbits is in itself a very difficult thing to measure by any standard. This goes for everyone as well as myself. I feel like these conversations you folks sometimes hold here are infused with ego which manifests as posturing over another person.

 

I feel like these conversations you folks sometimes hold here are infused with ego which manifests as posturing over another person.

Allowing someone to keep stating opinions and wishful thoughts as facts is a dangerous game. I expect someone to call me on it when my hypothesizing sounds too bold and absolutely as well.

 

Allowing someone to keep stating opinions and wishful thoughts as facts is a dangerous game. I expect someone to call me on it when my hypothesizing sounds too bold and absolutely as well.

Are you referring to me?

 

Are you referring to me?

Definitely not referring to you... until you start hypothesizing and pontificating and referring to those ponderings as definitive truths.

 

https://www.researchgate.net/figure...he-L4-and-L5-Lagrangian-points_fig1_254660988
It's something we've seen before at stable points but our L2 is not naturally stable so it's not possible to make predictions about Webb hits from current data IMO.

You mean it is not possible for YOU to make any predictions. A friend of mine and i were talking about this months ago and we both came to the same conclusion. So like it or not, our prediction already came true.

 

Everything in your paragraph is speculation. You are so positive - saying "will be" and "is higher", based on a single data point that I laughed out loud. NASA's risk analysis hasn't expressed any of what you've said. But please, don't let me stop you from creating facts and trends from a single datapoint. Note that this is the first spacecraft to be positioned in L2.

Apparently that is one more data point than you have

It's just quite a coincidence that my friend an i were talking months ago and we both said the same thing and here already it has happened.
Yes one data point, one too many.
Nothing can truly predict what might hit in the future, but my belief is that it will be worse than anywhere else. If it doesnt happen, then we are lucky in any case. But it's my belief and i can believe that the thing will last for a million years too it's my prerogative.
Your problem is worse i believe you think it is OK to mock rather than just present plain facts. That's immature. Mocking is not scientific it is just plain ignorant. I know that wont stop you though.

 

It may be possible to fix the telescope, but even so that would be one hell of a job. Jesus.

In the meantime those panels should be inspected and sampled. The source of this "debris field" MUST be identified if we are to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. Just think...had that been a manned spacecraft, this could have been a much more tragic story.

What i was wondering was if they designed in a way to switch out different sections of the panel(s) so they could go on to use the undamaged sections.

 

What's most interesting to me is that we ourselves are moving at an incredible velocity through space where for time being appears as a very stable and slow transition. When NASA says stuff like "larger than expected" they are nicely saying their models are clearly not accurate. People of course will argue until the bitter end and speculation becomes sword and shield because their fact finding ability has been exhausted.

Well ok let's sit on our hands and see what happens in the future.

 

Well ok let's sit on our hands and see what happens in the future.

Oh, don't let @k1ng 1337 commemts stop you from taking action. Which would be... umm... ah...

 

Well ok let's sit on our hands and see what happens in the future.

Well ok let's sit on our hands and see what happens in the future.

I don't know what this means sir. If it's any consolation I wasn't targeting you personally rather I support strong debate where facts and research are presented. People make wild claims all the time and it's not often they show their work, see what I'm saying?

 

What i was wondering was if they designed in a way to switch out different sections of the panel(s) so they could go on to use the undamaged sections.

Insofar as much of it was designed with modularity in mind, yes. At this point of course it might be a good idea to do a cost-benefit analysis just to weigh out all of the options. Hopefully the telescope doesn't have to be replaced outright. What a waste of good hardware THAT would be...

 

Insofar as much of it was designed with modularity in mind, yes. At this point of course it might be a good idea to do a cost-benefit analysis just to weigh out all of the options. Hopefully the telescope doesn't have to be replaced outright. What a waste of good hardware THAT would be...

Hi,

I would bet that they would not attempt to replace it, but then again im not NASA with unlimited tax payer dollars at hand (ha ha).

Also i should add, my estimate and prediction of 'hits' is not an exact calculation it is an estimate based on the way gravity and electrostatics work, combined with a debris field modeled as uniform with random distribution.

 

I don't know what this means sir. If it's any consolation I wasn't targeting you personally rather I support strong debate where facts and research are presented. People make wild claims all the time and it's not often they show their work, see what I'm saying?

Oh ok yes thank you. What i meant there comes from a very common expression in tournament chess. Because sometimes players tend to make a move as soon as they see it might be good, the expression came about "If you see a good move, sit on your hands and look for a better one". The part "sit on your hands" is because if you were sitting on your hands you would not be able to move a chess piece just yet, so you would give it some more thought first. In our discussion this could be similar if we sit on our hands we can not type out another word just yet until we give it more thought

 

Oh, don't let @k1ng 1337 commemts stop you from taking action. Which would be... umm... ah...

Hi,

Not sure what you mean there but since there is disagreement why dont we just wait and see what happens and it it gets hit a lot more times soon you own me $100 cash (ha ha, just kidding of course).

But seriously, i know some people like to invoke an emotional response in people involved in a discussion. Talk show hosts do this all the time to try to get people to be more immersed into the subject at hand. The problem with this though is that people react to emotionally charged expressions and tend to ride with them leaving logical reasoning behind. So a talk show host which regularly disagrees with panelists and who gets out talked by one of them may come out with an emotionally based reply that gets the audience in agreement with them no matter how wrong they are. So by using too much drama in a discussion it could lead to a very false conclusion just because of that alone irrespective of any actual facts whether the facts are right or wrong.
I could probably quote some shows that do this all the time but i hardly watch them anymore partly because of that.

My estimation and prediction is based on gravity and electrostatics and a model of a debris field.
What happens when we dont actually know what the debris field looks like. It could be that there is a massive 'hole' in the area in question so that NO debris ever enters that area, or it could be that almost all the debris is concentrated in that area. We dont really know all of it because the objects are so small. So what do we do then, just let chance take it's course? Yes that's a possibility, but that's not how we as somewhat intelligent beings live most of the time. We seek answers that could help us live better. In some cases there are no direct answers, so we have to resort to approximations and this may seem like fortune telling but it usually involves an "educated guess". An educated guess involves are least some reasoning with some information that narrows down the possibilities even if it is just a little. If we know that traffic is bad on Rt101 on some days but not others, but we know that on Rt102 the traffic is usually lighter, then we probably take Rt 102. We dont have the absolute true traffic conditions (we left our cell phone home) so we make the best guess and go with that.

In a planetary system, particles are attracted to large objects like planets and of course the star. That's because there is a gravitational field that extends out to infinity (classical view) and draws these particles toward the larger object. So most particles will probably land on some planet although some may happen to drift right through to return another day. But what happens if there was no gravitational field. The planets would not draw the objects in because there was no force involved (classical non relativistic view again). Now suddenly an object much larger than the particle enters the area. It's not as big as a planet, but several orders of magnitude larger than the particle. it makes sense that the larger (or what we might call mid sized) object is going to be the only thing that attracts the particle. Now it could just cause a change in the direction of the trajectory of the particle so the particle just speeds right past. The thing is though, it did in fact influence the particle and so there are going to be some particles that happen to come in at the right angle such that the tiny force from the mid sized object is just enough to pull it in.
Now bring back the gravitational force from a planet that is large compared to the mid sized object, and what changes. What changes is that the planet is more likely to attract the small particle than the mid sized object, so the average particle is now going to hit the planet not the mid sized object.
Now the only logical way to think of the debris field, without any other knowledge, is to think of it as a random distributions of particles that have random direction, and that means that we can also use averaging to try to get at least some grasp of what might happen. The could be more to the data though in that we may have an idea what the directions are as they may tend to be in a certain direction.

So i hope this sheds some light on my view on this and how i come to my estimation and prediction. As with any estimation it could be wrong. Just because of the assumption of what the model of the debris field should look like it could be wrong. There may be only 1 particle per 100 years in that vicinity. That is what we hope for, but that's not as logical as thinking of the debris field as being completely random (as well as being influenced by the local gravity field and the mid sized object).

So this can all be wrong, but it's an educated guess. We do this a lot in life otherwise for many problems we would just throw our hands up and exclaim something like, "Gee we just dont know".

So for those who want to go with "We just dont konw" that's fine, but i think they will find they dont do this with many things in life they try to make some sort of guess based on some sort of facts that may be strong or weak but nonetheless better than nothing.

I think i speak for everyone though when i say i hope this doesnt happen again.

 

Not sure what you mean there but since there is disagreement why dont we just wait and see what happens and it it gets hit a lot more times soon you own me $100 cash (ha ha, just kidding of course).

You should really stop sitting on your hands and call NASA. And let them know about your skills of interpreting single point data into a trend - and intuiting the size of debris in a field better. You should hop onto LinkedIn and see how you can turn your third degree connections into a direct line so you can save the telescope. Don't leave your skills hidden from the scientific public.

 

Oh ok yes thank you. What i meant there comes from a very common expression in tournament chess. Because sometimes players tend to make a move as soon as they see it might be good, the expression came about "If you see a good move, sit on your hands and look for a better one". The part "sit on your hands" is because if you were sitting on your hands you would not be able to move a chess piece just yet, so you would give it some more thought first. In our discussion this could be similar if we sit on our hands we can not type out another word just yet until we give it more thought

Good expression which is especially fitting for me because I play a lot of chess! I'm my case most of my blunders are a result of simply not looking at the whole board! In many ways debate is like a chess game which must be planned to have the planned and proper effect.

Someone posted this image that I like for debate. I think it's psychologically incomplete but still an excellent baseline to argue on.



Also, I have a hard time with any statement that includes the 'we' like "we won (our team)" or "we know earth has an iron core" because it's effectively taking contribution and passing them off as if we ourselves contributed. I see this all the time with scientists which in my opinion comes out because of ego. If ego was not part of any of us, we would only want to help each learn and not resort to means that should be below us. And to paraphrase my hero, "If two people disagree, they should argue until they finally agree OR they agree that the answer is beyond them."

This has context because this topic is discussing what is one of the most complex combined efforts yet of man. The line from fact to conjecture becomes nonexistent to many people for some reason (ego????)

I'm off topic already I just hate seeing strong minds resort to anything that isn't helping humanity and this includes basic feelings of worth and acceptance.