In article ,
Rodney Kelp wrote:
That's ok, the NGST will be many times better.
For some applications, not for all of them. (No UV capability...

If they don't make the NGST better, higher quality, and more capable what's
the point? Is there no progress any more?

There was a decision, very early in the design process of NGST/JWST, that
all the interesting/fun astronomy was going to be happening in the IR, and
so there was no need for UV and little need for visible wavelengths.

This does have design implications: the longer wavelengths mean more
relaxed optical requirements, easier to meet with deployable mirrors and
such. (This is also why adaptive-optics systems on Earth-based telescopes
mostly work in the IR at present.) In other words, if you're willing to
build a telescope that's IR-only, you can make it rather bigger with the
same technology... and that means more light-gathering power and better
ability to study very faint, very distant objects.

So, it wasn't a grossly unreasonable tradeoff; it had important virtues.
It may have been the wrong decision but it wasn't stupid.

But there *are* astronomers who do think it was the wrong decision.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |