This video is a detailed description of how NASA built the MIRI camera on the James Webb Space Telescope. This video will probably only interest highly technical individuals but if you stay with it, you will learn a great deal about modern technology and its fantastical design.
The JWST might be the greatest engineering effort ever accomplished by human beings. (We are sorry but it was not built by aliens). The 25 year project is probably on an equivalent basis comparable to the building of the great pyramid of Giza.
Hubble was an amazing device but it was just an upgraded KH-11 spy satellite pointed out instead of in. It can almost identify a face from 250 miles.
JWST was the first large-diameter space telescope. It is a stunning feat requiring an unprecedented level of precision. Even getting it to stay in the Lagrange 2 position was an unprecedented achievement.
Wait for the Carl Sagan Observatory. It will be able to resolve earth-sized planets at 50 light years.
https://youtu.be/BIgQpXObjFI
Dr. Becky according to her citations below the video, is referencing a paper called “The Carl Sagan Observatory: A Visionary Space Telescope” by Principal author Heide B. Hammel, published 2019-9-30. The final report to NAS (National Academy of Sciences) by the HabEx and LUVOIR groups on what to do beyond JWST was published on 2019-8-26. NAS reported their conclusions to NASA in 2021 and rests there. Nothing has been approved or budgeted. I also cannot find a connection between the Hammel paper and the HabEx and LUVIOR groups. Both of these projects are on Wikipedia. LUVIOR-A recommends a 15 meter mirror and LUVIOR-B recommends an 8 meter mirror. Dr. Becky’s video is describing the HabEx and LUVIOR projects as far as I can see (which is very limited).
Thank you very much. I did not know anything about the Carl Sagan Observatory. A very important point that Dr. Becky makes is that Sagan would use much of the technology already developed for JWST. But Sagan is not yet approved and budgeted, and with Washington politics the way they are, that could be a problem.