A Historical Repeat on a Galactic Scale | Part 3: Hope
How do you get 6,500kg or approximately 2.5 tons of sensitive scientific instruments into a space having a diameter of 15 ft and length of 53 ft?
Answer: Origami
Origami is the ancient Japanese art of folding paper into various animal shapes. So what does Origami have to do with the James Webb Telescope you ask? From the outset of the project, the Webb Telescope was designed to be folded into many layers to form an elongated cube to fit in the cargo bay of the Ariane 5 rocket. The telescope weighs in at about 2.5 tons and when fully deployed the telescope is 69.5 ft by 46.5 ft with a height of 28 feet.
The Webb Telescope took ten years of planning and building by over 10,000 people across three primary space organizations, CSA (Canadian Space Agency) ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA at a cost of $10 billion dollars.
The technology comprising the Webb Telescope reads like a Star Trek blueprint. The sunshield membrane material’s thickness is 1/10,000 the diameter of a human hair. It’s camera technology is comprised of near-infrared and mid-infrared detectors with lightweight cryogenic mirrors, microshutter arrays, cryogenic detector readout application-specific integrated circuits, cryogenic heat switches, wavefront sensing and control, large precision cryogenic structure, and the MIRI cryocooler. All working in an environmental temperature of -400 F.
This thing is true science fiction! Not just the technology which is one off technology and uniquely made for this space telescope, but also for its mission to go boldly looking back in time by 13.5 billion years! You ask, how can they do that? The answer is light. Light travels at 186,000 miles a second and the infrared “images” are historic records of that time and place. Webb can interpret the infrared light into images and chemical substances from the past. Pretty wild! Additionally, the telescope will provide images of the first galaxies formed and observe unexplored planets around distant stars. Being near – infrared will allow for the discovery and study of planetary systems similar to our own, analyze the molecular composition of extrasolar planets’ atmospheres and directly image Jupiter sized planets orbiting nearby stars.
The Webb Telescope is in a position approximately 1.5 million miles from earth and will be in a stationary relationship with earth while they both orbit around the sun. This position, which has the “map” coordinate known as L2, will enable Webb to go out into the universe to look back in time. This is the stuff sci-fi stories are written about!
All this is made possible from an ancient art form named origami. One of the traditions with Origami is making paper cranes as gifts during the holidays. There is a saying with Origami, if you fold 1,000 cranes you can have a wish. I’m inviting anyone wanting to join me in folding 1,000 cranes, to email me at info@fricknfrackgames.com and wish for the safe and successful voyage of the James Webb Space Telescope.
