nytesky parent
JWST cost $10B. The launch was expensive at $1.5B; but getting that down to $750M won’t really change the availability.
I'm a firm believer that if the mass and volume constraints were relaxed the design of such an instrument could be greatly simplified.
Hmm, I didn’t consider that, very good point. With 10x the volume, maybe the mirror and sunshine origami could have been avoided or much simpler. I wonder how to figure out how much the cost was because of that complicated mechanics…
The Europa Clipper mission saved $3B+ just by switching from SLS to Falcon Heavy.