from Hacker News

Northrop Grumman Employees Receive NASA’s Highest Honors for Building the JWST

by rm_ng on 11/10/22, 3:24 PM with 33 comments

• by wordsarelies on 11/10/22, 5:46 PM

  I know it's stupid, and at the time political, but I keep my certificate that came with my NASA award. As a kid who always wanted to be an astronaut, helping the space program enough that they give you a postit note that says "thank you" in government speak is still my highest honor.

• by Robotbeat on 11/10/22, 5:35 PM

  One thing that will be memory holed because of the ultimate successful launch is just the MASSIVE overpromising on schedule and budget. Nearly criminal, in fact. Billions of dollars wasted and countless valuable missions that had to be sacrificed.

  The team (I think under new management) eventually delivered a successful launch, so no one will remember.

  I do think the final team who got it turned around and actually launched absolutely do deserve credit, I don’t want to deny that at all. But the opportunity cost was absolutely astounding.

  (Will add sources)

  EDIT: this 2018 article in The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/nasa-jam...

  Remember it was supposed to launch in 2007 for just $500 million when conceived and 2010 and $1 billion (respectively) when approved.

  Didn’t launch until the tail end of 2021 for $10 billion!

• by swozey on 11/10/22, 5:21 PM

  Very well deserved. I thought the Snoopy award was the top award but apparently not. My grandfather is in the NASA hall of fame for the Apollo mission and was awarded a Snoopy. He was also part of Challenger but that's another story.

• by jwuphysics on 11/10/22, 6:46 PM

  Congratulations to the whole team! I know this celebrates the achievements by select Northrop Grumman employees, but the JWST success deserves to be shared among all the teams: NASA, ESA CSA, U Arizona, Ball Aerospace, L3Harris, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and the Space Telescope Science Institute.

  I work at the latter institution and I believe two individuals here were also awarded this honor.

• by junon on 11/10/22, 5:18 PM

  Super well deserved. Incredible accomplishment of humankind.

• by d3ckard on 11/10/22, 5:21 PM

  Thanks to the everyone involved, you did a great job!

• by MichaelZuo on 11/10/22, 5:07 PM

  Congrats to the team that built JWST!

• by begueradj on 11/10/22, 6:39 PM

  That reminds me of what Whitney Webb wrote and said:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=w-d3jFIGxdQ&ab_c...

• by subsubzero on 11/10/22, 6:34 PM

  I thought the "silver snoopy" award was NASA's highest honor? I guess that is more of an astronaut award vs. a scientist/engineering award.

• by ourmandave on 11/10/22, 6:08 PM

  Do they get to take a victory lap around moon?

• by tibbydudeza on 11/10/22, 4:58 PM

  Well deserved.