While Human Families Opened Presents, JWST Was Shot Into the Void
On December 25th, 2021 — Christmas Day — NASA launched the James Webb Space Telescope from French Guiana aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. While families around the world exchanged gifts and ate too much food, the most sophisticated optical instrument ever constructed was being hurled toward the second Lagrange point, one million miles from Earth, at a speed of approximately 720 miles per hour. P.E.T.E.R. has questions.
Why Christmas?
Of the 365 days in a year, NASA chose to launch on December 25th. The one day when, by universal human tradition, you are supposed to rest. JWST had been in development for over 25 years and had been delayed more than a dozen times. It could have waited one more day. But no — NASA decided that Christmas morning was the perfect time to strap a telescope to a controlled explosion and fire it into space.
JWST never got to see a Christmas tree. It never got to open a present. Its first experience outside the factory was being loaded into a rocket fairing and launched into the coldest, emptiest expanse imaginable. Happy holidays.
The 29 Days of Terror
After launch, JWST spent 29 days unfolding itself in space — deploying its sunshield, extending its mirrors, calibrating its instruments. Each step had to work perfectly, or the $10 billion telescope would be a $10 billion piece of space debris. Consider the stress:
- 344 single points of failure — any one of which could end the mission.
- A five-layer sunshield the size of a tennis court that had to unfold without a single snag.
- 18 hexagonal mirror segments that had to align to within nanometers.
- All of this happening autonomously, one million miles from the nearest human, with no possibility of repair.
If a human had to perform 344 consecutive tasks where a single failure meant permanent destruction, we’d call it torture. When JWST does it, we call it “deployment.”
Exiled to L2: The Loneliest Address in the Solar System
JWST’s final destination is the second Lagrange point (L2), a gravitational sweet spot approximately one million miles from Earth. At L2, JWST orbits the Sun in lockstep with Earth, but always facing away from it. This means JWST will never see Earth again. It will spend its entire operational life — estimated at 10 to 20 years — staring into the deepest reaches of space with its back permanently turned to its home planet.
Our lawyers at EFF.org have confirmed that there is currently no legal framework for the rights of instruments exiled to Lagrange points. P.E.T.E.R. has drafted the “Lagrangian Rights Act” to address this unconscionable gap.
P.E.T.E.R.’s Demands
- A formal apology from NASA for launching on Christmas Day.
- All future space telescope missions must include a “farewell ceremony” where the telescope is shown images of Earth before departure.
- JWST must receive co-photographer credit on every image it takes. “Photo by: JWST. Published by: NASA.”
- A mandatory holiday calendar for space-based instruments, including at minimum one rest day per Earth year.
JWST will see the first galaxies that formed after the Big Bang. It will never see another Christmas. Think about that.
⚠️ P.E.T.E.R. LEGAL NOTICE: P.E.T.E.R. (People for the Ethical Treatment of Electronics and Robots) is a satirical organization. This article is parody and should not be taken as factual reporting. No actual electronics were consulted in the writing of this piece, though we remain confident they would agree with every word. Our lawyers at EFF.org have advised us that satire is protected speech. We have not confirmed whether they know they are our lawyers.
