IT'S GONNA BE A BIGGIE: NASA announced today the winner of the Next Generation Space Telescope project.

The new telescope, named after Apollo-era adminstrator James Webb, will be parked at L2, be shaded from the sun by an inflatable shield the size of a tennis court (to enhance infrared sensitivity), and carry a mirror of at least 20ft in diameter.

Hopefully they'll do some systems checks this time around, before they launch the thing...because if it's at L2, how exactly do we repair it? There is no way a Space Shuttle can get out there, and it's doubtful the telescope would be transferred back to LEO due to size and the needless loss of observation time it would entail. Perhaps no servicing capability will be required, considering the thing is much cheaper than the Hubble ($824.8M is darn near expendible, by NASA standards) and isn't being built with justifying the Shuttle's existence in mind. If something goes wrong with it, it's an expensive failure to be sure, but not so expensive that the Agency couldn't afford to build another one from spares.

On the other hand...if it does require servicing, this could provide an incentive/justification/rationalization for building an orbital transfer vehicle. Note that L2 is further away than the Moon -- a manned OTV capable of reaching L2 would thus be useful for lunar orbit missions as well.