For full effect, you need Raymond Scott's Powerhouse playing in the background when watching this (or any other) Rub Goldberg machine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9-7uLg-DZU

You keep using this word "digital". I do not think it means what you think it means.

That's not how optics work. You need to image what you want to see onto your detector.

To test this: remove the lens from your DSLR and take a photo. You'll get nothing but blur.

No. Not in the sense that it would sit in Hubble-type orbit for a year while it's tested, and astronauts go to turn wrenches and adjust things that aren't right. And yes, I suspect that would much more than "a bit of extra time and effort." It's probably completely at odds to being launched to L2, and would be an incredible cost and complexity adder.

But it has pre-flight testing and a lengthy in-space verification process as it reaches L2.

Actuated primary mirror segments, actuated secondary mirror, and a wavefront sensor system enable it to self-align. While it's much more complicated, and unreachable for servicing, it's also much more flexible for on-orbit self corrections.

JWST has spectroscopy e.g. NIRSPec = Near Infra-Red Spectrophotometer.

The JWST is more about massive light gathering (seeing closer to the dawn of the universe than ever before) than pretty visible-light images.

They're not. Just the one.

Ooh! Look! They've invented paper and the $0.99 solar-powered calculator!

HP's already announced and seemingly canceled amazing new Win7 tablet. They've bought WebOS and then suggested that they're going to stuff it in printers, so forget about tablets for now. So what are they doing here? More stuff that doesn't exist or won't leave the lab? Or won't be sold until I've already bought my iPad 2?

Why don't these companies mimic Apple where it matters? Don't rumor, tease, prototype, spin, et cyk? Shut up until you've got something work talking about...and then release it!

You're buying outdated, conventional desktop platform for kids that will be developing on Mobile / Touch OS systems in 8-12 years.

That is, you can't predict the future, so get an appropriate system to teach them fundamentals, problem-solving, and some immediate skills.

While you're right that NASA use of Mac OS X is much higher, it's not true industry wide. The *only* people with Macs are the NASA employees. Everyone else, working at conventional companies like Boeing and Northrop Grumman use PCs.

This is not good or bad, it just is. NASA gives their technical people significant freedom in choosing their computer and software. But it's atypical. Everyone else buys Wintel systems.

(I'm a Ph.D. working on a NASA project through a major subcontractor. I just spent the week at a joint meeting with NASA, ESA, and industry reps for a NASA project.)