In 1993, NASA proved the basic technology for resupply of helium on the Space Shuttle. The project was called Superfluid Helium On-Orbit Transfer (SHOOT) and flew on STS-57, Endeavour. It was also the first use of an AI system in space (to automate long running transfers while diagnosing and recovering from issues).

Plans to use the SHOOT technology in SIRTF and other telescopes never materialized. There is a tradeoff in enabling a telescope for resupply. Versus a non-refillable telescope, a telescope designed for resupply will provide less science (resupply forces a low earth orbit which is a poorer vantage point for most missions and a given supply of helium will be consumed faster). In an era of expensive space transport, resupply missions were not cost effective.

http://istd.gsfc.nasa.gov/cryo/SHOOT/shoot.html

It is ironic to reference a dialect of Lisp, Clojure, in an argument against development environments.

Many Lisp's tightly integrated and pioneered the precursors to modern IDE's. Lisps developed by MIT camp (CADR, LMI, Symbolics and Xerox (D-machines) were deeply intertwined with the pre-cursors to modern IDE's. This was followed by Lucid, Franz, Allegro, and others. The functionality of these systems were ahead of their time and had jaw dropping functionality just as bitmap displays were coming into viability.

Simple syntax or not, good development tools amplify a good developer. Opinionated developers debate tools, emacs versus vi, and spaces versus tabs. Bad tools and bad developers....