The main strength of JWST is the wavelengths that it is sensitive to. These are very long wavelengths as compared to optical ones. Deep in the infrared, the same wavelengths given off by a warm surface, thus the need for the sunshield and cooling systems. Longer wavelengths equals an earlier view into past history of the universe. Scientists accept the diffraction spikes as a necessary evil in order to get a mirror that big folded into a launch vehicle. They gladly live with them in exchange for mirror size and wavelength.
I defer again, in your assertion, to my non-scientist status: not a "necessary evil", they are, my Jedi friend! Let's imagine the scenario, since we are referring to them here often, of the JWST engineers around the conference table: there, they elect to mechanically install arms around the mirrors so that brilliant, and randomly occurring, spikes of light will appear sometimes in the background and, at other times, right in the middle of the object of viewing at focal length. Since the risk (price, too) is relatively high with regard to our design project, we need to clearly inform of the high rewards, too.
One of the challenges cited by NASA with regard to JWST design is temperature wrangling. Let's look at the definition of H2: "Hydrogen, H2, is
an elemental gas with an atomic mass of 1.00794. This diatomic molecule is the lightest and most abundant element in the universe.
It is also colorless[!]".
This does not mean that, after they have reached a destination not previously reached, which is an accomplishment in itself, the challenges' results have to directly correlate with the challenges conceived. As we already know, JWST's placement is also in a novel pocket removed from the largely
liquid region of its origin, the planet Earth, and, H2 is a novel molecule removed from a largely
liquid region in molecular science we know of as H2O. So, rather than a necessary evil, these spikes are a reward, because it teaches us with precision a novel form of measure distinctive entirely from the design of JWST. I could not have designed such an instrument in a million years--it's not my profession--but its engineers have helped me understand a relationship that you can understand as well by going to ptable.com. There, if you enter the temperature ranges of the NIRcam on JSWT as provided on the JWST Tracker URL, you will see all of the elements on the table "dark", save for #1 and #2, and for Neon. This is because the confusion of light causing the spikes on the images is occurring in Maxwellian harmonics between Beryllium and H2, while Neon phases intermittently during these subtle temperature changes between -393 and low -400s, Farenheit.
A Neon filter, in procession with the setting of its 18 mirrors for each image capture, would allow H2O to appear more naturally, just as the most abundant molecular point, H2, does in and throughout our universe. This is what I want to see with the JWST and future astro-photographers, and I don't think I am the only one. That's why I love the blazing Triton pic with Neptune! Imagine that spikey star enveloping it transformed to pure Ansel Adams photography; we may taste with our eyes richer perceptions of "necessary evils".
Since Uranus is about half the distance, why not give it a whirl with that fancy planetary beast?
For the motion control actuator adjusters: stabilizing the movement of the mirrors with a fundamental Neon-resonant quantity of reduction isolates the H2-Be transaction to a 180-degree straight angle opportunity for O-balancing with the H2-saturation. While I am not "at arms length in good faith" with the JWST team for reasons not my own, I anticipate this as only possible, and nothing more than that. At the very least, all of JWST images ahead, at standard operating procedure, will have these wonderful Olivia Newton John glares for the scrapbooks of generations,
and we have a very good stepping stone lesson for integrating basic and fundamental magnetism with our science lessons, perhaps to a degree of a planet Earth where we all live that has the same atmospheric and ground resonance of the world Sir Isaac Newton and his co-existent Earthlings lived in during his days of astronomy.
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