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NASA reveals delay for Hubble successor

195 points by okket 9y ago

Mononokay 9y ago
Why do articles involving the space program always go on about cost? When the military develops a plane for more than a hundred times over that, no one bats an eye. I have to wonder if the lack of exposure towards military spending is one of the reasons it gets so much funding.
- jacobsheehy 9y ago
  In the 1990's, a survey was done and found that something like 60% of Americans thought that the NASA budget was 25% of the entire federal budget (it's like 0.4% today). This is done very specifically by propaganda just like you mention to make Americans think that science, space, research is stupid and expensive and we shouldn't do it. Republican politicians especially will use logical fallacies to try to justify reducing our understanding of the world and to justify falling economically behind other countries and powers. It is a case of anti-intellectualism and a strong desire for guns, war, etc and to shun science and basic research. It is born from greed and selfishness and probably also fear of the unknown. NASA is and has always been really really cheap for what it does. But there has been a multiple-decades-long battle to convince Americans otherwise. Edit: Here's a citation on that survey I think: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1000/1 http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1000/1
  - baldfat 9y ago
    I say your 98% wrong because you believe people even think about NASA and science at all. Only 2% of people actually spend time to care about these programs and believe that it is important to their day to day lives. Most people just push these things off the radar. Republicans make the poor and working poor the enemy of the America's middle class. People are fine with CEOs making millions but you say $15 an hour and they will go crazy. Talk about trillions of dollars in debit and they believe welfare checks are the cause.
  - Sharlin 9y ago
    That’s a bit too harsh. NASA supporters and detractors straddle party lines. There are many Democrats who feel that space exploration is a waste of money that would be better spent on social programs. And many Republicans that are very pro-NASA for bragging rights and national security implications if not other reasons.
    - jacobsheehy 9y ago
      > There are many Democrats who feel that space exploration is a waste of money that would be better spent on social programs. That may be so, but I've never met one or heard from one. They would seem to me to be such a small minority I did not even know of their existence until today despite being both a democrat and a fan of space and science research. > And many Republicans that are very pro-NASA for bragging rights and national security implications if not other reasons. "For bragging rights?" But I'm talking about support for basic research and science in general. If they show support for NASA publicly for "bragging rights" but then vote party-line items on bills that hurt science research then they are not actually Pro-NASA or pro-science at all. I would even say that's true if they are not extremely vocal every single day about how bad most Republican policies are for science in general.
      - will4274 9y ago
        > That may be so, but I've never met one or heard from one You've never heard Barack Obama speak on TV? http://www.nbcnews.com/id/35209628/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/nasa-grieves-over-canceled-program http://www.nbcnews.com/id/35209628/ns/technology_and_science.... > "For bragging rights?" 1980/1990s Republicans were pro-NASA to the extent that it proved America was the best country in the world. At that time, Democrats were mostly anti-NASA, believing the money could be better spent on other things. Then, both parties underfunded NASA, but Democrats tended to underfund NASA more severely than Republicans. In the mid 2000s, as Republican opposition to global warming and evolution grew, Democrats became more mixed on NASA, as Republican opposition to NASA could be spun as part of a larger "Republicans are anti-science" narrative (a narrative that remains popular today). Simultaneously, Republican concerns about the deficit grew. Truth be told, the situation is not that different today than in the 80s and 90s. Twenty years ago, neither party funded NASA fully, but the Republicans were slightly more willing. Today, neither party will fund NASA fully, but the Democrats are slightly more willing. There are cynical reasons to think that greater willingness is political in both cases.
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    FYI, at least according to NdT Republicans tend to fund the sciences more than Democrats. https://youtu.be/x7Q8UvJ1wvk https://youtu.be/x7Q8UvJ1wvk
    - jacobsheehy 9y ago
      I'm unable to watch the video right now, I'll check it out in a bit. But I can say right away that you are not responding at all to what I said. I'm aware that Republicans love to fund science, but usually that only happens when it aligns specifically with industry, economics, business, revenue, etc. I very specifically wrote in my post about 'basic science' - that is, science research that is done for the purpose of science research and has no likely vision or anything to be commercialized. That research is extremely important, and is the kind that NASA does a lot (especially stuff like JWST) and is the kind of science that Republicans specifically do not like to fund. I'll watch the video in a bit.
      - Consultant32452 9y ago
        >That research is extremely important, and is the kind that NASA does a lot (especially stuff like JWST) and is the kind of science that Republicans specifically do not like to fund. He specifically calls out NASA as getting more funding under Republicans.
        jacobsheehy 9y ago
        Okay, but you're still missing my point. It's not about the specific amount of money that is spent. Ever. It's about what the money is spent on and where it goes. I very much suspect that the Republicans who are in favour of increasing NASA's budget are doing it to secure 'jobs' in their own districts and are not doing out of the goodness in their hearts or their desire for more knowledge in the USA about science or space. They often say as much in their speeches. "We will bring jobs!" etc. NASA is a means to an end for a lot of Republicans specifically, as they focus on economy and jobs from the spending bills, not the resources developed or the knowledge learned or the science experiments done or the kids they have inspired to become engineers or anything like that at all. Republicans rarely support basic research, even at NASA.
  - swarnie_ 9y ago
    After all NASA has achieved its a shame its not funded like it was in the 60's. Maybe the prospect of China and India in space will jump start the politicians. We might end up with the correct result but for the wrong reasons.
    - craftyguy 9y ago
      As someone who doesn't give two cents about 'national prestige', I sincerely hope some other country picks up the slack and does great things in space. The US is certainly not heading down a road that leads to renewed leadership in this area, but hey we'll have some border walls soon to keep out them nasty criminals!
    - kamaal 9y ago
      >>Maybe the prospect of China and India in space will jump start the politicians. Indian here. You are have looked at it the wrong way. India spends very little on ISRO, almost a negligible amount of money is given to ISRO. ISRO has achieved a lot over the years. But its no way close to what NASA has done or is doing.
  - mynameishere 9y ago
    Before attacking huge swathes of the population especially about their ignorance, try doing the tiniest bit of research yourself. NASA has always had high approval ratings--just below the CDC: http://news.gallup.com/poll/121886/CDC-Tops-Agency-Ratings-Federal-Reserve-Board-Lowest.aspx http://news.gallup.com/poll/121886/CDC-Tops-Agency-Ratings-F... I think you will find that people's ignorance about budget particulars are reasonable--it's simply not a day-to-day concern of anybody outside of the GAO or similar bodies. But to say that people are anti-intellectual is just wrong. People are fond of the CDC and NASA, and if NASA's budget was wrongly said to be 25 percent, it probably reflects people's misunderstanding about the good government does (that is, they think it does more good than in reality).
    - jacobsheehy 9y ago
      > Before attacking huge swathes of the population especially about their ignorance Wait, what? I never did that! The closest thing to an 'attack' I can imagine anyone reading from my post would have to have been about > Republican politicians which is surely a few thousand people at the most, it has got to be like 0.001% of the population that I said something negative about. > But to say that people are anti-intellectual is just wrong. Some people are. Some very important, prominent and influential people are in fact anti-intellectual and that is not wrong to say. Many Republican politicians are proudly anti-intellectual. They even say that. The GOP in some states like Texas specifically call out education as a problem in their party platform documents. They are, as a group, overall an anti-intellectual group. That is not a false statement, that is composed of their own words. > it probably reflects people's misunderstanding about the good government does Yes, that's my point. People have been brainwashed over decades to assume that the government does no good. > (that is, they think it does more good than in reality). I'm not sure I follow - I've never met a person in my life who thinks the government does good overall, certainly not more good than bad.
      - xamuel 9y ago
        People of any party tend to be anti-scientific when the science in question contradicts their party line. Democrats are as guilty as Republicans.
  - mrastro 9y ago
    I don't know if this is the survey you meant to cite but the 2007 survey [1] has similar results. I disagree with your inference that "this is done very specifically by propaganda just like you mention to make Americans think that science, space, research is stupid and expensive and we shouldn't do it". I think this has more to do with people being very bad at estimating any large figures than people thinking NASA has no benefit. The survey itself notes that "public opinion is less focused the cost side of the equation and more oriented toward the benefits". NASA had a 68% approval rating in 2015 [2]. For better or worst, public approval and funding are not always strongly linked. In this particular case, I personally find it sad that funding is split on party lines. Like you, I wish I could reallocate some of billions of dollars going to the military to projects like this which somehow embody the human spirit. [1] http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1000/1 http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1000/1 [2] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/02/03/nasa-popularity-still-sky-high/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/02/03/nasa-popular...
  - pishpash 9y ago
    Or they want it done secretly by the military.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    "In the 1990's, a survey was done and found that something like 60% of Americans thought that the NASA budget was 25% of the entire federal budget (it's like 0.4% today)" Of the remaining 75% at least 50% is spent on foreign aid :-)
    - bzbarsky 9y ago
      I know it was meant to be a joke, about "foreign aid", but if you haven't seen https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/13/17096732/voter-misinformation-williamson https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/13/17096732/v... you should. Turns out voters aren't as daft on "foreign aid" as is popularly believed by the political commentariat.
      - maxxxxx 9y ago
        When I listen to my neighbor he thinks that welfare is around 60% of budget, foreign aid 20%, social security/medicare 10% and maybe 5% goes to defense.
        bzbarsky 9y ago
        The correct number for "defense" is 16-20% or so depending on how you count veterans' benefits. But again, it's worth asking yourself how much of that your neighbor is effectively allocating to "defense" and how much to "foreign aid". Because the US military sure doesn't spend that much time actually defending the US recently... The "welfare" vs "social security/medicare" numbers there are off, of course (just about backwards, though if you count Medicaid as "welfare" that puts an 11% floor on the "welfare" number right there).
  - mlindner 9y ago
    Holy strawman batman. Yes everything is literally the fault of Republican politicians. You forget that Democrat politicians care just as little about NASA if not even less. Politicians care that its "made here". Support for NASA is entirely bipartisan with supporters and opponents on both sides of the isle.
  - FPGAhacker 9y ago
    It’s a case of grandstanding. It’s absurd to think about. The annual budget of nasa is less than the monthly interest on our national debt. Well two months.
- adventured 9y ago
  First of all, everyone has been batting an eye about the F35 cost since its earliest days. It never gets discussed without the price tag being a key point of contention. The R&D cost to develop the F35 isn't more than a hundred times $8 billion. You're making a bizarre comparison. There's a big gap between saying the F35 program is too expensive (it obviously is), and comparing the 30 year cost of building and maintaing 3,500 planes to one telescope.
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    Oh, how about the F22? It's not 100x more the cost, but it was ridiculously expensive to develop (~$66bn), only ~200 were made, and it will almost certainly not be in service for 30 years.
    - Mtinie 9y ago
      A question for those close to the program or who work in tangential fields: Did the F-22 program generate benefits to industrial manufacturing practices or increase knowledge within the material sciences domain with value beyond the tangible, per-unit costs? Edit: grammar
    - adventured 9y ago
      The F22 will be in service for 25-30 years very likely, from the first build to the last flight. Look at how long we've been flying various F16s. Even if we move them to a domestic defensive role with the air national guard toward the later years. The F22 is an extraordinary plane. Their primary mistake was not building several hundred more while the production lines were up and squeezing the production costs down if possible. The F35 is a dog by comparison to that plane. With the F35, its cost projections are mostly a joke anyway. There's no scenario where even half the 3,500 estimate will ever be built. A thousand would be a surprising build number for the US. They're up to maybe 300 now. They'll pre-emptively shut the program production down and move on to the next thing.
      - craftyguy 9y ago
        > Their primary mistake was not building several hundred more while the production lines were up and squeezing the production costs down if possible Well, yea, this discussion is about high-cost government programs, and the fact that they didn't do things like this to reduce production costs is kind of the point.. Nevermind that such an aircraft may not even be necessary.
- cc81 9y ago
  Really? Look up some articles about the F35 or Zumwalt.
- DubiousPusher 9y ago
  I think it's as simple as the fact that there's a much more embedded and longer running social norm that the government should be willing to spend a lot of money for the sake of national defense. Because of this norm people see the spending as justified. The norm of the government being a major contributor to science is more recent and not as deeply embedded in people's minds. So it seems more frivolous.
- allengeorge 9y ago
  It reinforces peoples’ perceptions of “government waste” and the government spending on projects that “don’t help the average voter”.
- dboreham 9y ago
  Because all news is fake. Or at least, paid for by someone with an agenda.
- kamaal 9y ago
  >>When the military develops a plane for more than a hundred times over that, no one bats an eye. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning... Program cost: US $1.508 trillion Space missions come at chicken feed expense.
- eggpy 9y ago
  I mean that's patently not true. People have been complaining about the cost of developing the JSF for a decade[0] and there are a lot of people up in arms about the Navy's LCS[1] or Zumwalt destroyers[2] going on right now. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Strike_Fighter_program#Cost_overruns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Strike_Fighter_program#C... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littoral_combat_ship#Budget_overruns_and_deployments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littoral_combat_ship#Budget_ov... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer#Contro...
dingaling 9y ago
What really baffes me about megaprojects like the Webb telescope is that they do decades of research and design, build ONE and then disassemble the teams and jigs. Since all the design and tool-up costs are sunk, why not build two or three? Even just as components. Otherwise if we get to March 2020 and the launch fails, or the scope or shade doesn't deploy, that's $8 billion down the drain.
- adventured 9y ago
  The government occasionally does just that. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nasa-gets-military-spy-telescopes-for-astronomy/2012/06/04/gJQAsT6UDV_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nasa-...
- yiyus 9y ago
  > that's $8 billion down the drain Not really. The amount of scientific and technological developments that we get even from failed missions is substantial. When starting a new project, all the findings from previous projects are not ignored. What you are proposing is not necessarily a bad idea but, if that was the case, I would expect some comment saying: why do they construct three equal telescopes when we could use all that money and man-power to build three different ones that would help us much more?
  - dingaling 9y ago
    That's a fair point regarding progress regardless of outcome. But starting a new project to build on that basis is going to be a lot tougher if there's no "look at the pretty pictures" Hubble-effect to sway budgeteers. To extend it ab absurdium, it does remind me of the joke about the theoretical physicist going back to bed when he finds his house aflame, because he invested in a fire extinguisher so a solution exists.
  - jonhendry18 9y ago
    Perhaps it could be designed so that, if the first telescope reaches orbit and works, the extras could be partially dismantled and large subsystems repurposed in a new satellite. Take out the optics package and replace it with something else. Keep the power distribution, solar panels, and other things. If nothing else the intelligence agencies could probably come up with a use for it.
cromwellian 9y ago
I really fear for this project. Because if it blows up on launch, misses an orbit, or has a failure to deploy, or some flaw, basically decades have been lost. As another commentor said, the marginal cost of these things must be must cheaper. Why aren't they just launching new iterations like every year or so. Rather than starting from scratch after the HST, there should have been an HST 2.0, HST 3.0, a whole bunch of marginal iterations. This would create an efficient pipeline around producing many of these one-off specialized parts. Building the mirrors would become a pipeline of incremental improvements instead of 2-decade redesigns. I feel like if Elon Musk ran this project, he'd have built 5 different versions already, 3 of them would have failed, we would have learned something useful, and two of them would be in space delivering 2x the science.
- adventured 9y ago
  NASA has an HST 2.0. Two of them. They're sitting in storage, and they cost NASA absolutely nothing out of its budget to develop.
  - cromwellian 9y ago
    Than why not launch them? I mean, isn't HST oversubscribed and wouldn't having 3x observing time a net boon for the science community?
    - adventured 9y ago
      I doubt there's any way to easily estimate the cost, but the two HST-superior telescopes NASA was given by the NRO, need to be made science-ready. There are no instruments on them. Say for example that the cost would be $500m to $1 billion over several years to get them ready, then another $1 or $2 billion over ten years to operate them both. If you're NASA and you have $23 billion to spend per year average over that time, do you invest into the two telescopes and divert resources, or stick with HST until its end and focus on Webb. Obviously if the US Government were behaving more rational, NASA would be given the resources to prep these telescopes and launch them. They're exceptional gear going to waste, surely we could task something interesting for them.
DubiousPusher 9y ago
Darn. Well, I'm still very much looking forward to finding out what the atmospheres of some of these exoplanets are made of. Hopefully there isn't another attempt to kill the project politically.
_ph_ 9y ago
This is pretty sad to hear. The Webb telescope is highly anticipated, not only becaue it has a 3x larger mirror than Hubble, but because it is capable of observing in the infrared range, something no earth based telescope is able to due to atmosphere absorption. This would open a huge treasure trove for astronomy and cosmology.
- Tepix 9y ago
  It's mirror has a 6.5m diameter vs 2.4m for Hubble. That's a 25sqm collecting area vs 4.5sqm for Hubble. The area is more than 5 times as large. Infrared light is absorbed by the water in the atmosphere. There are infrared telescopes on earth, they are located in high elevations in dry places.
  - _ph_ 9y ago
    I was referring to the mirror diameter. Of course, the area is even much larger. And infrared telescopes on high elevations are certainly better than telescopes on low ground, still the atmosphere is a big barieer. For that reason the SOFIA telescope was built into a 747, as the airplane gets up to almost 15 kilometers and thus the observation conditions in the infrared range are much better than any ground based observatory. Obviously, an airplane isn't the best platform to mount a telescope. The Webb telescope should be able to provide a way better view into the infrared range than any telescope available so far.
randomerr 9y ago
Isn't it only being delayed a year? In the grand scheme of things that isn't much time.
- Tepix 9y ago
  This is not the first delay. In 2002, NASA awarded the $824.8 million prime contract for the NGST, now renamed the James Webb Space Telescope, to TRW. The design called for a descoped 6.1-meter (20 ft) primary mirror and a launch date of 2010.
supernova87a 9y ago
Has anyone seen a report or link to details of the findings that led to the delay decision? There are like 5000 people working on this thing and I would think they have to issue a report to explain a significant delay.
nepotism2018 9y ago
Finding out what is causing the dimming light of star KIC 8462852 is worth every penny...said nobody
maxxxxx 9y ago
If a project is delayed many times at work I usually think that something is fundamentally wrong with it and they can't figure it out. Could something like this be going on here?
- UncleEntity 9y ago
  Well, they have one shot at this so it has to be 100% perfectly correct because once it's gone it's gone. I, for one, would much rather have them work out all the kinks on the ground than shoot it up into space before they're absolutely sure and then find out the thing is lost because they set a cotter pin at 28° instead of the required 32° so the heat shield didn't deploy. Though I'm sure if they successfully get the thing where it needs to be and there is a problem they can just send up some robots to fix the thing in another 20 years or so...
hulton 9y ago
Why do we trust and believe NASA?
- hulton 9y ago
  Why the down-vote? It is a simple question.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
bane 9y ago
In a post SpaceX world, with cheap(ish) launches a reality, even for large payloads, how does this change the design parameters for instruments like this? I would imagine that since launches used to be so expensive, it put pressure to create exquisite instruments that (should) work perfectly and robustly for a long time. But if launch costs are dirt cheap you can put up any old thing for a year or two, burn it up and launch an improved model with newer tech...repeat as long as needed, or launch dozens of instruments instead. I feel like we're on the cusp of something here and mission profiles like this will feel like the ancient Phalanx-like relics of thought processes that no longer are relevant.
guelo 9y ago
$8 billion is nothing. We have tons of money as evidenced by the military getting an extra $61 billion yearly increase to their $700 billion budget.

195 points by okket 9y ago

Why do articles involving the space program always go on about cost? When the military develops a plane for more than a hundred times over that, no one bats an eye. I have to wonder if the lack of exposure towards military spending is one of the reasons it gets so much funding.

jacobsheehy 9y ago
In the 1990's, a survey was done and found that something like 60% of Americans thought that the NASA budget was 25% of the entire federal budget (it's like 0.4% today). This is done very specifically by propaganda just like you mention to make Americans think that science, space, research is stupid and expensive and we shouldn't do it. Republican politicians especially will use logical fallacies to try to justify reducing our understanding of the world and to justify falling economically behind other countries and powers. It is a case of anti-intellectualism and a strong desire for guns, war, etc and to shun science and basic research. It is born from greed and selfishness and probably also fear of the unknown. NASA is and has always been really really cheap for what it does. But there has been a multiple-decades-long battle to convince Americans otherwise. Edit: Here's a citation on that survey I think: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1000/1 http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1000/1
- baldfat 9y ago
  I say your 98% wrong because you believe people even think about NASA and science at all. Only 2% of people actually spend time to care about these programs and believe that it is important to their day to day lives. Most people just push these things off the radar. Republicans make the poor and working poor the enemy of the America's middle class. People are fine with CEOs making millions but you say $15 an hour and they will go crazy. Talk about trillions of dollars in debit and they believe welfare checks are the cause.
- Sharlin 9y ago
  That’s a bit too harsh. NASA supporters and detractors straddle party lines. There are many Democrats who feel that space exploration is a waste of money that would be better spent on social programs. And many Republicans that are very pro-NASA for bragging rights and national security implications if not other reasons.
  - jacobsheehy 9y ago
    > There are many Democrats who feel that space exploration is a waste of money that would be better spent on social programs. That may be so, but I've never met one or heard from one. They would seem to me to be such a small minority I did not even know of their existence until today despite being both a democrat and a fan of space and science research. > And many Republicans that are very pro-NASA for bragging rights and national security implications if not other reasons. "For bragging rights?" But I'm talking about support for basic research and science in general. If they show support for NASA publicly for "bragging rights" but then vote party-line items on bills that hurt science research then they are not actually Pro-NASA or pro-science at all. I would even say that's true if they are not extremely vocal every single day about how bad most Republican policies are for science in general.
    - will4274 9y ago
      > That may be so, but I've never met one or heard from one You've never heard Barack Obama speak on TV? http://www.nbcnews.com/id/35209628/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/nasa-grieves-over-canceled-program http://www.nbcnews.com/id/35209628/ns/technology_and_science.... > "For bragging rights?" 1980/1990s Republicans were pro-NASA to the extent that it proved America was the best country in the world. At that time, Democrats were mostly anti-NASA, believing the money could be better spent on other things. Then, both parties underfunded NASA, but Democrats tended to underfund NASA more severely than Republicans. In the mid 2000s, as Republican opposition to global warming and evolution grew, Democrats became more mixed on NASA, as Republican opposition to NASA could be spun as part of a larger "Republicans are anti-science" narrative (a narrative that remains popular today). Simultaneously, Republican concerns about the deficit grew. Truth be told, the situation is not that different today than in the 80s and 90s. Twenty years ago, neither party funded NASA fully, but the Republicans were slightly more willing. Today, neither party will fund NASA fully, but the Democrats are slightly more willing. There are cynical reasons to think that greater willingness is political in both cases.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  FYI, at least according to NdT Republicans tend to fund the sciences more than Democrats. https://youtu.be/x7Q8UvJ1wvk https://youtu.be/x7Q8UvJ1wvk
  - jacobsheehy 9y ago
    I'm unable to watch the video right now, I'll check it out in a bit. But I can say right away that you are not responding at all to what I said. I'm aware that Republicans love to fund science, but usually that only happens when it aligns specifically with industry, economics, business, revenue, etc. I very specifically wrote in my post about 'basic science' - that is, science research that is done for the purpose of science research and has no likely vision or anything to be commercialized. That research is extremely important, and is the kind that NASA does a lot (especially stuff like JWST) and is the kind of science that Republicans specifically do not like to fund. I'll watch the video in a bit.
    - Consultant32452 9y ago
      >That research is extremely important, and is the kind that NASA does a lot (especially stuff like JWST) and is the kind of science that Republicans specifically do not like to fund. He specifically calls out NASA as getting more funding under Republicans.
      - jacobsheehy 9y ago
        Okay, but you're still missing my point. It's not about the specific amount of money that is spent. Ever. It's about what the money is spent on and where it goes. I very much suspect that the Republicans who are in favour of increasing NASA's budget are doing it to secure 'jobs' in their own districts and are not doing out of the goodness in their hearts or their desire for more knowledge in the USA about science or space. They often say as much in their speeches. "We will bring jobs!" etc. NASA is a means to an end for a lot of Republicans specifically, as they focus on economy and jobs from the spending bills, not the resources developed or the knowledge learned or the science experiments done or the kids they have inspired to become engineers or anything like that at all. Republicans rarely support basic research, even at NASA.
- swarnie_ 9y ago
  After all NASA has achieved its a shame its not funded like it was in the 60's. Maybe the prospect of China and India in space will jump start the politicians. We might end up with the correct result but for the wrong reasons.
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    As someone who doesn't give two cents about 'national prestige', I sincerely hope some other country picks up the slack and does great things in space. The US is certainly not heading down a road that leads to renewed leadership in this area, but hey we'll have some border walls soon to keep out them nasty criminals!
  - kamaal 9y ago
    >>Maybe the prospect of China and India in space will jump start the politicians. Indian here. You are have looked at it the wrong way. India spends very little on ISRO, almost a negligible amount of money is given to ISRO. ISRO has achieved a lot over the years. But its no way close to what NASA has done or is doing.
- mynameishere 9y ago
  Before attacking huge swathes of the population especially about their ignorance, try doing the tiniest bit of research yourself. NASA has always had high approval ratings--just below the CDC: http://news.gallup.com/poll/121886/CDC-Tops-Agency-Ratings-Federal-Reserve-Board-Lowest.aspx http://news.gallup.com/poll/121886/CDC-Tops-Agency-Ratings-F... I think you will find that people's ignorance about budget particulars are reasonable--it's simply not a day-to-day concern of anybody outside of the GAO or similar bodies. But to say that people are anti-intellectual is just wrong. People are fond of the CDC and NASA, and if NASA's budget was wrongly said to be 25 percent, it probably reflects people's misunderstanding about the good government does (that is, they think it does more good than in reality).
  - jacobsheehy 9y ago
    > Before attacking huge swathes of the population especially about their ignorance Wait, what? I never did that! The closest thing to an 'attack' I can imagine anyone reading from my post would have to have been about > Republican politicians which is surely a few thousand people at the most, it has got to be like 0.001% of the population that I said something negative about. > But to say that people are anti-intellectual is just wrong. Some people are. Some very important, prominent and influential people are in fact anti-intellectual and that is not wrong to say. Many Republican politicians are proudly anti-intellectual. They even say that. The GOP in some states like Texas specifically call out education as a problem in their party platform documents. They are, as a group, overall an anti-intellectual group. That is not a false statement, that is composed of their own words. > it probably reflects people's misunderstanding about the good government does Yes, that's my point. People have been brainwashed over decades to assume that the government does no good. > (that is, they think it does more good than in reality). I'm not sure I follow - I've never met a person in my life who thinks the government does good overall, certainly not more good than bad.
    - xamuel 9y ago
      People of any party tend to be anti-scientific when the science in question contradicts their party line. Democrats are as guilty as Republicans.
- mrastro 9y ago
  I don't know if this is the survey you meant to cite but the 2007 survey [1] has similar results. I disagree with your inference that "this is done very specifically by propaganda just like you mention to make Americans think that science, space, research is stupid and expensive and we shouldn't do it". I think this has more to do with people being very bad at estimating any large figures than people thinking NASA has no benefit. The survey itself notes that "public opinion is less focused the cost side of the equation and more oriented toward the benefits". NASA had a 68% approval rating in 2015 [2]. For better or worst, public approval and funding are not always strongly linked. In this particular case, I personally find it sad that funding is split on party lines. Like you, I wish I could reallocate some of billions of dollars going to the military to projects like this which somehow embody the human spirit. [1] http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1000/1 http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1000/1 [2] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/02/03/nasa-popularity-still-sky-high/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/02/03/nasa-popular...
- pishpash 9y ago
  Or they want it done secretly by the military.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  "In the 1990's, a survey was done and found that something like 60% of Americans thought that the NASA budget was 25% of the entire federal budget (it's like 0.4% today)" Of the remaining 75% at least 50% is spent on foreign aid :-)
  - bzbarsky 9y ago
    I know it was meant to be a joke, about "foreign aid", but if you haven't seen https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/13/17096732/voter-misinformation-williamson https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/13/17096732/v... you should. Turns out voters aren't as daft on "foreign aid" as is popularly believed by the political commentariat.
    - maxxxxx 9y ago
      When I listen to my neighbor he thinks that welfare is around 60% of budget, foreign aid 20%, social security/medicare 10% and maybe 5% goes to defense.
      - bzbarsky 9y ago
        The correct number for "defense" is 16-20% or so depending on how you count veterans' benefits. But again, it's worth asking yourself how much of that your neighbor is effectively allocating to "defense" and how much to "foreign aid". Because the US military sure doesn't spend that much time actually defending the US recently... The "welfare" vs "social security/medicare" numbers there are off, of course (just about backwards, though if you count Medicaid as "welfare" that puts an 11% floor on the "welfare" number right there).
- mlindner 9y ago
  Holy strawman batman. Yes everything is literally the fault of Republican politicians. You forget that Democrat politicians care just as little about NASA if not even less. Politicians care that its "made here". Support for NASA is entirely bipartisan with supporters and opponents on both sides of the isle.
- FPGAhacker 9y ago
  It’s a case of grandstanding. It’s absurd to think about. The annual budget of nasa is less than the monthly interest on our national debt. Well two months.
adventured 9y ago
First of all, everyone has been batting an eye about the F35 cost since its earliest days. It never gets discussed without the price tag being a key point of contention. The R&D cost to develop the F35 isn't more than a hundred times $8 billion. You're making a bizarre comparison. There's a big gap between saying the F35 program is too expensive (it obviously is), and comparing the 30 year cost of building and maintaing 3,500 planes to one telescope.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  Oh, how about the F22? It's not 100x more the cost, but it was ridiculously expensive to develop (~$66bn), only ~200 were made, and it will almost certainly not be in service for 30 years.
  - Mtinie 9y ago
    A question for those close to the program or who work in tangential fields: Did the F-22 program generate benefits to industrial manufacturing practices or increase knowledge within the material sciences domain with value beyond the tangible, per-unit costs? Edit: grammar
  - adventured 9y ago
    The F22 will be in service for 25-30 years very likely, from the first build to the last flight. Look at how long we've been flying various F16s. Even if we move them to a domestic defensive role with the air national guard toward the later years. The F22 is an extraordinary plane. Their primary mistake was not building several hundred more while the production lines were up and squeezing the production costs down if possible. The F35 is a dog by comparison to that plane. With the F35, its cost projections are mostly a joke anyway. There's no scenario where even half the 3,500 estimate will ever be built. A thousand would be a surprising build number for the US. They're up to maybe 300 now. They'll pre-emptively shut the program production down and move on to the next thing.
    - craftyguy 9y ago
      > Their primary mistake was not building several hundred more while the production lines were up and squeezing the production costs down if possible Well, yea, this discussion is about high-cost government programs, and the fact that they didn't do things like this to reduce production costs is kind of the point.. Nevermind that such an aircraft may not even be necessary.
cc81 9y ago
Really? Look up some articles about the F35 or Zumwalt.
DubiousPusher 9y ago
I think it's as simple as the fact that there's a much more embedded and longer running social norm that the government should be willing to spend a lot of money for the sake of national defense. Because of this norm people see the spending as justified. The norm of the government being a major contributor to science is more recent and not as deeply embedded in people's minds. So it seems more frivolous.
allengeorge 9y ago
It reinforces peoples’ perceptions of “government waste” and the government spending on projects that “don’t help the average voter”.
dboreham 9y ago
Because all news is fake. Or at least, paid for by someone with an agenda.
kamaal 9y ago
>>When the military develops a plane for more than a hundred times over that, no one bats an eye. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning... Program cost: US $1.508 trillion Space missions come at chicken feed expense.
eggpy 9y ago
I mean that's patently not true. People have been complaining about the cost of developing the JSF for a decade[0] and there are a lot of people up in arms about the Navy's LCS[1] or Zumwalt destroyers[2] going on right now. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Strike_Fighter_program#Cost_overruns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Strike_Fighter_program#C... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littoral_combat_ship#Budget_overruns_and_deployments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littoral_combat_ship#Budget_ov... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer#Contro...

dingaling 9y ago

What really baffes me about megaprojects like the Webb telescope is that they do decades of research and design, build ONE and then disassemble the teams and jigs. Since all the design and tool-up costs are sunk, why not build two or three? Even just as components. Otherwise if we get to March 2020 and the launch fails, or the scope or shade doesn't deploy, that's $8 billion down the drain.

adventured 9y ago
The government occasionally does just that. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nasa-gets-military-spy-telescopes-for-astronomy/2012/06/04/gJQAsT6UDV_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nasa-...
yiyus 9y ago
> that's $8 billion down the drain Not really. The amount of scientific and technological developments that we get even from failed missions is substantial. When starting a new project, all the findings from previous projects are not ignored. What you are proposing is not necessarily a bad idea but, if that was the case, I would expect some comment saying: why do they construct three equal telescopes when we could use all that money and man-power to build three different ones that would help us much more?
- dingaling 9y ago
  That's a fair point regarding progress regardless of outcome. But starting a new project to build on that basis is going to be a lot tougher if there's no "look at the pretty pictures" Hubble-effect to sway budgeteers. To extend it ab absurdium, it does remind me of the joke about the theoretical physicist going back to bed when he finds his house aflame, because he invested in a fire extinguisher so a solution exists.
- jonhendry18 9y ago
  Perhaps it could be designed so that, if the first telescope reaches orbit and works, the extras could be partially dismantled and large subsystems repurposed in a new satellite. Take out the optics package and replace it with something else. Keep the power distribution, solar panels, and other things. If nothing else the intelligence agencies could probably come up with a use for it.

cromwellian 9y ago

I really fear for this project. Because if it blows up on launch, misses an orbit, or has a failure to deploy, or some flaw, basically decades have been lost. As another commentor said, the marginal cost of these things must be must cheaper. Why aren't they just launching new iterations like every year or so. Rather than starting from scratch after the HST, there should have been an HST 2.0, HST 3.0, a whole bunch of marginal iterations. This would create an efficient pipeline around producing many of these one-off specialized parts. Building the mirrors would become a pipeline of incremental improvements instead of 2-decade redesigns. I feel like if Elon Musk ran this project, he'd have built 5 different versions already, 3 of them would have failed, we would have learned something useful, and two of them would be in space delivering 2x the science.

adventured 9y ago
NASA has an HST 2.0. Two of them. They're sitting in storage, and they cost NASA absolutely nothing out of its budget to develop.
- cromwellian 9y ago
  Than why not launch them? I mean, isn't HST oversubscribed and wouldn't having 3x observing time a net boon for the science community?
  - adventured 9y ago
    I doubt there's any way to easily estimate the cost, but the two HST-superior telescopes NASA was given by the NRO, need to be made science-ready. There are no instruments on them. Say for example that the cost would be $500m to $1 billion over several years to get them ready, then another $1 or $2 billion over ten years to operate them both. If you're NASA and you have $23 billion to spend per year average over that time, do you invest into the two telescopes and divert resources, or stick with HST until its end and focus on Webb. Obviously if the US Government were behaving more rational, NASA would be given the resources to prep these telescopes and launch them. They're exceptional gear going to waste, surely we could task something interesting for them.

DubiousPusher 9y ago

Darn. Well, I'm still very much looking forward to finding out what the atmospheres of some of these exoplanets are made of. Hopefully there isn't another attempt to kill the project politically.

_ph_ 9y ago

This is pretty sad to hear. The Webb telescope is highly anticipated, not only becaue it has a 3x larger mirror than Hubble, but because it is capable of observing in the infrared range, something no earth based telescope is able to due to atmosphere absorption. This would open a huge treasure trove for astronomy and cosmology.

Tepix 9y ago
It's mirror has a 6.5m diameter vs 2.4m for Hubble. That's a 25sqm collecting area vs 4.5sqm for Hubble. The area is more than 5 times as large. Infrared light is absorbed by the water in the atmosphere. There are infrared telescopes on earth, they are located in high elevations in dry places.
- _ph_ 9y ago
  I was referring to the mirror diameter. Of course, the area is even much larger. And infrared telescopes on high elevations are certainly better than telescopes on low ground, still the atmosphere is a big barieer. For that reason the SOFIA telescope was built into a 747, as the airplane gets up to almost 15 kilometers and thus the observation conditions in the infrared range are much better than any ground based observatory. Obviously, an airplane isn't the best platform to mount a telescope. The Webb telescope should be able to provide a way better view into the infrared range than any telescope available so far.

randomerr 9y ago

Isn't it only being delayed a year? In the grand scheme of things that isn't much time.

Tepix 9y ago
This is not the first delay. In 2002, NASA awarded the $824.8 million prime contract for the NGST, now renamed the James Webb Space Telescope, to TRW. The design called for a descoped 6.1-meter (20 ft) primary mirror and a launch date of 2010.

supernova87a 9y ago

Has anyone seen a report or link to details of the findings that led to the delay decision? There are like 5000 people working on this thing and I would think they have to issue a report to explain a significant delay.

nepotism2018 9y ago

Finding out what is causing the dimming light of star KIC 8462852 is worth every penny...said nobody

maxxxxx 9y ago

If a project is delayed many times at work I usually think that something is fundamentally wrong with it and they can't figure it out. Could something like this be going on here?

UncleEntity 9y ago
Well, they have one shot at this so it has to be 100% perfectly correct because once it's gone it's gone. I, for one, would much rather have them work out all the kinks on the ground than shoot it up into space before they're absolutely sure and then find out the thing is lost because they set a cotter pin at 28° instead of the required 32° so the heat shield didn't deploy. Though I'm sure if they successfully get the thing where it needs to be and there is a problem they can just send up some robots to fix the thing in another 20 years or so...

hulton 9y ago

Why do we trust and believe NASA?

hulton 9y ago
Why the down-vote? It is a simple question.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

bane 9y ago

In a post SpaceX world, with cheap(ish) launches a reality, even for large payloads, how does this change the design parameters for instruments like this? I would imagine that since launches used to be so expensive, it put pressure to create exquisite instruments that (should) work perfectly and robustly for a long time. But if launch costs are dirt cheap you can put up any old thing for a year or two, burn it up and launch an improved model with newer tech...repeat as long as needed, or launch dozens of instruments instead. I feel like we're on the cusp of something here and mission profiles like this will feel like the ancient Phalanx-like relics of thought processes that no longer are relevant.

guelo 9y ago

$8 billion is nothing. We have tons of money as evidenced by the military getting an extra $61 billion yearly increase to their $700 billion budget.