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The James Webb Space Telescope is an interesting case. It has gone hugely over budget. The original budget was $1.6 billion and is now around $10 billion. In 20
by kens 6y ago
The James Webb Space Telescope is an interesting case. It has gone hugely over budget. The original budget was $1.6 billion and is now around $10 billion. In 2010, the journal Nature called it "The telescope that ate astronomy" because its expanding budget was stopping other important astronomy projects. [1]
The JWST is also hugely behind schedule, to the point that XKCD mocks it [2]. Originally scheduled for 2007, the launch date repeatedly slipped. The latest date, 2021, is now in doubt.
I think there's a big risk that this CERN supercollider would have the same cost and schedule risks.
[1] https://www.nature.com/news/2010/101027/full/4671028a.html https://www.nature.com/news/2010/101027/full/4671028a.html
[2] https://xkcd.com/2014/ https://xkcd.com/2014/
- HPsquared 6y agoOn the JWST, I wonder how much could have been saved by scrapping the project and starting over with a clean slate.
- simonh 6y agoWhat a strange comparison. Why would you compare it to a space telescope when you could compare it to another supercollider, operated by the same organisation? The Large Hadron Collider went over budget by about double, which is bad but frankly for these sorts of cutting edge systems hardly unprecedented. Some of that was ironically due to budget cuts causing delays which in the long term increased costs.
- Gibbon1 6y ago> Some of that was ironically due to budget cuts causing delays which in the long term increased costs. If you want a prime reason things go over budget this is the prime one, not fully funding a project in order to save money. If you look at well executed projects they spend years setting up and then execute as fast as possible.
- nix23 6y agoYeah please show me one single project of that complexity that didn't went over budget, just a single one...good luck.