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This has been feared for a while in that community. There's quite a bit of animosity towards the JWST for soaking up NASA's budget in recent history, and JWST

This has been feared for a while in that community. There's quite a bit of animosity towards the JWST for soaking up NASA's budget in recent history, and JWST is trying to do some serious damage control because they're too far along and too big to fail. I saw John Mather (Nobel prize winner) give a talk recently that was basically "Look how far we are, and we're sorry for soaking up the budget."

mturmon 16y ago
More on the JWST overrun: http://www.spacenews.com/civil/101112-jwst-cost-imperils-priority-projects.html http://www.spacenews.com/civil/101112-jwst-cost-imperils-pri...
- d2 16y ago
  Canceling the JWST will be a catastrophe for NASA.
  - mturmon 16y ago
    They're not proposing to cancel JWST. It's just that its $6.5B price tag is overwhelming the whole astrophysics science effort. The original design was supposed to come in around 0.5B. See http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/71607/title/Star_Cents http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/71607/title/Star_...
  - gammarator 16y ago
    Unfortunately, with JWST sitting out there as its own line-item in the NASA budget (as opposed to rolled in with the rest of Astrophysics), there's concern in the community that it will be a tempting target for a Congress anxious to cut anything that moves.
    - OstiaAntica 16y ago
      To be fair to the cutters in Congress, running a government that borrows 40 cents of every dollar it spends is going to lead to a catastrophe.
    - OstiaAntica 16y ago
      To be fair to the cutters in Congress, running a government that borrows 40 cents of every dollar it spends is going to lead to a catastrophe.
- robryan 16y ago
  Given the amount spent a launch failure would be pretty catastrophic for the JWST.
  - mturmon 16y ago
    A launch failure is always catastrophic for the onboard instrument ;-)
harshpotatoes 16y ago
Yes, this is true. But unfortunately, if LISA were allowed to be completed, LISA would be in the same situation soaking up all of the budget. LISA was expected to cost more than a billion dollars. As is true for any project of that size, there would be overages.

mturmon 16y ago

More on the JWST overrun: http://www.spacenews.com/civil/101112-jwst-cost-imperils-priority-projects.html http://www.spacenews.com/civil/101112-jwst-cost-imperils-pri...

d2 16y ago
Canceling the JWST will be a catastrophe for NASA.
- mturmon 16y ago
  They're not proposing to cancel JWST. It's just that its $6.5B price tag is overwhelming the whole astrophysics science effort. The original design was supposed to come in around 0.5B. See http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/71607/title/Star_Cents http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/71607/title/Star_...
- gammarator 16y ago
  Unfortunately, with JWST sitting out there as its own line-item in the NASA budget (as opposed to rolled in with the rest of Astrophysics), there's concern in the community that it will be a tempting target for a Congress anxious to cut anything that moves.
  - OstiaAntica 16y ago
    To be fair to the cutters in Congress, running a government that borrows 40 cents of every dollar it spends is going to lead to a catastrophe.
  - OstiaAntica 16y ago
    To be fair to the cutters in Congress, running a government that borrows 40 cents of every dollar it spends is going to lead to a catastrophe.
robryan 16y ago
Given the amount spent a launch failure would be pretty catastrophic for the JWST.
- mturmon 16y ago
  A launch failure is always catastrophic for the onboard instrument ;-)

harshpotatoes 16y ago

Yes, this is true. But unfortunately, if LISA were allowed to be completed, LISA would be in the same situation soaking up all of the budget. LISA was expected to cost more than a billion dollars. As is true for any project of that size, there would be overages.