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Thanks for that link. People should know that there's a lot of turmoil in the astrophysics community about JWST. In current plans, JWST overruns have resulted
by mturmon 15y ago
Thanks for that link.
People should know that there's a lot of turmoil in the astrophysics community about JWST. In current plans, JWST overruns have resulted in elimination or long-term postponement of all other NASA astrophysics missions in the next decade. Even non-flight-project research is being cut significantly.
- nate_meurer 15y agoI am utterly incapable of intelligently commenting on the cost effectiveness of this telescope, but I will note that all of NASA's current money problems could be solved by allocating it just a tiny fraction of what we instead wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm sorry to keep talking about these fucking wars, but it really does make me want to cry.
- T-hawk 15y agoExpanding NASA's budget by 2x or even 10x would not solve its problems. Parkinson's Law is as applicable to NASA as to any other organization. JWST and the other missions will overrun any amount of time and budget allocated to them.
- nate_meurer 15y agoI had that thought as I was writing the comment, which is why I added the word "current". But you're probably right to a large degree, and my only answer is that, to the extent that larger budgets don't decrease NASA'a fiscal discipline, the investment is better made there.