5 ms·

Does anyone remember the initial proposals for this. The cost was supposed to be $500M. At most something like $1B. Given this is standard govt contracting - I

Does anyone remember the initial proposals for this. The cost was supposed to be $500M. At most something like $1B. Given this is standard govt contracting - I'm sure it's come out much higher.

Jabbles 5y ago
Here is a nice table with the history of the budget: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#Cost_and_schedule_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#Cos...
- slownews45 5y ago
  Clicking through we get this "JWST is now estimated to cost approximately $9.7 billion and launch in October 2021, which represents cost growth of 95 percent and 88 months of schedule delays since the project’s cost and schedule baselines were first established in 2009." So around $10B. Amazing.
  - elihu 5y ago
    I wonder what the marginal cost would be to build a second one?
swarnie_ 5y ago
Fact boy covered it a few weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CowU0QK0Pjs&ab_channel=Megaprojects https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CowU0QK0Pjs&ab_channel=Megap... From what i remember this project has been running since around the time of Hubble Still.... Can't wait for it to get up there, money and time well spent!
- slownews45 5y ago
  That's pretty amazing. A financial black hole. A cool project, but if you think of the thousands of folks who didn't get funding so this thing could gobble everything up - these projects really become crazy budget wise (SLS did the same path). I wish they would do pay for performance deals. We'll give you $4B if you put a telescope in space of X size that meets some basic specs. If you look at commercial side, space imaging (earth facing) has just exploded and the cost side has gotten very very good. So it's clear you can get optics and sensing into space for a lot less.
  - swarnie_ 5y ago
    10bn in the scope of this joint project between the US, Europe and one other group (Canada or Japan?) is a rounding error over 20 years.
  - redisman 5y ago
    This is the strength of NASA. They can do crazy one offs rather than having to build financially feasible platforms all the time
nickik 5y ago
$1B? That gone last a year tops.
OrvalWintermute 5y ago
Even 5B for a novel, and uniquely powerful observation platform would be a bargain! When you are engineering a unit of 1 pushing the boundaries of science, with multiple conflicting constraints, funded by a variety of self-interested stakeholders, and are forced to do commercial production, rather than govt production, even when it is most cost effective, it isn't like you are heading towards lowest cost, technically acceptable.
- slownews45 5y ago
  You can get a pretty good idea of quality of project management based on how well or poorly they estimated project baseline costs at outset. These are linked - incompetence in estimating costs / complexity = incompetence in execution = insane cost overruns. And you would get far more science with 5 $2B projects then one project like this. And if this thing has a launch of deployment problem all eggs in one basket. If there are cost overruns and delays, also all eggs in a basket and no other options.
- marcusverus 5y ago
  It's easy to throw these big numbers around, but do you ever stop to consider the actual cost? Let's do some back-of-the envelope calculations to help us consider the human cost of a 5B telescope. The Median US household income is ~68,000/year[0] The Average income tax paid by someone in the 50-75K income range is $4,600/year.[1] The average working career is probably around 40 years. 5,000,000,000 / 4,600 / 40 = 27,173 To fund a $5B project, 27,173 people (more, actually, since this is household data) could have worked for their entire working lives, with every dime of federal income tax being spent on that one project! I agree that the JWST is a worthwhile project, but let's not pretend that it's a bargain. [0]https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-270.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27... [1]https://www.fool.com/taxes/how-much-does-the-average-american-pay-in-taxes/ https://www.fool.com/taxes/how-much-does-the-average-america...
  - lapetitejort 5y ago
    Using the same numbers, 3,824,456 people worked their entire lives to fund the USA's military for 2021. https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2638711/the-department-of-defense-releases-the-presidents-fiscal-year-2022-defense-budg/ https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/26...
ProAm 5y ago
Wait until you see what they claimed the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were supposed to cost....
- redisman 5y ago
  And what the ROI is. Tens (hundreds?) of thousands of dead people and stalling the taliban for a little bit versus unlocking mysteries into the origins of the universe
hypertele-Xii 5y ago
If you thought estimating software projects was hard, try estimating a friggin space launch.

Does anyone remember the initial proposals for this. The cost was supposed to be $500M. At most something like $1B. Given this is standard govt contracting - I'm sure it's come out much higher.

Jabbles 5y ago

Here is a nice table with the history of the budget: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#Cost_and_schedule_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#Cos...

slownews45 5y ago
Clicking through we get this "JWST is now estimated to cost approximately $9.7 billion and launch in October 2021, which represents cost growth of 95 percent and 88 months of schedule delays since the project’s cost and schedule baselines were first established in 2009." So around $10B. Amazing.
- elihu 5y ago
  I wonder what the marginal cost would be to build a second one?

swarnie_ 5y ago

Fact boy covered it a few weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CowU0QK0Pjs&ab_channel=Megaprojects https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CowU0QK0Pjs&ab_channel=Megap... From what i remember this project has been running since around the time of Hubble Still.... Can't wait for it to get up there, money and time well spent!

slownews45 5y ago
That's pretty amazing. A financial black hole. A cool project, but if you think of the thousands of folks who didn't get funding so this thing could gobble everything up - these projects really become crazy budget wise (SLS did the same path). I wish they would do pay for performance deals. We'll give you $4B if you put a telescope in space of X size that meets some basic specs. If you look at commercial side, space imaging (earth facing) has just exploded and the cost side has gotten very very good. So it's clear you can get optics and sensing into space for a lot less.
- swarnie_ 5y ago
  10bn in the scope of this joint project between the US, Europe and one other group (Canada or Japan?) is a rounding error over 20 years.
- redisman 5y ago
  This is the strength of NASA. They can do crazy one offs rather than having to build financially feasible platforms all the time

nickik 5y ago

$1B? That gone last a year tops.

OrvalWintermute 5y ago

Even 5B for a novel, and uniquely powerful observation platform would be a bargain! When you are engineering a unit of 1 pushing the boundaries of science, with multiple conflicting constraints, funded by a variety of self-interested stakeholders, and are forced to do commercial production, rather than govt production, even when it is most cost effective, it isn't like you are heading towards lowest cost, technically acceptable.

slownews45 5y ago
You can get a pretty good idea of quality of project management based on how well or poorly they estimated project baseline costs at outset. These are linked - incompetence in estimating costs / complexity = incompetence in execution = insane cost overruns. And you would get far more science with 5 $2B projects then one project like this. And if this thing has a launch of deployment problem all eggs in one basket. If there are cost overruns and delays, also all eggs in a basket and no other options.
marcusverus 5y ago
It's easy to throw these big numbers around, but do you ever stop to consider the actual cost? Let's do some back-of-the envelope calculations to help us consider the human cost of a 5B telescope. The Median US household income is ~68,000/year[0] The Average income tax paid by someone in the 50-75K income range is $4,600/year.[1] The average working career is probably around 40 years. 5,000,000,000 / 4,600 / 40 = 27,173 To fund a $5B project, 27,173 people (more, actually, since this is household data) could have worked for their entire working lives, with every dime of federal income tax being spent on that one project! I agree that the JWST is a worthwhile project, but let's not pretend that it's a bargain. [0]https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-270.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27... [1]https://www.fool.com/taxes/how-much-does-the-average-american-pay-in-taxes/ https://www.fool.com/taxes/how-much-does-the-average-america...
- lapetitejort 5y ago
  Using the same numbers, 3,824,456 people worked their entire lives to fund the USA's military for 2021. https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2638711/the-department-of-defense-releases-the-presidents-fiscal-year-2022-defense-budg/ https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/26...

ProAm 5y ago

Wait until you see what they claimed the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were supposed to cost....

redisman 5y ago
And what the ROI is. Tens (hundreds?) of thousands of dead people and stalling the taliban for a little bit versus unlocking mysteries into the origins of the universe

hypertele-Xii 5y ago

If you thought estimating software projects was hard, try estimating a friggin space launch.