I am still surprised when people underestimate the absurd complexity of this project. This is a novel masterpiece of science and engineering, not a jet fighter

I am still surprised when people underestimate the absurd complexity of this project. This is a novel masterpiece of science and engineering, not a jet fighter or rocket destined for mass production and deployment. There will only ever be one, so there's literally zero room for error. Better to measure twice and cut once, so to speak. These projects are subject to incredibly rigorous post-mortem investigations, and each cost and time overrun is _already_ documented thoroughly and publicly. Congress doesn't give this money away lightly. We know exactly why, and when, things took longer than expected, and those lessons learned are already being applied to subsequent observatories like Roman.