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James Webb, Hubble space telescopes face reduction in operations
- stogot 1y agoWhy are the budgets for operating these so expensive? The numbers in the article are staggering
- micah94 1y agoI think like they said, it's people. The JWST has "17 different modes" (yeah, I wish I knew what that meant exactly), but it sounds complicated. For all our tech, the bottom line is it requires humans to calibrate this thing and keep it that way (or one of 17 different ways) depending on the science that needs done.
- magicalhippo 1y ago> The JWST has "17 different modes" (yeah, I wish I knew what that meant exactly) It's explained in the user documentation[1]. You did read the documentation right? For example[2]: JWST Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) has 5 observing modes: imaging, coronagraphy, grism wide field slitless spectroscopy, time-series imaging, and grism time series. With further details for each in subsections. [1]: https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/ https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/ [2]: https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-near-infrared-camera/nircam-observing-modes https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-near-infrared-camera/nircam...
- mastermage 1y agoPeak comment right here.
- mastermage 1y agoBecause these are some of the most complicated and technically advanced pieces of technology that we have ever created. To communicate with them we have a worldwide array of massive satellite dishes (Deep Space Network) which needs to be operated part of the cost is operating that. Then there is the scientist using the data. These are some of the greatest scientists in the world they are getting paid well enough. Then there is the engineers which make sure the spacecraft operates correctly which are expensive good engineers are expensive.and obviously all the other costs associated with it like facility, technology electricity etc.
- cosmotic 1y agoWe have multiple single humans with net worths over a thousand times their budget. The only thing that's staggering is what's getting priority over these monumental scientific achievements.
- tiahura 1y ago[flagged]
- hliyan 1y agoThis is one of the most harmful attitudes to come out of otherwise smart people in Silicon Valley. Dismissing any effort that does not bear immediate, tangible fruit, failing to follow a chain of causality to long term benefits and discounting the intellect of people working on such efforts. For example, a similar attitude would have dismissed J.J. Thompson's work on cathode rays and electrons in the late 1800's, and would have seen his intellect directed to steam engines and steel work. That would have seen a delay in the very technology ecosystem that enabled the parent to post their comment.
- tiahura 1y agoInteresting doesn’t necessarily mean important. There are an infinite number of potential scientific endeavors, I don’t think it’s unseemly to suggest that a field’s likeliness to improve humanity’s quality of life should be a factor in determining funding.
- vjvjvjvjghv 1y agoI think any advances in basic science is worthwhile. You can’t predict when or how it will become useful. Quantum mechanics or relativity were probably pretty useless for a few decades after their discovery.
- ta8645 1y agoSure, but we don't have unlimited time and money. Prioritization is obviously a necessity, and therefore I think the OP's point stands. Considering potential tangible rewards shouldn't be seen as a taboo factor in that calculation.
- UltraSane 1y agoLots of highly paid people are needed to run them.
- bravesoul2 1y agoIt is incredible value for money. It's one of the few non-bullshit industries.
- madaxe_again 1y ago$60M a year goes to Northrop just to ensure they’ll answer the phone if they’re needed.
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoSource?
- thangalin 1y agoIn March, 2024 the US Department of Defense fiscal year 2025 budget request was $849.8 billion. The 2024 JWST budget was 0.022% of that. https://nasawatch.com/exploration/ernst-stuhlinger https://nasawatch.com/exploration/ernst-stuhlinger
- madaxe_again 1y agoYou’re being downvoted for asking a reasonable question, sadly. The numbers are staggering. The answer is mostly “Northrop Grumman”, “cost plus”, and “cover your ass”. The sunk costs are >$10bn. Nobody wants to be the guy who cut the flight operations team from 200 people (!) and have the thing go offline and unrecoverable. While the cuts are very much in the category of “closing the stable door after the horse has bolted”, if there’s a silver lining it’s that perhaps it will lead to a more cost-conscious approach for future missions - ie “how can we automate station keeping”, or “do we really need six people to watch a thermal map”, or “perhaps we should look at alternatives to DSN”. It’s an artefact of a system evolved to never take risks, to shelter congressional pork, and to externalise liability onto padded contracts, born out of Cold War thinking - when JWST was conceived (1992), the Berlin Wall had only just fallen. It was meant to launch in 2005.
- _Algernon_ 1y agoA failure is highly costly to NASA in terms of public support, so everything is incredibly over-engineered. That's also why failures are rare.
- derektank 1y agoTalk about penny wise, pound foolish. We spent $10B putting the JWST in space and now we're going to underutilize it to save .4% of that? Dumb.
- bravesoul2 1y agoThe idiocracy is a playbook.
- maxglute 1y agoTime to spin up a patreon... or onlyfans.
- minraws 1y agoI would pay for Hubble cam videos lmao
- ta8645 1y ago[flagged]
- raccomandoo 1y ago[flagged]
- ta8645 1y ago[flagged]
- preisschild 1y agoSo it should also be voluntary to "feeding and housing our fellow countrymen" and not having your money automatically "diverted"?
- ta8645 1y agoIdeally yes. But if you're going to have a government with forced taxation, it should at least take care of the fucking people before it starts spending billions of dollars on non-essential activities.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> it should at least take care of the fucking people before it starts spending billions of dollars on non-essential activities Let’s put aside that none of the current cuts have anything to do with helping the needy. Societies that focus on subsistence subsist. Societies that focus on thriving thrive. ROI is a real thing. Just taking care of people, paradoxically, short changes those folks in the long run. The most productive thing a government can do is long-term investments. JWST—and the skilled labour that goes into it—is one such investment. (Another is education, which unfortunately is required to understand how investing for the long run works.)
- jeisc 1y ago[flagged]
- october8140 1y agoThis is dumb that it's even an issue. But in lieu of an administration change, could they "rent" them out? Like rich institutions could either pay for what they were already planning to do or they could request a different mission/objective.
- somenameforme 1y agoThere's far less interest in this than you'd expect. The Arecibo Telescope [1] was as famous as they come and was the largest single aperture telescope (> 300m) until 2016 when China surpassed it with FAST, which is just real life having some artistic foreshadowing. Opened in 1963, it was iconic and show up in various major movies like James Bond Goldeneye, Species, and contact. Yet it was nonetheless left to rot for a lack of interest in paying the low millions of dollars it'd cost to maintain it, all the while we spend trillions of dollars on wars half-way around the world. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Telescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Telescope
- Sammi 1y agoWow there are actual videos of the collapse at the end of the history section.
- perihelions 1y agoHere's the engineering report, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42051368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42051368 ("Failure analysis of the Arecibo 305 meter telescope collapse (nationalacademies.org)", 114 comments)
- dylan604 1y agoAricebo did not produce the same kind of imagination inspiring images that Hubble or JWST do. Aricebo lost out on it was too nerdy in its science where the visible spectrum platforms can also reach a more artsy demographic. Compare Arecibo: https://www.popsci.com/article/technology/historic-space-images-arecibo-observatory/ https://www.popsci.com/article/technology/historic-space-ima... To JWST/Hubble: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=h_&q=Hubble+and+JWST+images&ia=images&iax=images https://duckduckgo.com/?t=h_&q=Hubble+and+JWST+images&ia=ima...
- devjab 1y agoCan someone help a Danish person understand these cuts? I dislike the current government of USA, but it's not like I can't see the motivation behind wanting Greenland and all the other things they do. Reductions on USA space supremacy is the one area I really can't see a reason behind. Like who benefits from this? In the grander scheme of the entire USA budget these cuts aren't going to be meaningful, if anything, it seems like a waste to not utilize something you've already spend the majority of it's life time cost to get up there. Hopefully it will lead to a situation where the freed time will be rented out. I mean, xuntian won't be capable of replacing James Webb since it's meant to complement rather than rival. Is it part of the anti-science? Do they hope they can contract stuff out to the private sector? Or what?
- burnt-resistor 1y agoDumb, rich Americans don't know how government works and don't understand what anything is for, even if it's critical for their survival or for the survival of millions of others, or crucial for future economic investment and prosperity. They just want to Retire All Government Employees (RAGE) because this is a utopian libertarian belief that "government is bad" and "costs money for no benefit". That, somehow, everything would be "perfect without government". They feel they are entitled to change everything according to their (uninformed) ideas because they are special and important by being rich. It's way past neoliberal austerity by reckless leadership making massive changes without being careful. They've never heard of the problems with utopias or throwing out babies with the bathwater.
- rsynnott 1y agoQuite a lot of the US right-wing is of the opinion that, basically, science is bad and shouldn't happen, or at the very least that only ideologically correct science should happen (for instance see https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doge-mischaracterizes-study-as-transgender-usda-cancels-it/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doge-mischaracterizes-study-as-... - while part of the story there is that, unsurprisingly, a Musk thing is really incompetent, they were _trying_ to do an ideological purge). NASA is particularly vulnerable to this because so much of NASA's science is related to climate and weather, and a large part of the US right is still doggedly pretending that global warming isn't happening.
- jve 1y agoAs I understand, NASA ain't the only party involved with James Webb Telescope - there is ESA and CSA (Europe/Canada) involved here. So... do they get the opportunity to take over those particular operations?
- vjvjvjvjghv 1y agoUnfortunately the Europeans don't really have the courage to step up.
- rsynnott 1y agoESA already has at least three other major projects (the Venus probe, the much-delayed LISA, and something else) wherein NASA is, or at least was going to be, a junior partner, so if ESA has to pick up the slack on any joint projects, it'll probably prioritise those. (LISA is a particularly ridiculous case. It was pitched in _1997_ as a joint ESA/NASA mission, was finally picked up in the noughties, NASA pulled out in 2011 due to budget cuts, LISA was cut down and then cancelled in favour of JUICE (which itself was a redesign of _another_ joint mission that NASA pulled out of), then LISA was brought back a few years later, with NASA as a junior partner, and an MoA was finally signed last year. Now the NASA side has apparently been cut, though the ESA side is continuing, and who knows, maybe eventually it'll be launched...) Honestly, ESA should probably consider just stopping doing joint missions with NASA; NASA is just too vulnerable to political interference.
- siilats 1y ago[flagged]
- merman 1y agoThese figures are not proof of an anti-science administration (I’m not disputing that the administration is anti-science, just disputing that this budget is evidence of that) If you compare Biden’s FY2022 budget estimates to this budget, it matches almost exactly (Webb 175M, Hubble 85M)
- adgjlsfhk1 1y agowhat the hell are you talking about? The budget cut for Webb (i.e. the new satellite) literally from the article you are reading is 187M to 140M. If Biden's FY2022 budget was 172M, that's 189M 2026 (from inflation), so this remains a 25% cut.
- merman 1y agoBad reading on my part. It is much lower than Biden’s
- horns4lyfe 1y agoReading through these comments, I’m firmly convinced no one read the actual article. Is this just Bluesky now with a twist?
- sjones671 1y agoAgreed
- sumeno 1y ago> Another factor is funding cuts to both telescopes contained in the Trump administration’s budget proposal for 2026 — especially JWST, which would see its operating budget cut by 25 percent relative to planned 2024 operations, from $187 million to $140 million.
- weberer 1y agoIts weird just how resistant people here are to admitting that inflation is a big problem.
- tomhow 1y agoWe dislike it as much as you that it seems so difficult to have a sober discussion about political topics here these days, but it's probably more related to the state of the world, and particularly the prevailing style of politics and media we're living with. We'd love it if HN could be better than other discussion platforms, but try as we might, we can't help but be affected by what's going on in the rest of the world. Rather than condemning the whole community like this, which is against the guidelines, it would be more helpful to highlight the important parts of the article that you think others are missing.
- spo81rty 1y agoWhy does it take 300-400 employees to run a telescope? As a taxpayer, that's what I want to know.
- roywiggins 1y agoIt's a $10 billion piece of hardware parked 930,000 miles away. > Reid said STScI does not yet have a specific plan to deal with JWST’s budget shortfalls, but it will almost certainly involve reducing staff. > “It’s fewer people, really,” Neill Reid, multi-mission project scientist at STScI, told Astronomy. “[JWST has] got 17 different modes. Each of those modes needs people to support it, to calibrate it, to keep it going. So, if you cut the funding, you have fewer people. And you can’t ask people to do twice as much work. So what will happen is that there will be potentially fewer modes available. There will be less user support.”
- coldpie 1y agoThat's an interesting question! Can you tell us what research you've done to try to answer it? It's public funds, so there's probably some documentation for what jobs were created to support the telescope.