A cut too far.

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Yeah, but you don't launch technology, you launch equipment, and so NO, the JSWT is not "mostly ready to go".
Indeed even if they poured many billions more into it wouldn't launch until 2018 at the earliest and maybe not until 2020.

In April of 2010, NASA officially estimated the project's total cost to be $5.1 billion for liftoff in June 2014.

By the time of the Review in November it was 6.8 Billion and earliest launch was 2015. (the board just used that number as their best guess)
Since then, based on independent review, it's gone up and now the earliest launch date is considered to be 2018 (and maybe as late as 2020).

The project has a high run rate and that additional 3 year slip will add another Billion to the project. So the net is congress couldn't believe one word of what NASA managers said because they are SO FAR OFF at the Confirmation, which is when they had NO EXCUSE to be so far off.

NASA has spent about $3 billion on the project by Nov of 2010 and when the agency started the project in 2002, the observatory was supposed to launch in 2010. Since then, its launch has slipped one year later for every year of the project.

More importantly, it's sucking up resources from that could be spent on other projects as JWST's budget already accounts for about 40 percent of NASA's astrophysics portfolio and division managers say previous cost overruns are already constraining work on other astronomy probes.

So you can't just say that killing it wasn't the right thing to do.

You are focused only on getting this launched as a solution.
Congress is focused on getting what they paid for.
Indeed, if this was a building addition to your house with the exact same parameters you would also consider cancelling it.
Not continuing to pour money down a hole is always one option to stop the hemorage of funds.

Of course they understood it.
It was going to answer interesting questions about the origin of the Universe.
But the questions really aren't that pressing to the national well being and so waiting a few more years (these questions are 13 billion years old or so) isn't really a massive scientific sacrifice.

I mean REALLY, is there any question that it is trying to solve that is that friggin time sensitive or important to humanity?

Again, you are just putting your personal bias into the equation.

Yes and we really have no choice but to continue those engagements.
You have a better solution?

A) it's not warmongering, that's a highly prejudicial look at the reasons we are there and the success we have had in both countries.
B) Yes, in fact it is mainly pretty pictures, which of course to scientists have value, but when I asked you what benefit we got from Hubble you came up with some minor serendipitous spin offs made by the companies that were developing the technology for the Hubble.
What you DIDN'T come up with was any DIRECT benefit from Hubble.
Got any I'm not aware of?
More to the point, what DIRECT benefit is expected from the JWST?

Look, I'm all for pure science, to a point, and I know that when you spend BILLIONS on advanced technology like the JWST you will generate some serendipitous spin-offs like were done with the Hubble, but generally it will be much less than DIRECTED science and so while projects like the JWST has its place in the overall scheme of things, still spending should be somewhat related to benefit and there aren't many from a mission like the JWST, so when the project is so far in the dumper, canning it is an option (and if as you said, the technology is already mostly ready, then the opportunity for serendipitous spin offs from building the JWST has already occurred).

Oh, sure 10 to 15 years from now I'd probaby think the JWST results were neat as well, but I also think that we can live quite well for another decade without the answers it is trying to come up with.

Arthur

 

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I'm also sure that in 10-20 years we will look back at Iraq and Afghanistan as the quagmires that finally bankrupted this country, what direct benefit did those wars provide? beside helping to encourage terrorism against us around the world of course? It would have been a whole lot cheaper and public image wise to surgically attack terrorist and beef up security.

It is clear that had we been wise with our money we could have done so much more and could have even done more per dollar, but we aren't wise with money, we are incredible stupid with it.

 

Nope, if it was mostly ready to go, then the soonest launch date wouldn't be 7 friggin years away, and that time frame is based on giving them the money they need.

No, who told you those BS stories.

No it's not. If you had commissioned any project and it was that late and that over budget and had few tangible benefits most everyone would cancel it.

Nope, if as you said we already did most of the technology, so actually launching it means little from the development of technology side.

Don't need the shuttle to build the ISS anymore and it's too expensive to use just to put people into orbit, so the money can be used to build our next man rated rockets. Minor timing issue.

Yup.
Having the second best sucks big time.

Nope, learning how to live and work in space is necessary for our planned objective of eventually going to Mars, not to mention running the many science labs/experiments that can only be done on the ISS. You know DIRECTED science towards living/working/manufacturaing in space. Something that is much more likely to have direct benefits.

We can get to it, remember the I in ISS, it's an International mission and so while the rest of our partners relied on us to build it, we are using their much less expensive launch vehicles to get back and forth to it. You know, being SMART with our money.

Well see, that's your major problem.
It's not an illegal war.

Because they aren't that intelligent is the obvious answer.

NO
They were serendipitus uses of the technology.
Which is nice, but none of them were direct benefits from the HUBBLE science mission.
You know, what it was designed to do.
Likewise there are for sure just as many serendipitous uses for technology used to build fighters and submarines, probably more, but that's just luck.
Remember what Nobel made his fortune on?

What has the actual SCIENCE from the Hubble mission done for us.

Don't weasle out again.

We aren't prosecuting an illegal war in the middle east, quit with this BS.
Iraq is a soveriegn nation now with their own constitution, elected government, police and army and we remain there with their obvious cooperatioin, we are NOT fighting the Iraqis and haven't been since Saddam was kicked out.
Or are you one of those who would rather have Saddam back?

BS, BS and more BS.

No it's not.
That CCD technology has continued to advance far beyond Hubble's launch.
So all of that would have happened Hubble or no Hubble.

And yet you have YET to show ONE direct benefit of the SCIENCE from the entire Hubble mission.

Arthur

 

Honestly, by Arthur's logic the US government should just stop spending money on science altogether, unless it's needed by Dick Cheney for something. Big Bang Theory? Cosmological anomalies? Let's just freeze all that research for another 20 years, we can create McJobs for all the unemployed scientists in the meantime.

Arthur says Congress would have done the same thing with virtually any program experiencing such cost overruns...

Let's have a glance at the Wikipedia article on the B2 Spirit Bomber:

But whatever, purty space pictures can't be used to kill them Irakians, right?

P.S. Sending or preparing to send humans to Mars would be a vastly bigger waste of money than either the military or the JWST. What practical purpose does it serve to be able to send a dozen humans there who won't even be able to stay supplied over the long term? Their biggest tangible achievement would be the most expensive flag planting ceremony in human history... Yeah that must have taken some real deep thinking there...

 

Not really, because I thought I was orginally asking about direct benefits from the Hubble or JWST Science missions.

The question remains what is the DIRECT expected benefit from the JWST Science mission, you know what is it intended to provide us, not what we might luck into?

Arthur

 

BS,
I'm all for the 28 Billion we are giving NASA, NOAA and the NSF.
You can't take the fact that I think this one over budget behind schedule program that won't launch for 7 years should be cut to imply that I think all space and science research should be cut. Indeed, by cutting the JWST much more money will flow to OTHER NASA science projects which have been hurt by them being bled to feed the JWST debacle.

I said no such thing. Quit lying.

Some think Mars is important, I think it is at least a decade or more away from being even considered as a viable goal and I would be a bigger eventual supporter of going to Mars if the mission was to establish a permanent base.
In the mean time, I think our learning to be able LIVE and WORK in space is important as well as doing research in microgravity and so I support our current efforts to build and maintain the ISS.

Arthur

 

I believe that this new telescope was to be the new advanced one that will take Hubble's place when it expires within the next 10 years or so. As with Hubble it will be able to find even more things out, for it will be at least 100 times more powerful than Hubble, and give even more information as to how the universe began and new things that are now unknown because we cannot see them well enough. I , for one, wish they would go ahead with this "upgrade" because over three fourths of it has already been built and to see all that go to waste is far worse than going ahead with this project. That's just my 2 cents worth.

 

Not really.
It's not primarily an optical telescope like Hubble.
It was to operate in the near-infrared and so is really more of a replacement for the Spitzer Space Telescope, and like the Spitzer, being able to keep it cool would determine it's life (JWST had a short planned life of only 5 years) Spitzer lasted 6 years before its liquid helium supply was exhausted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitzer_Space_Telescope

Well less than half the money to build and launch it has been spent, and so cutting it now allows nearly 4 billion dollars to be diverted to other NASA science (which was being hurt because of the black hole that the JWST had become)

Personally I think if the JWST gets cut, they will figure out a much lower cost way to use the hardware they have built. NASA can get resourceful when forced to.

Arthur

 

It's not speculation, the NASA JWST site says it won't launch till 2018 at the earliest. They don't list all the things that have to be done, but clearly there is still a lot of work to be done, nearly $3 Billion in fact to get to launch on the Ariene V (7% launch failures)

No, the Shuttle was also instrumental in the Hubble launch and servicing, but having to keep two Shuttles in flying condition for that much longer would be prohibitively expensive ($500 million per flight now, but for what you are saying the run cost would be substantially higher).

On the other hand, the last Shuttle mission fitted Hubble with a docking adapter that will enable a robotic spacecraft to dock with the telescope and bring it into controlled reentry over the Pacific Ocean, or as some have suggested, if it's still working, instead boost it to a higher orbit.

My guess though is that by the time the robot retriever is expected to visit Hubble (~2015) it will have stop working (gyros, batteries, other?) and so the next time we visit it it will be to bring it back to earth.

Arthur

 

So I guess you DON'T understand what the I in the ISS stands for?

Arthur

 

No it's not.
Advanced CCDs have many earth-bound uses and so they would be developed anyway, Hubble or not.

I wouldn't object to including a serenditious spin-off that would be highly unlikley to occur unless the specific space platform was built.

They also occur, but are less common then mere advances in technology that have many legitimate earth-bound uses.

Arthur

 

Yep. And to 90% of the people in the US, an "extra space telescope" is fat.

I know that. But that's not his perspective; he doesn't understand that (just as you don't understand the importance of a strong national defense.)

Who's right? In a democracy, you both are. And thus in a democracy we won't be able to cut spending until you both agree to give up your favorite projects.

Correct! And if you had to cut them all to be able to keep your house, which ones would you hang on to?

 

I just hope your right because that's allot of money thrown at the new JWST for nothing if they don't get it piece mealed together. Thanks by the way for letting me about its life expectancy, I read somewhere they will get 10 years not 5 of life expectancy. That is of course it actually gets built and can get into the position in space without a failure of the lift off or wrong placement that sometimes happens.:shrug: