The US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science approved by voice vote a yearly spending bill that includes no money for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
The move -- spurred on by belt-tightening in cash-strapped Washington -- still requires the full committee's approval, the full House's approval, the Senate's approval, and ultimately President Barack Obama's signature.
But the relatively mild dissents in the committee, which said in a terse statement this week that the project "is billions of dollars over budget and plagued by poor management," suggests the JWST faces an uphill fight to survive.
Yeah, they also want to axe commercial crew, but keep putting billions into the Senate Launch System and the MPV, a jobs programme for certain republican states. "Way to go!"
I hope that the commercials wills succeed nevertheless and then government space will hopefully go away all together. The SLS is just a waste of money´!
And CRUSR now too. I mean really? This thing only costs 15 million and could bring so much! Instead they keep putting billions into the SLS and the MPCV.
I think this one is far enough along the been funded for deployment path, that to chop it now would make them look too stupid. In the end, I think it will fly, as will the new Mars Rover.
The space program's foundation lays on these "ground breakers", "new life finders", "game changing science" things. I think that emotion will win out in this case, as it did for the Hubble life extension funding.
I think Scaled Composites could do CRuSR-like missions today. OSC certainly could.
NASA and a lot of other government agencies I actually like are catching the pain caused by entitlements and the expense of two wars. An ad this morning showed three PO-looking old folks saying "leave my Medicare alone." Hey, I turned 58 last Friday, but dammit, I don't believe the government ever should have adopted a plan like that. Once a program like that is in place, it is hard as hell to get rid of, and the expense of that one plan is so overwhelming that it hurts everything else.
What government agencies do I actually like? USGS, the National Weather Service, and DARPA (those loveable nuts actually do come up with something on occasion). Maybe certain parts of the Department of Transportation earn their keep, too. The rest? I'm thinking ...
Yesterday afternoon the U.S. Senate approved H.R. 2112, a FY 2012 bill from Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski that would fund the James Webb Space Telescope to launch in 2018. This is another step forward for the next-generation space telescope, which many have called the successor to Hubble... all that now remains is for the House to reconcile.
Yesterday afternoon the U.S. Senate approved H.R. 2112, a FY 2012 bill from Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski that would fund the James Webb Space Telescope to launch in 2018. This is another step forward for the next-generation space telescope, which many have called the successor to Hubble... all that now remains is for the House to reconcile.
Nice to see some logical thinking in Congress. Too bad it seems to few and far between.
I'm impatient to see what kind of views this telescope is going to be able to get. Even if it is only a small improvement over Hubble, it will be a big improvement to our knowledge of the observable universe.
The problem with JWST is that it is designed to orbit around L2, which means it cannot be serviced. It was designed to be extremely capable and complex, and never require servicing--a thoroughly BAD idea.
Rather than try to overbuild something so that it cannot fail for 30 years--an impossible task--far better would be to design a space transport system that can service and upgrade the telescope first, then design the telescope.
BTW, those who designed the scope know this problem so well, that they only officially rate the mission design for 5 years. Convenient when you can spend more than 25 years working on a project with a 5 year lifetime. . .
JWST is backward thinking, based upon a helluva lot of hubris. I'm all for that kind of scope, but I think we need to get our transportation in line to service and upgrade it first.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis
Good point. And developement of the ability to service Lagrange points with a return capability would be huge for many other things.
I have not understood for a while, why in space architecture we continue to not develop stagin capabilities, but still focus on one up all-in-one packages. There has been a noticible lack of infrastructure establishment.
I mean, come on, with Bigelow type modules, and automated service craft, we shoul dbe embarking on a massive rennaisance in space infrastructure, but instead are still arguing about shuttle follow-ons and one up all-in-one moon missions.
Gahh...!
BTW as a footnote, I got to fly a Lockheed Martin F-35 full cockpit F-35 sim today. All it did was re-enforce my sadness about our aquisitions system. Great airplane though, I would never want to go against one or a package of them without lots of friends and a good life insurance policy.
krenshala wrote:I'm impatient to see what kind of views this telescope is going to be able to get. Even if it is only a small improvement over Hubble, it will be a big improvement to our knowledge of the observable universe.
Indeed, I am also very eager to see it in action. Let's hope that there will be no more delays this time!
