NewScientist artical on JWST cost overuns.

[flynn]

<b>Cost overruns put squeeze on Hubble’s successor</b><br /><i>11:59 25 May 2005 <br />NewScientist.com news service <br />Jeff Hecht </i><br /><br /><br />A billion dollars in cost overruns and broader NASA budget crunches are putting the squeeze on the planned successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. <br /><br />Intended to be the centrepiece of space science in the coming decade, the price tag of the James Webb Space Telescope has already soared to a staggering $3.5 billion. And further increases will follow if the US insists on using a US launch vehicle.<br /><br />Overruns are nothing new at NASA, but right now the agency has a full plate of urgent near-term goals and ambitious long-term programmes. New NASA administrator Michael Griffin has pledged to return the shuttles to flight, rescue the Hubble Space Telescope, and develop a shuttle successor. He also plans to return astronauts to the Moon and launch a series of new robotic probes.<br /><br />"We're very, very good at selling ambitious new missions, but part of the selling is that they are almost always under-costed," says astronomer George Rieke at the University of Arizona, US, who heads development of Webb's mid-infrared imager. "When it's discovered they're under-costed, it's always a bad situation," he told New Scientist, recalling earlier budget crunches in the early 1980s and 1990s.<br /><br /><b>The birth of stars</b><br />With a folding 6.5-metre mirror, it will collect light, at wavelengths from 0.6 to 28 micrometres, to observe the birth of stars and the formation of galaxies that has been red-shifted by the expansion of the universe. <br /><br />Webb will orbit 1.5 million kilometres above Earth, giving it a clearer view of the universe at wavelengths 3 micrometres longer than any Earth-based telescope, which must penetrate the planet’s hazy atmosphere.<br /><br />Cost overruns are inevitable in projects which push technological boundaries, says John Bahcall at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, who <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#800080">"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring" - <strong>Chuck Palahniuk</strong>.</font> </div>

 

[toymaker]

"Griffin has already said he wants to re-evaluate the priorities and pace of proposed planet-finding missions."<br />Why bother for Earthlike planets when we can go to the Moooon :/<br />Disapointed totally in Griffin.<br />

 

[najab]

Think about how big a mirror you can build on the Moon....

 

[yurkin]

Well so far I think only 600 million has been allocated to JWST. So the projected cost may actually come down, or go even higher. I think anyone who didn’t realize how much JWST would cost didn’t take a very good look at the plans.<br /><br />I think this is one of the main reasons why Hubble should be serviced.