Updated plot of #JWST Budget/Launch Date projections. Each blue dot was one such media advisory. I'm genuinely not trying to be snarky – JWST will do transformational science – but this … this isn't a good look. pic.twitter.com/Vw5ZALSeGC
Nice. Shortly before Hubble launched, someone in the Berkeley astronomy department had a similar plot on his door (time versus time to launch.) The linear fit also gave a launch date much later than advertised. But he took it a step further, and also fitted a quadratic to the data. That fit never hit zero years until launch.
But the time to launch versus cost plot is an example of something people have said before. The cost of a NASA program is almost entirely about people. JWST’s mirrors aren’t expensive because they are gold-plated beryllium; they are expensive because of the person-years of salary which went into designing and fabricating them. For relatively constant staffing, the cost is exactly what that plot shows: One extra year increases cost by one year of salary for the people on the project.
Another impact: several months ago there were discussions about delaying the NAS’ upcoming Astronomy Decadal Study until after JWST had unfolded successfully at L2. The new notional launch date would mean no Decadal report until 2022+. There is of course much more in the Decadal than space observatories, notably pushing on NSF to pony up 25% of the TMT/GMT pair to counter the European ELT. But delay might also rationalize the push for the 2030-era next-gen optical/UV space telescope, whose multiple concepts have seemingly not yet generated consensus behind one design, let alone incorporated potential New Space capabilities that will clarify in a few years.
This will almost certainly delay WFIRST. I don’t have the language handy, but the budget for FY19 has some words about this. NASA is authorized to proceed with WFIRST up to a certain point, and then they are instructed to stop development at that point, until JWST is up and operating.
According to your previous cogent observation that program cost is contant with time rather than varying with productivity, a precautionary pause in WFIRST development is likely to result only in budget growth for WFIRST., not in reduced risk or cost reduction
Or if they were just launched to the ISS, checked out where problems could be corrected by the local population, and then pushed out to thier operating locations. Or in some cases, depending on the optics, just mounted on the truss.
Nice. Shortly before Hubble launched, someone in the Berkeley astronomy department had a similar plot on his door (time versus time to launch.) The linear fit also gave a launch date much later than advertised. But he took it a step further, and also fitted a quadratic to the data. That fit never hit zero years until launch.
But the time to launch versus cost plot is an example of something people have said before. The cost of a NASA program is almost entirely about people. JWST’s mirrors aren’t expensive because they are gold-plated beryllium; they are expensive because of the person-years of salary which went into designing and fabricating them. For relatively constant staffing, the cost is exactly what that plot shows: One extra year increases cost by one year of salary for the people on the project.
Another impact: several months ago there were discussions about delaying the NAS’ upcoming Astronomy Decadal Study until after JWST had unfolded successfully at L2. The new notional launch date would mean no Decadal report until 2022+. There is of course much more in the Decadal than space observatories, notably pushing on NSF to pony up 25% of the TMT/GMT pair to counter the European ELT. But delay might also rationalize the push for the 2030-era next-gen optical/UV space telescope, whose multiple concepts have seemingly not yet generated consensus behind one design, let alone incorporated potential New Space capabilities that will clarify in a few years.
Unfortunately, the latest delay on the Just Wait Space Telescope will make it even more difficult to keep WFIRST alive.
This will almost certainly delay WFIRST. I don’t have the language handy, but the budget for FY19 has some words about this. NASA is authorized to proceed with WFIRST up to a certain point, and then they are instructed to stop development at that point, until JWST is up and operating.
According to your previous cogent observation that program cost is contant with time rather than varying with productivity, a precautionary pause in WFIRST development is likely to result only in budget growth for WFIRST., not in reduced risk or cost reduction
More reasons to question the science vs. value question of NASA doing these extremely large – decades long projects.
This money would have bought us dozens of large telescopes, if assembled in space.
Or if they were just launched to the ISS, checked out where problems could be corrected by the local population, and then pushed out to thier operating locations. Or in some cases, depending on the optics, just mounted on the truss.