Space science caught in a Webb, Space Review
“Speaking at a workshop on suborbital research held last Wednesday at NASA Goddard, Webster Cash, an astronomer at the University of Colorado, said there was growing skepticism in the astronomy community that the top-priority large mission from the 2010 report, the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), would even be started. “It’s bleak out there. Space science has effectively ground to a halt” in large part because of the costs of Webb, Cash warned. Killing Webb would cause major problems for astronomers since it would deprive them of an instrument they have been counting on for years to address some of the major questions in the field, but continued funding could leave them with nothing but Webb. “We’re facing a no-win scenario here in astrophysics,” he said.”
