Webb Continues to Eat SMD's Lunch
James Webb Space Telescope squeezing budget, NASA official says, LA Times
“We are operating in a zero sum game right now,” [Paul] Hertz said. The talk comes as James Webb’s $8.8-billion price tag – up by $3.1 billion – has squeezed the astrophysics division’s budget, taking up more than expected by the priority-setting 2010 decadal survey of astronomy and astrophysics. Though NASA’s overall astrophysics budget is predicted to rise slightly in the coming years, the James Webb telescope is set to take up roughly half it by fiscal year 2014, Hertz said. Thus, the slice of money for all other astronomy and astrophysics missions has thinned somewhat. “It’s not that our budget has gone down, it’s that we’re spending more on James Webb than we had planned on at the time the decadal survey was done,” Hertz said.”
For Christmas my gifted me a gorgeous Coffee table book filled with images from the Great Observatories and several other imaging sources. It’s kind of a tradition: he’s been giving me such books annually since I was in Elementary School, but the effect flipping through the pages hasn’t changed one bit… if anything its grown stronger as I grew older and came to understand what I was looking at.
It breaks my heart that due to the JWST walking the Earth and those responsible for its historic management failure escaping pretty much without consequence, that my children, one day, when I try to extend this wonderful tradition my father and I share, will likely be seeing the exact same images I did. There is no follow-up to Chandra. There is no follow up to Compton. There is nothing in Ultraviolet. ATLAST will never happen and visual spectrum will be purely ground based. All because what should have been another space telescope turned into a crusade more expensive than an Aircraft Carrier.
Yeah, maybe such a book will have a chapter with JWST imagery. But for the other spectrum, it is frozen until deep into this century, for no other reason than simply no one having the courage to attach consequence to failure, and killing this thing years ago.
If only punishing those responsible would fix the problem. Oh what a world it would be. This problem began the day JWST was selected, with those now retired or transferred selecting officials fully knowing it was going to be over budget, yet all involved including the science community went into “wish upon a star” mode ignoring the the obvious.
It’s way worse than that. The things going on……
Rather than making vague statements and casting aspersions, maybe you could enlighten us with details.
Naaa, I like not getting sued…..edited
Barbara Mikulski is still in Congress….and she is the party most
responsible for this boondoogle. Maryland my Maryland she sings as that [DELETED] wrecks the space program along with Roll Tide Roll Shelby and his rocket with no mission….
There is a great deal to study in the universe, and a larger number of smaller and more diverse instruments might be more productive than a single large one. A more evolutionary and incremental strategy in optical telescopes might have reduced risk and cost; the second spacecraft of a given design is only a fraction of the cost of the first. I have heard that the original proposal for a successor to Hubble was much more modest. Assembly and checkout of astronomical satellites on the ISS (using a module in the original Space Operations Center concept called the unpressurized hangar) would allow launch in smaller modules and be less expensive than deployable systems.
You could contact your congress critters and ask them why they are supporting this abomination. Why, I just walked the House today (and will again tomorrow). We need more citizens confronting the fraud, waste, and abuse that is JWST.
I am sorry, but any project that is 550 percent over budget and 9-12 years behind schedule just needs to die.
How many more missions need to suffer inside SMD because of this?
So how do the congressmen who vote for JWST defend it when you talk to them?
Depends on the office to be honest. Most are shocked about it. We only really started talking about this last year so it is going to take some time to “permeate the halls of congress” on this issue. I would say this is not a D or a R subject.
Some, the people who really believe in JWST, just fire up any line of defense they can, or do not speak to us at all. Either is fine. The facts are the facts and in the end, that is what we are judged upon.
Our organization has a very good track record on working on space based issues, we do get results. It just takes a lot of time and patience. We shouldn’t kid ourselves either, with Senator Mikulski as the chair of appropriations in the Senate, it would be very difficult to see JWST ending anytime soon, even as she sacrifices the next generation of Astrophysics.
JWST is also impacting Planetary, Helio, and Astrophysics. This is a flagship mission that was supposed to cost about $1 billion, ok, multiply by 2.5 for a $2.5 billion dollar project.
That doesn’t really answer my question. You want people to contact their representatives and senators, but they need to know what is being said on the other side. If you’re actually in there talking to them, you should be able to tell people what arguments are being used to defend JWST. And if you aren’t talking to JWST’s defenders, [obnoxious part deleted by author]
Paul – many in SMD, particularly Astrophysics, feel that if they lose JWST, they will also lose the money.
Also, there is no denying the if JWST were to work, the science would help change the textbooks. However, this would be the last telescope we would get for “awhile” which we are seeing now.
So the main arguments are as follows:
#1 Sunk Costs
#2 Science Returned would be awesome
#3 SMD (Astrophysics) not only loses JWST but funding.
Is this better?
I’ll try to explain what I mean. The three things you listed could be predicted by anyone without any special access.
You asked NW readers to contact their representatives to help get JWST cancelled, and you say that you are talking to people in Congress, so you should be able to give readers some idea what arguments their representatives will be hearing from the members of their party who are most actively defending JWST. “Know your enemy”.
The only thing you’ve mentioned (or implied) was that some representatives didn’t know JWST was so far over budget/schedule. What else? Do they believe JWST is widely supported in the scientific community? Do they think that the cost is reasonable for the complexity, or that the science justifies the complexity? Do they know what other projects have been cancelled because of JWST? How many are even particularly aware of JWST’s existence? How strong is the support in congress? Are there a few dedicated defenders (as with SLS), or is there a broader but less extreme support (as with ISS)?
What assumptions and awareness/ignorance are NW readers going to face, if they are able to talk to their congressman or his staffers? What arguments is that congressman getting from those colleagues/lobbyists trying to get his vote for JWST, which the NW reader is trying to counter?
[And to save repeating yourself whenever this comes up, you could probably put together a briefing document on your TPIS website for anyone contacting their rep over JWST.]
The departing 2008 Congress cut funding which caused a large part of the increase….did they do this so that you could make 550% over budget statement today? Perhaps they could have robbed that unnecessary HLV to provide adequate funding to cut the costs? Care to explain your percentage and dates?
9-12 years behind schedule…it was to be completed in 1 year?!
80% of the government is outsourced…so all the hype that it cheaper in industry does not appear to be true…contrary to TEAPIS statments to the contrary.
Sad to say…just not seeing how the oft repeated misstatements and recommended actions have any face value….
I have a number of documents in front of me for NGST (what we used to call it) with a planned 2007 launch date and a projected total lifetime cost between $1B and $2B, since a key selling point was to make it much cheaper than HST. So yes, it is a decade late and at least 5x over the budget that was presented when the project was selected.
NASA and all other parties in the decision making process appear to have confused Engineering development with Technology development. Then extrapolated that error (so the decision case would close) to schedule, while not giving up on performance resulting in a compounded Astronomical error (all pun intended). The only question at this point is, does the Agency cut its losses or continue?
Here’s a good quote from Stockman 1997:
All three teams found that NASA could launch NGST by 2005. They also confirmed that because of advanced technology and the require- ment that the observatory have one-fourth the mass of Hubble, the agency would be able to build NGST for significantly less than the $2 billion (1990 dollars) it had invested in Hubble.”
This entire post is completely wrong. On every level. I have no idea where you are getting your data but I am getting mine from people who are associated with the program and the JWST Independent Comprehensive Review Panel which you can read here:
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/499…
Never was JWST to be completed in one year. The delays are well documented. Google it. It is all open source stuff.
My percentage and dates start when the program started in 1996 as the NGST or Next Generation Space Telescope. The original price tag was $895 MILLION, which was re-baselined to $1.6 billion. We are now at $8.8 billion. Do the math.
You really need to do some research (Read the report) before you start making statements like this.
Your comments do not address the problem, and show that you have not done your own research. Sad.
The 550%:
Using the same report, Figure 5.6, 5.3 and 5.2.
2008 Budget Plan : ’02 to 08: 1.9B
’09 to 14 1.9B or 3.8B Total
==> These costs do not include operations, nor reserves
In 2000, the plan was 2B!, to be completed in ’09, almost identical to what was spent. (see wiki page
for year by year estimates due to space constraints)
Today its 8.8B (-3B
ops) or 5.5B, not quite 550%. That is the problem with stating
percentages, why did you not include the operational costs into the 895M
or the 1.6B?
Hubble will have cost 12B at EOL. It is quite difficult to imagine
anyone stepping up and thinking that even the 1.6B would have been
adequate, including operations, and reserves ::) Google “NASA’s cost paradox”
—-
So what caused the increase? Technical?
In 2009: mirrors 98% Instruments 90% Complete
Sunshield 10% Spacecraft Bus 25% Assmbly/Test 3%
The
sunshield was not completed because the full size could not be tested,
only a subscale version, and full size fab was delayed to factor in test
data..makes sense.
While structures need testing, in the shuttle world, thermal testing is not required at the assembly level. Why do it?
Illingworth – “Unlike Hubble, JWST cannot be serviced and so post-launch
opportunities to rectify problems are not available to us. Since JWST
operates at such a cold temperature and is so large, the testing regimen
is comprehensive and lengthy”.
—-
Did congress cause part of the increase? Fig 5.6.
The departing 2008 Congress cut the budget in 09 by 100M from a 440M request, a 25% reduction.
Because of this cut, the ’09 to 14 budget totals 2.9B up from the 1.9B. see figures 5.2 and 5.3, that now include reserves in fig 5.6.
So
a $100M cut cost 1B, what was President/Congress thinking? When you
stretch a program, many folks on the bell shape curve remain on both
sides. It was quite surprising the dollar amount was only 1B.
—
What is not complete and what is the problem?
So all of this funding went to completing the sun shield,
but the remaining went to making a spacecraft bus+ assembly/test
– is this not the contracted out part? why is “NASA” to blame for these estimates when the government 80% outsourced?
——
The LA Times article is simply restating that when funds were added to Webb, other programs were pushed to the right, this was known a year ago.
But why are these cost increases occurring? you never state the obvious reasons, only that industry always does a better job and its the fault of the government and its “regulations” without any substantiation.
Citing 500% really just not help this nation. its way more complicated than fannnig flames…..
There are 4 instruments on the JWST. Cancel 3 of them, complete 1 and launch within the next 2 years.
The instruments are a tiny fraction of the cost, nor are they the current schedule driver. One is already delivered, the others nearly so. The biggest missing component right now is the spacecraft.
Even if all non-delivered instruments were dropped, which as cb450sc mentions wouldn’t accomplish anything, there’s no way you’d launch in two years. The current schedule already includes around two years of testing the completed telescope. And you don’t want to skip that part, because there’s no servicing mission once this thing has launched. It needs to be tested exhaustively for operations, temperature tolerances, sunshield behavior, etc.