The James Webb

[CraigS]

It just keeps getting sadder ...

NASA Estimates $8.7 Billion To Fly Webb

Managers at NASA replanning the troubled James Webb Space Telescope have concluded it will cost $8.7 billion to finish the observatory in time for a launch in 2018 and operate it at the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point for five years.

The agency says that by the end of fiscal 2011 it will have spent $3.5 billion so far on the telescope, which means another $5.2 billion must be found by the end of the five-year mission following launch in 2018.

[Ric]

I have a bad feeling about where this is heading.

I just hope I'm wrong.

[TrevorW]

$9 biilion for something that will only operate for 5 years, a waste IMO

[renormalised (Carl)]

It's going to get canned, for sure. So they can fund 6 months worth of airconditioning for their troops in Afghanistan. It most certainly won't go back to NASA.

In any case, the costs of these projects is ridiculous. It's most likely more a case of bad management and government-industry ripoffs than anything else. Someone is making a lot of money on it.

[riklaunim]

Or it's hard to send big scope into space... They could do some other missions for that money like probes to Uranus and Neptune (Cassini-like), or Europa orbiter and/or lander with a drill

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by riklaunim

Or it's hard to send big scope into space... They could do some other missions for that money like probes to Uranus and Neptune (Cassini-like), or Europa orbiter and/or lander with a drill

They'd end up costing more than the JWST. In any case, they have an Europa mission already earmarked for later in the decade. Missions to Uranus and Neptune are a long way off at present and given the way these companies work, it'll cost NASA about $50-$100 billion for each of them. The whole system has gone completely bonkers.

[GeoffW1 (Geoff)]

Hi,

I placed a powerful hex on it early , because they named it for a NASA bureaucrat, instead of for Tycho Brahe or some other of his ilk.

Now I know who Webb was, and of his claims, but I just can't wear bureaucrats in space.

I'd sooner name it the Spock Scope.

Cheers

[CraigS]

Seems like a combination of political and funding mismanagement (April 2011) on what was always forecasted to be an expensive project ...

But the problem appears to go beyond mismanagement. Interviews with current and recently retired NASA officials, astronomers and the Government Accountability Office reveal a culture of deception when it comes to estimating the cost of large NASA missions. Given the limited supply of money for new projects, those with proposals are encouraged to underestimate the true price tag, and those who question the estimates are ignored or reprimanded.
...
The Goddard team “went into confirmation with a badly flawed budget; the reserves were inadequate,” Casani says. “The first mistake was the wrong budget; the second mistake was that nobody caught it.”
…
Casani’s panel found that the project had tried to stay within budget by consistently deferring work that was supposed to be done in one fiscal year to the next. People had to be kept on payroll, and inflation made postponed work more costly. The deferred work ended up costing millions more than had it been done on time, the Casani panel concluded.
…
First, although JWST managers at Goddard did a full accounting of potential risks in 2008, they failed to ask for funds to deal with those potential problems in the budget presented at confirmation.
…
“The other thing that really astonished us was the lack of insight from headquarters about the project and what it was doing,” Illingworth says. No one was monitoring what was being done or asking why project deadlines hadn’t been met and how this might drive up the overall cost, he says.
…
The same problems encountered with JWST are bound to come up again, says Griffin, unless NASA holds individuals accountable. “As long as nothing bad happens to the people who misrepresent the data, then it’s not going to change.”

I've heard this same story many times, myself.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Well, Craig, I wasn't far wrong

[Jules76 (Julian)]

Originally Posted by TrevorW

$9 biilion for something that will only operate for 5 years, a waste IMO

Designed to operate for 5 years, but they are hoping to get 10 years of service. If they learned from the mistakes they made with Hubble and get things right, who's to say 10 years is not achievable?

And if everything I've heard about it is correct in it's ability to see further and gather more data than Hubble, it could possibly do more in it's 5-10 years of operation than Hubble has in 21 years.

That's worth it IMO.

[Waxing_Gibbous (Peter)]

Originally Posted by Ric

I have a bad feeling about where this is heading.

I just hope I'm wrong.

Ditto!!
Heck, I tought 2015 was the launch date.
Given the potential returns, penny-pinching (and we are talking effectively pennies here) seems pointless.
NASA does however, need to get it's act together and produce a usable instrument.
Doesn't have to be perfect - just 'good enough.
The first time the public sees more-awesome-than-hubble images, all will be forgiven.

[TrevorW]

Originally Posted by Jules76

Designed to operate for 5 years, but they are hoping to get 10 years of service. If they learned from the mistakes they made with Hubble and get things right, who's to say 10 years is not achievable?

And if everything I've heard about it is correct in it's ability to see further and gather more data than Hubble, it could possibly do more in it's 5-10 years of operation than Hubble has in 21 years.

That's worth it IMO.

5 times cheaper and better

http://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/eelt/owl/index_3.html