Congress Dumps James Webb Space Telescope

Teancum writes "On the list of items on the upcoming federal budget for 2012, the U.S. House of Representatives has announced they are going to cancel the continued development of the James Webb Space Telescope. While this debate is certainly still very much a preliminary draft, the road ahead for this project is now very much uncertain. In this time of budget cuts, it seems unlikely that this project is going to survive at this time. It certainly will be an uphill battle for fans of this telescope if they want to keep it alive."

Comments

Science loses again

[Anonymous Coward]

War and Destruction... untouchable
Knowledge and Progress... Short list for cuts

Not surprised the least

Re:Science loses again

[bmo]

It's too bad you posted as AC, because it's true.

And it's funny how the people who cut this will take pride in how our country is on the so-called cutting-edge of technology and science.

We're on the fast track to becoming a banana republic.

--
BMO

Re:Science loses again

[Fluffeh]

From the appropriations document:

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) – NASA is funded at $16.8 billion in the bill, which is $1.6 billion below last year’s level and $1.9 billion below the President’s request. This funding includes:

        $3.65 billion for Space Exploration which is $152 million below last year. This includes funding above the request for NASA to meet Congressionally mandated program deadlines for the newly authorized crew vehicle and launch system.
        $4.1 billion for Space Operations which is $1.4 billion below last year’s level. The legislation will continue the closeout of the Space Shuttle program for a savings of $1 billion.
        $4.5 billion for NASA Science programs, which is $431 million below last year’s level. The bill also terminates funding for the James Webb Space Telescope, which is billions of dollars over budget and plagued by poor management.

Meanwhile, in the same document:

Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) – The bill provides $2.7 billion for the PTO – the full requested level. This funding is equal to the estimated amount of fees to be collected by the PTO during fiscal year 2012, and is an increase of $588 million or 28% above last year’s level. The bill also includes language that allows PTO to keep and use any fees in excess of the estimated collected amount, subject to standard Congressional approval, and includes language requiring PTO to report on efforts to reduce the patent application backlog

(Bolding is mine)

Stop a space telescope, cut back NASA funds while retiring a space shuttle... increase patent office funding... This is just a normal day in the office chaps...

Re:Science loses again

[Savantissimo]

It's ridiculous to measure military spending as a percent of GDP. The necessary expenses do not scale with GDP. We aren't facing any real military threats; the BS "terrorism" scare was just a marketing campaign to keep the gravy train rolling. We don't need the expenditures of the cold war today, yet we're spending much more in level dollar terms. We could cut $200B out of the DoD budget tomorrow and still be spending more than in the late 90s or the 70s. The accumulated interest on old military expenditures and increase in the veterans affairs budget due to idiotic wars of choice almost doubles the official budget, to over $1.1trillion a year, even before counting DHS, State Dept., DoE, etc. We're borrowing all that money, including the interest payments. Social Security and Medicare, on the other hand, pay for themselves, and have money left over to lend to the rest of the government. They'd have more but the rich don't pay Social Security tax on most of their income, and Medicare is forbidden from negotiating volume discounts with the pharmaceutical companies.

We're going to spend $2.8 billion this year on the V-22 Osprey, which is a complete dog, unreliable, unmaintainable, dangerous. We're going to spend over $10 billion this year on idiotic, unworkable, destabilizing ballistic missile defense schemes. We're going to spend more on fucking air-conditioning for the Iraq and Afghanistan fiascos than the entire NASA budget. And it's worse than completely useless- it soaks up engineering talent, manufacturing capacity and materials and produces nothing of value - it actually destroys value at home and abroad by killing and maiming people and destroying property. It's fucking psychotic.

Re:Science loses again

[Rich0]

But when the costs themselves become unmanageable, let the voters and representatives of that time deal with it. Their problem, their decision. Cutting Medicare only requires one Congressional vote, it's not magic.

If they can afford Medicare as it is now, good for them. If they can't, they'll have no choice but to cut it. That'll be unpopular, but in that case it'll also be necessary which means it'll happen.

Well, if I'm not going to get Medicare in 30 years, why not just cut it today so that I can stop paying all those taxes for the next 30 years? If it will work for me to pay taxes for the next 30 years and not collect a dime, then it will work fine for the previous generation to do the same. Besides, we don't need to cut it so much as we need to reform it (raise retirement age, only spend money where we have clinically proven results, etc).

On the other hand, US foreign policy today will impact the kind of world I live in 30 years from now. I don't see a need to be as engaged overseas as we have been, but the fact is that an army is actually one of those things that the Federal Government was created for in the first place.

Absurd

[eln]

Cutting this project will do basically nothing to help the deficit situation. Until they start seriously talking about slashing defense spending, drastically reforming Medicare and Social Security, AND raising taxes, it's obvious they're just playing politics with no intention of doing anything to fix the problem. They could cut this and everything else in the discretionary non-defense budget and still run a huge deficit.

Re:Absurd

[artor3]

They don't "forget" to raise taxes. The Republicans have instituted a very well-crafted and carefully executed plan for the past decade or so. They pass a massive tax cut to wipe out the surplus. They then drive us deep into debt with wars and the unfunded Medicare expansion. Next, they use that debt as an excuse to eliminate Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security. Then they take the savings, and insist the way to grow the economy is with more tax cuts. See where this is going?

The end result is a society with no safety net to support the ~250 million serfs, who must therefore work for whatever wages their lords are willing to pay, and die in the streets when they are no longer of use. Meanwhile, those lords pay no taxes. The government, with no revenue, cannot regulate the lords to keep them from further abusing their serfs. We're on a fast track to return to the Gilded Age. This is not an accident.

Re:Budget problems

[mosb1000]

The panel noted that the project was in good shape technically, but that NASA had not budgeted enough for the project initially. In other words, it would have cost less if they'd put more in up front and completed it on schedule. This is why you shouldn't let penny-pinchers be in charge of cost estimates (or anything, for that matter). If they weren't willing to commit sufficient funds to the project, they shouldn't have done it at all.

Hah

[beadfulthings]

What do we need with a space telescope or space exploration program anyway? Our children are being groomed to be the poorly fed, poorly housed, poorly educated drones of the likes of of the Koch Brothers--or worse, cannon fodder in the next forever war undertaken to line the pockets of the defense contractors. Other countries will gladly assume the exploration of frontiers and the advancement of knowledge while our kids get to learn about creation science.

Re:Where has the wonder gone?

[ridgecritter]

Our sense of wonder was spent in Iraq, Afghanistan, Goldman-Sachs, and AIG.

Re:Can we start a kickstarter?

[Jiro]

I hear that if you vote for Obama in 2008, we will no longer have to deal with Bush's wars. Try it, maybe it'll work. He is promising change, after all.