James Webb Space Telescope Closer To the Axe

astroengine writes "This could be considered 'strike two' for the deeply troubled James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Last week, the House Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Subcommittee made the recommendation that the advanced infrared space telescope be cancelled. On Wednesday, the full House Science, Space and Technology Committee has approved the subcommittee's plan. The project may not be dead yet — the 2012 budget still has to be voted on my the House and Senate — but it sure is looking grim for 'Hubble's replacement.'"

Comments

Re:So Painfully Frustrating

[Moryath]

It's quite simple.

Every time the "budget for NASA" is drawn up, it's not the actual NASA budget. If NASA were able to put the money where it was needed, they'd be in a lot better shape.

What Congress does instead is writes a "NASA budget" with a fuck-ton of strings attached. They give a "budget" for various missions, not overall. They cover salaries and the funding of various project bids, which can't be reassigned until Congress writes the next "NASA Budget."

Add to that the fact that NASA projects are usually on the order of a decade long, and most of these Congressional Fuckwits from either party are up for reelection (and a lot get replaced) every couple years, then come in and rewrite the budget and re-earmark things to the states of whatever party's in power to the loss of the states that aren't.

The current, added problem is that the Republicans - the party currently with "power of the purse" - have a hate-on for NASA because NASA was actually DOING the climate research and ongoing studies in response to screams of "global climate change is a myth, there's not enough research." The cuckoo clock wing of the party wants to kill NASA right now because they don't want there to BE enough research, ever.

Re:So Painfully Frustrating

[spidercoz]

Technical degrees? More like MBAs, the downfall of American society. Which brings up a point: why are "Masters of Business Administration" so fucking terrible at administrating businesses? It's almost like they don't have any real skills or abilities and it's a bullshit degree. Oh wait...