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NASA Tries To Save Hubble's Successor
Last month we discussed news that the James Webb Space Telescope, the planned successor to the HST, is on the budgetary chopping block. Now, an anonymous reader points out hopeful news from TPM's Idea Lab blog, which says NASA is trying to "spread the cost across the agency rather than just pulling from the $1 billion astrophysics division, with at least half of the funds coming from other areas of NASA's total $18 billion budget." According to Nature News, the decision resides with the White House's Office of Management and Budget, and support for the project depends in particular on Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD).
Positive news.
Because clearly it's a worthless expenditure that will have no clear and definitive results, but will instead just serve as massive government waste since if this were worth doing, a private telescope company would do it.
Sarcasm mode off.
As Alan Stern pointed out on NASA Watch earlier today, this is a very dangerous move for the space science community.
The science program has worked hard to put up firewalls to prevent the manned program from raiding them for funding when the going gets tough. By breaking that firewall in the opposite direction it opens the science directorate to future funding losses when things get bad on the manned side, (as they are sure to when the already obvious failures of SLS come calling).
Between these two massive programs whose budgets keep growing I fear for the interesting smaller programs on boh the manned and unmanned sides...
The budget won't be an issue once the telescope finds aliens that can teach us how to duplicate stuff!
and he'll put funding for it as the first item on his presidential agenda. Word on the Hill is that the jobs plan Romney's announcing in September involves putting a sizable number of Americans to work building his spaceship so that he can scope out an appropriate location for his galactic rule; funding for a measly telescope seems like a natural fit, no?
This fact alone steams me up to no end, where this meme needs to be killed for once and for all. The Hubble Space Telescope is a fine instrument, but the James Webb Telescope is not being designed to do the same mission and is not a replacement for the Hubble. It is flat out misleading for those in the NASA space exploration directorates to keep repeating this lie.
There may be a good reason to have the James Web Telescope too, but defend it for its own mission and don't be riding the coattails of Hubble either, particularly when the capabilities of Hubble are going to be gone when that telescope finally kicks the bucket. There very well may be another telescope (or not) to act as a genuine replacement, but this isn't it.
Considering the current situation, we (the US) are literally stuck between a rock and a hard place.
It's a shame that political divides politics and greedy assholes paying political figures is causing the downfall of not only the US, but science among other things.
Look, in order to save tax breaks for private jets, sacrifices have to be made. I mean, which is more important, exploring the vastness of the universe, unlocking the secrets of mankind, or making sure trust fund babies dont have to shell out a small amount more for their private jets. If you answered the former, you are an American-hating, greedy, muslim-atheist socialist!
Monstar L
Romney just wants to be the president of the council of the twelve sealing a couple in the celestial room while orbiting above Kobol.
Oh wait, Loren Green already beat him to that, didn't he?
I would totally donate $100 for the JWST if I could. Losing $100 would make me feel less sad than seeing this project cancelled. Put my name on some donor web page or something, like the Blender open movie credits my name is in.
http://mikulski.senate.gov/contact/
BTW, she's also got a crabcake recipe on her site. That scores points in my book...
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Repeat after me..... JWSB != Hubble successor
I hate to "steam" you even more, but NASA disagrees with your "JWSC !- Hubble successor" belief.
They are mainly not useful except for emotional value and making cool IMAX movies. I certainly would love to have them everywhere, but in the context of multi-trillion deficits, I'd rather put that one on ice for a few decades... Besides, the Libya war won't pay for itself (sure the oil companies will benefit, but not Uncle Sam)!
You do realize that even if the taxes you propose are imposed:
So in summary, if you want a space telescope, the best thing you could advocate would be dramatically cutting spending elsewhere, and then maybe we would have money for that. Perhaps if we weren't a foodstamps nation with a record number of people claiming benefits we could afford this?
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
NASA has a shoestring budget, when you're looking to make big cuts, you could eliminate NASA altogether and it wouldn't even be a noticeable debt reduction plan.
What should be looked into is lowering defense. Ever since the atomic stalemate between US and Russia, no one is going to invade a nuclear armed country because there is threat of nuclear retaliation. I'd think we could even get by with just a little better than shoestring budget on defense in the current world.
You have two roads to take: "Killing people who disagree with you" or "Reduce defense, feed everyone who's hungry on the planet, and have money left over."
It is very easy to argue that feeding everyone on the planet is a better defense mechanism than killing our enemies. Look at how many allies you'd get if you fed everyone hungry on the planet! How many allies do you get when you're killing people?
God spoke to me
we need change how these kinds of projects are done. Our problem is that we are using cost plus on all of these and every player in this is making money hand over fist. It is a NIGHTMARE. Instead, like commercial launch services, we need to push for having this done via a bid basis. Basically, large american companies should do fixed bids on this and then be required to anti up. Ideally, this same idea can be extended to support building of satellite backbones. Then to the backbone, we simply attach new instruments.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Please allow me to have 7 minutes of your time.
The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcBV-cXVWFw
Thank You.
It's been trickling down since the 80's. I'm walking around in friggin rubber boots and sloshing through the waves of trickle that lowering taxes has wrought me. All heil Reagan!
Science isn't being stopped; just some of it is being slowed down.
Nasa only amounts to a few bucks on most people's taxes. We can afford to fund it easily. Its a drop compared to the ocean of debt the crooks have racked up.
The stupid public continues to let these games be played and falls for the propaganda. The banker's didn't just blow a hole in the economy, they are stealing our money to fill the hole before the next explosion.
The debt is never allowed to be paid off and it's compounding interest is killing our worthwhile programs while we can't cut the real waste problems. No, not the "entitlements" the suckers have been tricked into calling medicare, social security, and unemployment-- all of which we pay heavily for and are even ITEMIZED out of our paychecks and are NOT entitlement programs! We let politicians characterize them along with the idiotic media as some sort of charity as they STEAL the money we pay SPECIFICALLY for those programs and put it into the pockets of their cronies.
Social Security was designed to be as separated as they could from the general fund but here we've been mortgaging against it since Bush. Now we are being forced to pay up and it'll get worse-- it really won't matter who is in office because its going to be so bad that they will be forced to give up the house to pay the bankers. Its not really a whole lot conceptually different than what the USA did to 3rd world nations for generations using its tools at the IMF and World Bank-- but now everything we did is being done to us (arguably including the assassination of officials in 'accidents,' blackmail, etc. of course payoffs were far more common... ) It also didn't do us any good to allow all this CIA economic warfare to leak so much into the private sector.. and now with our military as well. Back when it was the USA backing it on others at least the USA was safe - now its migrated away and out of our control. Movies like "The International" are only a tip of the sort of things going on already today in more complex ways (they have to keep it simple in a movie.)
You rob a bank. get hard time. You run a bank into the ground; you get rich. there is no legitimate outrage out there; just flip the channel or find a website that makes you feel better and move on.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Someone enlighten me if I'm clueless here, but here's my thought:
Why not have a section when people do their taxes to donate to specific programs directly. I know you can donate to the IRS in general, but I never heard of them making high-level programs available for specific citizen-targeted donations. Another possibility is to have a portion of individual citizen's taxes be customized by them so they can control somewhat where their tax money goes (this could only work as a small percentage).
This would provide a way for the public to voice their priorities/opinions by donating to programs which they find most beneficial. In this instance, it would allow the public to make up for the inane budgeting cuts as politicians think they are qualified to judge the scientific merits of different programs within NASA.
Politicians could also find out real quick what programs are most popular with the public.
Thoughts?
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
You can have billions in oil and corn subsidies, trillions in arms, but how dare you suggest we actually have a space program on par with countries such as Russia, China, and India...
Great Intellect...
But with the tax money saved from these wasteful government programs, every American will be building rockets and satellites in their own back yard!
Don't think of it as gutting science and social programs—think of it as the beginning of modern conservatism's great leap forward.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Keep your sarcasm mode off for a bit and answer this for me. What exactly are the benefits of it? Will it continue to cost money paid for either by NASA or the US government?
And if it is so worth doing, then why hasn't private enterprise or even private charities funded it or part of it?
But with the tax money saved from these wasteful government programs, every American will be building rockets and satellites in their own back yard!
JWST is expected to cost $6,500,000,000 if it doesn't go even further over budget. That's more than twenty times as much as SpaceX say they spent to develop Falcon 9.
So yes, if those billions were given to people building rockets then there'd be a heck of a lot of them.
I'm just as exited about finding these answers as anyone, but what are the real ramifications and are we actually creating new technology or just struggling to use existing to solve a complicated problem.
I lost my mother to cancer a few years ago now. So yes this is a bit emotional, but I rather this 5 billion go to cancer research. This will have real ramifications.
If you look at say the Apollo program it was pretty obvious that solving the problem ( going to moon ) would solve many problems that would spread out in the rest of society. The list is long from material science to better computer. Not to mention better rockets.
I guess I need the case to be pitched as to what are potential overall gains we might see. The real return from this national R&D. If it just a bunch of scientists trying to prove the big bang theory I think it could wait...until we have health care costs and other things under control . If the world could spread the costs or we could think of a cheaper way to solve this problem and others that would be a better use of cash.
I suppose you could make the same case for Hubble telescope. The end result is a little more accessible I suppose. The pictures from Hubble have inspired people in ways we can't replicate. I just wonder if the Webb scope would have the same kind of effect.
Because the JWST yields scientific knowledge that does not have immediate forseeable potential for profit, companies aren't going to be paying for it (other than possibly for PR purposes). As to private charities, it appears to me that most of philanthropies sponsoring science research are aimed towards promotion of causes like human health, renewable energy, etc. - daily, practical concerns. Nothing lofty like the JWST which will help us view the cosmos. Even basic biology research that might have a medical impact 50 years down the road won't get sponsored by charities, because there is way too much uncertainty involved.
That's why government funding is necessary to sponsor basic science research - for those areas of science which are so far down the road in terms of turning a direct potential benefit to humanity, that can either radically change our view of the world and our way of living or simply be an interesting piece of trivia. Most of the time it's somewhere in between, in which even the interesting factoids will provide bits and pieces of the puzzle on our way to the Next Great Invention or Theory (TM).
Cogito, ergo sum, fosho!
Which would be really cool. That way we'd have lots more rockets with which to launch ... uhm ... what, exactly?
Which would be really cool. That way we'd have lots more rockets with which to launch ... uhm ... what, exactly?
Whatever you want.
If SpaceX can build Falcon 9 for about a tenth of what NASA estimated it to cost, they could probably knock out a couple of JWSTs for a billion or less.
And also discover a cure to cancer while they're on it. Because developing a rocket and building a telescope are so similar tasks after all, right? The fact that SpaceX has lots of talented propulsion engineers doesn't mean that these guys know the stuff that's required to construct something like JWST.
And magically, you'll have cure for some disease ...
But, way, lets do some reality check beforehand : is cancer cured ? nope, it's 'managed', same as any other deadly disease that don't present an economically threatening infection pattern.
If pharmaceutical companies where really interested in actually curing people, they'll drop their patent scheme, so that Africans and other poor fellows all around the world dying from easily-cured diseases could get treatment. Are they doing that right now ?
So, back to thinking : is it more profitable to Cure cancer, or to simply 'manage' it ? Once you can answer this one, you can find if it's a good idea to shell out money to them.
I'd say it's a better idea to fund Nasa & their covert lookout for threatening lumps of rocks (and Alien spaceships) that are statistically heading our way. At least, it's economically interesting to blast them, and nobody cares if their life is screwed by radiation poisonning.
Nasa gets it up there, takes 10,000 pics a day with a super high CCD image processor which costs the US tax payer MIllions and we'll get a couple of VGA sized pixelated airbushed photos on the net in a years time for our troubles.
NOT WORTH IT
What is the point to talk about US particle physics ? Are they any different from the European particles ?
Show me any good paper on the sociology, holyday trip patterns, or economic segregation of Atomic Particles, and maybe that argument can grow some legs.
Since CERN is doing the job, why would $trillions-indebted USA want to do the same thing also ? Don't you have more relevant things to do, like invading another oil field, rigging some gold bars, or plundering some homeless people ?
JWST is a better thing to throw at the scientific community, for there is no duplicates planned anywhere else, and besides, you wouldn't want the Chinese (or Europeans) to launch a sattelite that could look at the US army in the eyes.
No need to RTFA this time, it doesn't have any more information than what's in the ./ summary. A first?
Definitely a case of apples and oranges - have Space X developed a space telescope? Does the JWST launch satellites? In both cases: no.
Its like saying "instead of spending this $100,000 on building this house, instead I'm going to give it to these people to build delivery trucks." It doesn't solve the problem the original amount was spent to solve.
Any time there is an issue with funding NASA should express the amount in relation to the amount the American government spends killing people around the world.
e.g. "Well we could either not do this interesting research for the benefit of all mankind or you could drop 2 less smart bombs on some innocent brown people."
I am surprised by the lack of support for this telescope. It will help us to unlock the secrets of the universe. It will help us to get a better grip on the laws of physics.
It takes Hubble a week to capture what the James Webb will be able to do in a day. This thing should be able to see to the edge of the universe, if we're right about where that is. It will be located in a La Grange point in the Earth's shadow, making something like a 30,000 mile figure-8 orbit which is just cool.
Someone mentioned cancer research instead. The thing is that not all scientists and engineers want to work on cancer. Should they seek other countries to pursue their dreams? What a loss to the US that would be. Besides, scientific and technological progress has a way of spreading around, so who knows, this could end up benefitting cancer research in some way.
Does it cost a lot? Yes. But it's almost done!! If it is cancelled now, all the money that was poured into it will be wasted! When we start a project like this, we need to see it through. Besides, if you look at the percentage of the budget that goes to the military, this is just a drop in the bucket.
And if it is so worth doing, then why hasn't private enterprise or even private charities funded it or part of it?
Writing a statement like that on the internet which was, of course, started by the government, is like saying "Keep the government's hands off Medicare!". Breathtaking in its ignorance.
Have you ever heard of Google? Well, it was started by a grant from the US Government's National Science Foundation.
And take Akamai. It now delivers between 15 and 30% of all web traffic, and is used by all of the top 20 eCommerce sites. But when the founders tried to start it, no company or investor was interested. Instead, the government funded them and that is why they exist today.
If you want innovation, supporting governmental-funded research is the way to go.
just to remind.... http://gizmodo.com/5813257/air-conditioning-our-military-costs-more-than-nasas-entire-budget ppl fighting for the same mudball and fucking religions and not evening speaking same language. This is getting so ridiculous we really deserve to be wiped away.
OH GOD I am so tired of this argument - 'If it's worth doing then why isn't the private sector doing it, or funding it'. Private sector absolutely is beholden to the shareholders and the quarterly profit cycle. That's exactly why lots of tropical diseases that are imminently curable go unaddressed - oh, they don't have money? No new drugs for them.
If you were honest with yourself, you could fire up Wikipedia, or open up a history book, and make a list of 'things the government did first that private industry benefited from later'. Ok, here's my five second stab at that
- the interstate system
- the internet
- lots of immunizations and vaccines
- GPS
- MOSIS
- sequencing the genome
- clean water and air standards, which are nice
This magical thinking that if the government evaporated tomorrow, some guy in his garage would do all those things, somehow better and more efficiently, is a crutch for people who are uninterested in how the world really works. In effect, NASA IS PAYING private companies to develop and build the JWST - but twenty guys in twenty garages somewhere are not going to independently come up with twenty telescopes better than Perkins Elmer, Ball Aerospace, Lockheed Martin, and Northrup Grumman - who are all getting money as part of JWST, and, last time I checked, all ARE part of private industry. In fact, you might reasonably argue that it is reflexive dishonesty and underbidding by the commercial subcontractors (who have been conditioned to this by decades of working for the Pentagon) that has been the major driver of cost overruns. But hey, believe what you want -
Because MBAs and other Libertardians are too stupid, lazy and greedy to do anything for the public good unless there's a buttload of money in it for their own personal enrichment, preferably stolen from the taxpayers. Half a century ago corporations felt a responsibility towards the communities in which they were located and built parks, libraries and medical facilities for the families of the people who worked for them. Today's MBA-diseased corporations won't even donate to the food banks that their impoverished employees need to survive.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Is there a reason why this project can't wait for 5, 10, 20 or even 100 years? When there is actually money for it? Is the universe going to just go away? Are we going to miss something really, really important? Is JWST going to do anything at all to improve the average citizen's life or the economy? Or is it a luxury? And why not have it funded by philantropy? Telescopes used to operate that way and this is certainly doable by Gates/Buffet/Slim/etc.
Just forget about the stupid Mars projects and the ISS and spend the money for real science
No, not at all. The internet have a strategic value to it that was important to military and the research/contractors working with it. BTW, Private businesses did fund parts of darpanet which became the internet. So let's not pretend its the same statement at all.
You must have a comprehension problem or something. I didn't asked about Ecommerce or Google, I asked the AC who posted a snark comment to explain the relevance of his comment. You have failed in that task and turn this into a "so and so" did it so everything else must be justified. That's not a logical argument. And it wasn't the question asked.