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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).
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...
Look. If they wanted certain approval and funding into the indefinite future, they should have named the telescope program "Infinite Freedom" or "Patriotism Chapter II" or "Frontier: American Majesty".
It would be unthinkable to stop it.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
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.
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.
You are and idiot, that much is clear. Early to-mid-90s, raised revenues, spending, not so much. Result, surplus. Seriously, are you REALLY that dumb? or just trolling?
Monstar L
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
Better still: The Ronald W. Reagan Deep Space Telescope.
Republicans would wet themselves like a little puppy getting its belly scratched. Or like Reagan himself during his last 2 years in office. But there would have to be a rider saying that the telescope would have to be built in Texas and absolutely no union workers could be used. And an amendment naming Genesis Chapter 1 as the Official Creation Story of the United States of America.
On second thought, it would still probably get filibustered until the White House is back safely in the hands of a white Republican man.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The likely plan in that vein would be to see if there is an NRO or DoD project with coattails of sufficient size. The Hubble itself is said to bear a bit of a family resemblance to the later 'Keyhole' surveillance satellites for financial and engineering reasons. There might be something going up that they could slap a slightly different optics package on and then point away from earth...
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...
Your reasoning is fictitious.
If people are evading taxes, the proper response is to put them in prison, not give them a tax break. Similarly, taxes hurt the economy, but so does unregulated banking, subsidies, and bailouts (yes, they do, really). You argue as if any raise in income is physically impossible, which seems to have become a meme among the fascist right. Taxes do not have an immediate or even pronounced effect. They have a slowing effect IF the money is not well spent after it is collected. However, an increase in taxes will always yield a an increase an income, until you get to absurd levels (which pretty much by definition are going to have to be higher than Europe...).
"It's a historical fact. Let me repeat it again: every time they raise taxes, they raise spending even more, so they still will have deficit spending and won't have enough for the telescope."
This is not true*, but for the sake of argument, lets say it was. Doesn't it stand to reason that if spending is lowered, that taxes will be lowered, and the deficit will remain the same? Ah, but that's what you want... the government to not be involved in economic matters. Let the poor fend for themselves. Sorry, we tried that for the last 3 decades, and it got us here. Now is not the time to try to destroy the country with even more of the same failed ideology, it is time to try something new. You are welcome to sit down and shut up.
* Our modern deficit was built by Reagan and the Bushes.
Great Intellect...
If you don't realize how much science advances from the data of space-based telescopes, you shouldn't be commenting on this topic.
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?
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.
1. I would hardly call slightly more "dwarfing."
2. Obama actually had an economic downturn to deal with, largely created by Reaganomics. Bailouts, stimulus, etc. Bush and Reagan had huge economic booms, such as the dotcom boom. Yet, still ran a massive deficit.
3. I'm tired of the double standard. Tax and spend is always evil... when it is a democrat doing it. Teatards spend days solid ranting about how immoral and harmful to the economy it is when Obama runs a deficit, and yet completely forgive when Republicans do it, both in the past and present.
Great Intellect...
1. They won't collect as much money as they say they will, because taxes generally hurt economic growth and/or cause people to hide money and
[citation needed]
Note: any reference to the Soviet Union or other communist countries is a red (hah!) herring and will be disregarded, because there is an enormous difference between raising income taxes by a few percent -- especially when, as now, they're at historically low levels -- and the government taking total control of the economy.
2. even if they got as much money as they expect, it won't help because congress always raises spending even more than the amount they get in new taxes. Always. Every single time. It's a historical fact. Let me repeat it again: every time they raise taxes, they raise spending even more, so they still will have deficit spending and won't have enough for the telescope.
Prove it. Seriously. You've made an extraordinary claim, give some extraordinary proof. Show historical data for every tax increase in history which indicates that deficit spending increases more than the amount of revenue raised. (Hint: you can't.) Also, has it not occurred to you that if there is increased spending, NASA might be one of the things we'd spend more money on?
Actually, I think I know the answer to that. You're an antigovernment fanatic, but you still want the government to spend money on things you think are cool, so in your mind "government spending" is bad stuff like feeding hungry people. Thus you are completely incapable of believing that any extra tax dollars could go to building a space telescope. Thanks for providing yet another example of the right-wing disconnect from reality.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Have you bothered to look at what Obama has done during his short time in office? It dwarfs what Reagan and the Bushes did.
Well, clearly you haven't, because what you claim is completely false.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms
I know, it's an article of faith with you, and there's no point in trying to change your mind with facts. Arguing economics with Republicans is like arguing biology with creationists.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
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.
You fail elementary math. The deficits were including the same accounting tricks, as was the surplus. The point remains that raising taxes raised revenue that was NOT exceeded by increases in spending, disproving the GPs point.
Monstar L
Hubble doesn't just have a resemblance to spy satellites, the optics were made by spy satellite manufacturer Perkin-Elmer. This was the primary cause of the original mirror defect as NASA weren't allowed into the factory to check all was well. All this was pretty scandalous as P-E massively underbid everyone else at $60 million, with the final bill actually coming out at $400 million. So plenty of scope for 'unforeseen difficulties' and, one imagines, this is standard practice in sensitive govt. projects.
Kodak (RIP) bid $100 million and actually made the mirror as an engineering project. Anyone know what happened to this?
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.
Kodak's mirror(ground to spec, unlike the one that made it up) is now on display somewhere. It never progressed to the metal-coating stage, so you can still see the interior lightweight stiffening structure, pretty cool looking.
Incidentally, would it have been crass for Kodak to send a little gift box containing a copy of the mirror spec and a pair of very strong reading glasses to Perkin-Elmer back when the optical problems were first discovered?
While this thread is going off-topic from discussing the politics of space-based telescopes, self-duplication is a critical issue in terms of the fact that it is through this process that modern society exists. You had better believe that it is very helpful.
In a world where machines can't ultimately duplicate themselves (with trained technicians operating those machines), you simply would not be able to create new machines, and the entire concept of a machine would be "magic". At some fundamental level, you need to have tools which can make other tools like itself. That is the very basis for technology in the first place.
Why this whole thread is being modded down seems a bit odd to me, especially as the modding is not being made off-topic. I suppose I should try to dovetail the discussion back, with the idea that without self-replicating machines that neither the Hubble nor JWST would be possible.
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.
If people are evading taxes, the proper response is to put them in prison, not give them a tax break.
I didn't realize that electing to not buy a product which had taxes raised on it qualifies as tax evasion.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Please explain how this would have anything to do with, say, going to a progressive rather than a flat capital gains tax. current 15% up to the first million/year, up to say 75% for personal capital gains over $25 million/year. If anything that tax structure should encourage reinvestment in things that stimulate the real economy and/or pay dividends.
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
Note that the National Debt increased EVERY year during the '90's. Actually, it has increased every year since before I was born (in the the '50's).
Which suggests strongly that there wasn't really a surplus. HINT: you're not running a surplus if you have to borrow more money to pay the bills.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Umm, no. Our modern deficit has been going on much longer than that.
It should also be noted that every single budget in the history of this nation was passed by Congress (as required in the Constitution).
And the Congress during the majority of Reagan and the Bushes 20 years in office was controlled by the Democrat Party.
Note also, for the record, that the Congress that brought the deficit down to near zero in the Clinton years was...Republican (the first Republican controlled Congress since 1947)....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Collecting dust in a museum (and it seems there were even two backups; at least the second, by Itek, wasn't wasted - apparently it's used in an Earth-based telescope)
One that hath name thou can not otter
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.
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.
Do you gargle with Glen Beck's bath water, too?
> For this administration to build it,
Hey! Funding an agency belongs to the legislative branch. It was even on Schoolhouse Rock.
> it will need to be called something like "Global Warming Explorer",
> "Rich People Killer", or "Bush's Fault"
Do you even investigate your opinions? You sound "tased and confused". Obama has funnelled more public funds into RICH, private pockets than Bush could have ever achieved.
Just one REGULATORY - not statutory - example:
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11224917/1/a-huge-housing-bargain--but-not-for-you.html
So, while Bushie turned these INTO US Government assets, via TARP and other 2008 bailouts, Bamie will now sacrifice those already dubious "investments," to make more geld for Goldmann.
I have to say. If you liked Bush, then it follows that Obama ought to be making you fill your trousers with white, gooey geysers.
http://my.firedoglake.com/davidswanson/2011/03/15/is-obama-even-worse-than-bush/
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/04/10-reasons-obama-is-just-as-bad-or.html
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3538
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The winner of the election is perfectly capable of doing these things without my vote. Consequently, if I vote in the Presidential elections, I'll vote for either Gary Johnson or Ron Paul in the primary http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2011/08/19/13370
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Seriously? That takes into account 1 or 2 years of Obama's presidency. It's a fact that his policies will create many more trillions of dollars of debt in the coming years (even by him. Why do you think they want to raise the debt limit so much?)
1.) "slightly more?" Are you looking at projections for the coming years, based on his economic policies? Why do you think they were so set on raising the debt limit?
2.) Guess what-- the economy runs in cycles. Bush had to deal with the effects of the dot-com burst and 9/11. Do you really think it's fair to say he inherited "economic booms?"
3.) Obama is running up a huge unrecoverable deficit that we *can not pay for.* We can't afford it even if we tax the rich into the ground. The economy was bad during a lot of the Bush years, but you can't place all the blame on him. 9/11. Dot-com. Credit issues caused by policies created in the '90s. You can't tell me that none of those had a major effect. All of those things had *huge* negative effects on the economy during the Bush years, yet none of those 3 things were his doing. And I'm sure you'll find that a good portions of "teatards" (you're quite mature) do *not* support many of Bush's economic policies.
Because we already committed to spending money and hit the debt limit? Only a zero deficit could have averted borrowing money. You do realize there is a difference between deficit and debt, right?
Bush II go the butt end of the dotcom boom. He decided to then lower taxes to an unsustainable level and spend trillions on unfunded wars. I think it's fair to say he dug his own hole, yes.
Alright. You're the economic genius, I guess; prove it, please. That's an awful extraordinary claim, so you had better have some equally extraordinary proof.
Yeah. They're not far enough to the right for them. I think that's pretty obvious.
Sorry. I should call them what they are: right wing extremists.
I might consider changing my political position as soon as I hear from a conservative that doesn't argue from Fox News-provided logically fallacies, poor statistics, and historical revisionism. Sadly, your post has not brought anything new to the table.
Great Intellect...