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).

Comments

You better get NASA on the horn

[apparently]

Repeat after me..... JWSB != Hubble successor

I hate to "steam" you even more, but NASA disagrees with your "JWSC !- Hubble successor" belief.

Webb often gets called the replacement for Hubble, but we prefer to call it a successor. After all, Webb is the scientific successor to Hubble; its science goals were motivated by results from Hubble. Hubble's science pushed us to look to longer wavelengths to "go beyond" what Hubble has already done. In particular, more distant objects are more highly redshifted, and their light is pushed from the UV and optical into the near-infrared.

...which is the first paragraph on their page addressing whether or not Webb is Hubble's successor. I don't mean to imply that they're an authoritative voice or anything on the subject, but surely their opinion should be weighed into your semantics argument?

Re:Yay

[PopeRatzo]

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".

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.