NASA's Big Telescope Avoids Death-by-Budget-Cut

coondoggie writes "NASA's most ambitious and highly over-budget space projects, the James Webb Space Telescope has apparently been spared the budgetary axe. The US Senate Committee on Appropriations has approved about $530 million of NASA's $17.9 billion budget to 'enable a 2018 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope.'"

Comments

Re:More Good Money After Bad!

[mojo-raisin]

Reading NASA's website, it sounds like the microshutters have already been developed and shipped

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/microshutters.html
and
http://spiedigitallibrary.org/proceedings/resource/2/psisdg/7594/1/75940N_1?isAuthorized=no

"The assemblies have passed a series of critical reviews, which include programmable 2-D addressing, life tests, optical contrast tests, and environmental tests, required by the design specifications of JWST."

The bleeding edge

[TapeCutter]

Moon shots and Hubble had similar financial overruns. I watched Armstrong live, but was just as awestruck by Hubble's deep field pics and Sagan's blue dot.