Slashdot Mirror
James Webb Space Telescope, NASA's Next Hubble, Delayed Again (cnet.com)
NASA has been planning to launch a powerful new telescope that can see across the universe and perhaps to the beginning of time for many years now. But the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) appears likely to have to wait at least two more. From a report: On Tuesday, NASA said it needs more time to test the $8 billion space observatory, pushing back the scheduled launch date to approximately May 2020 from the earlier plans of next year. "Webb is the highest priority project for the agency's Science Mission Directorate, and the largest international space science project in US history," Robert Lightfoot, NASA's acting administrator, said in a release. "All the observatory's flight hardware is now complete, however, the issues brought to light with the spacecraft element are prompting us to take the necessary steps to refocus our efforts on the completion of this ambitious and complex observatory."
Having worked at NASA surely you would have known that the space shuttle problems began long before Obama. Sure he did little to save the program, but the space shuttle was far more expensive than originally planned and was at the end of its life. While NASA worked on the replacement, no proposals met the criteria needed so the whole thing was scrapped.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I think part of the problem, is they were looking for a single Shuttle Replacement, The Shuttle was an attempt to match our Science Fiction view on how a space craft should be. A multi-use device, designed to handle many different type of mission parameters. The problem with the design, is that it made to do many mission parameters but none ideal for the shuttle itself. It is like the first set of jets, didn't have adjustable seats, but were designed for a mans average height. That meant they couldn't find anyone who would comfortably fit in it, because very few people actually meet the price measurement of average.
The Shuttle was ahead of its time, perhaps we should revisit its ideas in 50 more years, where a lot of the engineering principals and designs may be easier to implement affordably and safely.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You must also recognize that each president that comes in sets a different agenda for NASA. NASA programs take more than a decade to launch (ha!), but their bosses last 4 or 8 years. It's a schizophrenic situation.
NASA has been gutted since the Obama administration when the Shuttle program was cancelled and manned space flight was handed over to the Russians.
NASA "gutted"? How do you figure? Their budget hasn't been slashed. They finally got rid of the boondoggle that was the Shuttle program. New rocket systems (public and private) are coming online. Robotic missions and science exploration has continued more or less as before. I'm puzzled how you think the Obama administration in any way "gutted" NASA.
Who cares that we are using the Russians for a few years to get people into orbit? That's a temporary situation and a far better one than the ludicrously expensive unreliable and wasteful shuttle. We wasted decades on the shuttle program when we could have been doing so much more. Any problems from that are frankly our own damn fault and happened WAY before any of the recent presidents. You have to go back to the Nixon/Ford/Carter/Reagan administrations for the bad planning there.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
With all of the knowledge and know how of the past, why did it take 50 or 60 years for access to space to drop for once?
Because getting to space is technologically hard. It takes a while for economies of scale to build up enough to really make a big difference.
It took about that long for air travel to become reasonably affordable. Heck even today an estimated 80% of the world population has never flown. When I was born less than half of the US population had never set foot inside an aircraft. The term jet set originated from the fact that until the 1960s-70s air travel was too expensive for anyone but the very wealthy.
In the beginning you are building infrastructure, but after that is done, you should be using it for its intended purpose, not as some lifelong gravy train of project contracts.
Well bear in mind that we took a 30 year wrong turn with the shuttle which delayed a lot of that infrastructure. We're just now digging out of the hole from that.
See http://www.thespacereview.com/... and https://www.forbes.com/sites/q... for background. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board in 2003 said the shuttle program should be recertified (its safety to fly re-evaluated) if flights were to extend past 2010. Bush announced the retirement in a speech at the beginning of his second term on January 14 2004.
Because NASA didn't have enough money (remember when congressional Republicans were deficit hawks?) to continue to operate the shuttles and develop a successor, they had to end the shuttle to free up funds for a successor launch vehicle.
By the time Obama arrived four years later, the decision would have been a nightmare to reverse, so he didn't try.
During the Apollo program, NASA was something like 3-5% of the entire federal budget. These days, it's more like 0.5%. NASA has spent about as much on the Ares/Constellation pork boondogle as the JWST, and that just might someday go to the Moon.
For comparison: Department of Education is around 2% of the federal budget. Highway spending is about 1%. Defense spending, depending on the year and what gets counted, is 15-20%.
So when you are talking about "all the money", just what are you pointing to other than your own ignorance?
JWST is really just too much to expect of today's NASA. Too complex, too long a time frame, all spinning out of control in the leadership vacuum that has been misgoverning NASA for at least 10 years. Expect to see another NASA announcement to delay SLS as well; the current 'estimated' launch date is Nov 2018. They won't make that and it will get pushed into 2019 or later. Same reasons. NASA doesn't even have a confirmed chairman and the previous chairman was an indifferent caretaker; Bolden oversaw delay after delay of a project he inherited and then handed down.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Of course not. You'll need to file a FOIA request, wait for it to be denied and then sue.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
If you want to know what's wrong with NASA, consider this:
Edwin Hubble was a scientist.
James Webb was a lawyer and administrator.
it's true they weren't gutted under Obama, and the trend will show every president has been guilty lately.
Guilty of what? At worst they basically ignore NASA. NASA's budget fluctuates a bit but it's been a reasonable approximation of constant (adjusting for inflation) for the last 45 years. In 2014 dollars it has ranged between $14B and $24B for the last 45 years. Lowest was in 1980 and highest in 1991 in inflation adjusted dollars.
it's also true that under Obama NASA's budget was the lowest it had been since the 70s.
Not true in absolute or inflation adjusted dollars. In inflation adjusted 2014 dollars NASA's budget is higher than in the 1970s or the 1980s. As a percentage of the federal budget it is lower but that is more a reflection of how our budget exploded with deficit spending on other stuff. The budget during Obama's tenure was similar to slightly lower than under Bush but remember that Congress ultimately allocates the money so any budget changes really reflect the composition of Congress more than anything.
Best thing for NASA:
1. Cancel SLS
2 Use off the shelf commercial launch suppliers ( like Ariane, spacex, blue origin, sierra nevada, orbital, for high risk flights, Ariane or ULA for now, etc)
3. Use saved money to resurrect cancelled programs and work on finishing delayed space programs
NASA needs to focus more on the payloads, the science missions, rather than the rocket. The rocket is a means to an end. For too long, it seemed like under the Shuttle, the rocket was the end itself and much of the space program revolved around the rocket. By sucking up funding on a very expensive and flawed concept, the shuttle set the space program back by decades by taking money away from more effective technologies. NASA needs to get out of the rocket business and let commercial suppliers take care of that.
The SLS must go so NASA can get back to science missions.
We don't have nothing. A number of rockets could be man-rated within a year if it were essential. Also most of the science return in our space program comes from unmanned missions, for which there is no shortage of US and EU launchers. It also actually turns out keeping Russians employed in our space program is a plus for world peace. Manned spaceflight is just not interesting enough to put in more resources. If we had a shuttle replacement, what would be use it for? going to the space station. Not exactly a need to hurry there.