NASA Again Delays Launch of Troubled Webb Telescope (nytimes.com)

In a blow to NASA's prestige and its budget, America's next great space telescope has been postponed again. From a report: NASA announced on Wednesday that the James Webb Space Telescope, once scheduled to be launched into orbit around the sun this fall, will take three more years and another billion dollars to complete. A report delivered to NASA by an independent review board estimated that the cost of the troubled Webb telescope would now be $9.66 billion, and that it would not be ready to launch until March 30, 2021.

Comments

Another year

[Tailhook]

It was only four months ago that they kicked JWST out to 2020. SLS got delayed to 2019 and is now being audited by the OIG; expect that report to be another shit show, followed by another delay to 2020.

Re:Another year

[110010001000]

Ridiculous. And SpaceX has been regularly delivering reusable rockets and landing them again. Private business is obviously superior.

Re:Another year

[Anonymous Coward]

SpaceX was able to deliver the Falcon 9 and Heavy, the world's most advanced orbital rockets, in less time than NASA has spent on the SLS and with the chump change NASA paid them to develop them. NASA of course would be incapable of doing the same with that same money, the SLS proves it. They really should get out of the rocket building business. The should focus on exploration and buy seats on commercial flights. As for JWST, sadly there is no SpaceX equivalent in the probe market. I wonder if maybe they are just being too ambitious or if NASA has gotten worse and worse at project management over the years. Probably a little column A and a little column B.

  I know it isn't entirely fair to compare the NASA of today to the NASA of yore, but regardless of the budget disparity they once were able to achieve things thought impossible. Money alone doesn't do that, the F-35 proves it. I think a lot of it can come down to culture and organization. In the early days NASA was run by a general on loan from the pentagon and much of their staff had a results oriented mindset. Now NASA is run by career administrators and scientists. Scientists are great at their job, but running programs isn't their job. Its doing science. As for career government admins, I can't think of a more inefficient and ineffectual bunch. I think NASA has lost a lot of their can do, mission focused attitude. Its not all their fault. There are many causes for malaise and its a slowly creeping thing.

But here we are, the JWST has taken longer than the Apollo program and so far has nothing to show for it. Same with the SLS, been over a decade they have worked and reworked on various rockets to nowhere, different name, same thing and the SLS which still hasn't flown has less payload than the Saturn V. If that's all they are going to do why not just make some more Saturn Vs? We probably forgot how.

Re:Time for a special project

[arth1]

Perhaps the project just should be canned.
If not falling for the sunk cost fallacy, but completely disregarding how much we have already spent, will the now needed money (and realistically, multiply it by 3) buy us something that gives us more than if the money is spent on something else?
If the latter, axe the project.

And given how old and outdated this project already is, my inclination is to spend that money on new technology for new problems, not what was designed 15-11 years ago, and will still cost us more now than what was budgeted back then.

Re:Time for a special project

[greythax]

Would you rather spend another 9 billion on a new one, or a billion finishing this one?

What makes you think we would be successful with some other technology if we can't be with this one?

Yawn

[Green Mountain Bot]

I'm old enough to remember when the Hubble Space Telescope was an expensive boondoggle that would never produce valuable science. How did that turn out?