NASA Tries To Save Hubble's Successor 134
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).
Re:I'm sure the deficit hawks will be right on thi (Score:4, Interesting)
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.