James Webb Space Telescope, NASA's Next Hubble, Delayed Again (cnet.com) 83
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."
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It has been a long time. The Shuttle Fleet, has been aging, and becoming harder to maintain. Also during a recession NASA is usually the easiest target to pick to cut. Because their services rarely cover any short term goal.
In may ways this brought to light companies such as Space-X who offer new approaches to space flight, that a government agency without any competitive priorities can maintain. We are OK with the Russians going bankrupt running their space program, because the only real reward is braggi
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Economy takes a long time (Score:3)
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 [cnbc.com] has never flown. When I was born less than half [si.edu] of the US population had never set foot inside an aircraft. The term jet set [wikipedia.org] 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.
We
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We're just now digging out of the hole from that.
That's my point. The shuttle was a huge windfall for a lot of people, myself included, and people would rather keep the paychecks coming in rather than rock the boat and do anything innovative
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Uh, they aren't maintaining the Shuttles any more. They were retired in 2011.
Re: Obama sold NASA out to the Russians (Score:5, Informative)
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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 fi
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Re: Obama sold NASA out to the Russians (Score:2)
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I think part of the problem, is they were looking for a single Shuttle Replacement, ... A multi-use device, designed to handle many different type of mission parameters.
Perhaps NASA could use Emacs for their launch vehicle. I'm sure it could easily get things to LEO.
Re:Obama sold NASA out to the Russians (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, janitors usually do get the inside scoop.
Evidence please (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Actual budget numbers (Score:3)
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 [wikipedia.org] is higher than in the 1970s or the 1980s. As a percentage of the federal bu
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You have to go back to the Nixon/Ford/Carter/Reagan administrations for the bad planning there.
Yep, hear Dale Myers talk about how he was faced with situation in early 1970s the ***last*** manned spaceflight for US would have been the last Skylab mission (ASTP wasn't scheduled yet), https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Some analyst a while back said this: NASA needs to get out of the rocket business and focus on its science programs. During the 80s it was far too focused on the bloated and wasteful contraption that was the Shuttle, a flawed concept. He said NASA had become consumed with rockets, rather than what you put on the rocket. A rocket is just a means to an end. The cronyism sucks up money out of the budget that they need to use instead on science programs. The government needs to fund a large number of COTS provi
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But you are right - if SLS is a viable product, maybe ULA and Orbital ATK (Thiokol) should foot the bill for it and compete for launches.
W Bush cancelled the shuttle 2004-Jan-14 (Score:5, Informative)
See http://www.thespacereview.com/... [thespacereview.com] and https://www.forbes.com/sites/q... [forbes.com] 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.
Good government (Score:2)
By the time Obama arrived four years later, the decision would have been a nightmare to reverse, so he didn't try.
There is scant evidence that Obama wanted to revive the shuttle program. It was obvious by that point that it was a boondoggle and it was equally obvious that Congress was in no mood to increase NASA's budget. So the shuttle program (rightly) got the ax. Living without a manned program for a few years is more of an ego bruise than a real problem. I think in the long run it will be the right decision and I applaud both the Bush and Obama administrations for pushing to kill the shuttle program and to prom
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Cancelling the shuttle was a good thing. The Shuttle was mainly a way to waste a lot of money on a rocket that was overly expensive and complex, when there are cheaper way to do things. The whole concept was flawed. It left little money for actual science programs, during the Shuttle era you got the feeling that NASA was mostly absorbed with launching the shuttle. The launch platform should be a means to an end, not the end itself. Its now obvious NASA can get out of being the core developer of rockets alto
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B-b-b-but Obama!!11!!111
From wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program#Retirement
The Space Shuttle program was extended several times beyond its originally envisioned 15-year life span because of the delays in building the United States space station in low Earth orbit—a project which eventually evolved into the International Space Station. It was formally scheduled for mandatory retirement in 2010 in accord with the directives President George W. Bush issued on January 14, 2004 in his
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NASA has been gutted since the Obama administration when the Shuttle program was cancelled...
The shuttle program was cancelled by George Bush.
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Cancelling the white elephant that was the shuttle was a great thing for NASA. Now we just need to cancel SLS as well. Really all either of these do is suck up all the money on an overpriced rocket leaving nothing for the science programs. They can use the commercial launch platforms like Ariane, ULA, eventually SpaceX, Blue Origin, Orbital.
adding to list (Score:1)
I'll add it to my waiting list along with fusion power.
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Along with Linux for the Desktop....
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justice warrior social telescope?
Here's looking at you kid.. Don't mess up.
Re:I miss old NASA (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
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I don't know where you get your numbers from, Oh Anonymous Coward, but the federal budget hasn't been $1.3 trillion for decades. The latest budget (well, what passes for a budget in these ridiculous ad hoc, continuing-resolution times) is about $4 trillion. Perhaps the $1.3 trillion was meant to indicate non-defense, discretionary spending?
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If you genuinely, sincerely believe that there exists a person who believes every penny of currency was spent by NASA then I think that explaining concept of hyperbole to you is beyond my pay grade.
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Trying to put people on the Moon isn't a good idea. In fact, its quite terrible. I can't imagine the vast amounts of money this would take, plus it would not be sustainable and would end up depleting Earths resources to supply the thing. You can buy thousands and thousands of science programs for what we would spend on a boondoggle like that. To illustrate the absurdity of it, Antartica is a paradise by comparison. We would be bettet to use money to harden our electrical grid because thats the really big an
documents? (Score:2)
There are like 5000 people working on this thing and I would think they have to issue a report to explain a significant delay.
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Of course not. You'll need to file a FOIA request, wait for it to be denied and then sue.
JWST is beyond NASA (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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It's too much for a NASA funded at ~0.5% of GDP (for comparison it was >5% during Apollo). If we'd agree to cut the military by about 3% of it's budget, we could double NASA's budget, and build a JWST every year. NASA's struggles are due to the constant decline in it's resources while we dump those onto the military to buy weapons we no longer need.
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the SLS should be cancelled. Use saved money on science projects like JWT. With the BFR coming, theres no need for the bloated waste of SLS cronyism
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the SLS should be cancelled. Use saved money on science projects like JWT. With the BFR coming, theres no need for the bloated waste of SLS cronyism
If SLS is ever cancelled, it will be replaced with something just like it. SLS exists for military reasons, and no others. Congress is making sure Thiokol maintains their expertise in building solid fuel boosters. The other name for solid fuel booster is ICBM. There will always be a NASA project with Thiokol boosters embedded in it as long as the Air Force isn't allowed to just pay for ICBM maintenance themselves.
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It'd be cheaper to built a fully-automated ICBM factory. Then, 'maintaining expertise' would no longer be necessary. All you'd need is the engineering schematics and you can build another one. Also, my understanding is that ICBMs often use liquid fuel (that degrades, necessitating it be regularly changed with fresh fuel).
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What's wrong with NASA (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want to know what's wrong with NASA, consider this:
Edwin Hubble was a scientist.
James Webb was a lawyer and administrator.
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Re:What's wrong with NASA (Score:4, Informative)
Yet James Webb is credited for forging the NASA capable of landing on the Moon - not only by turning NASA's loosely organized (and often fractious) centers into a cooperative and coordinated enterprise, but by gaining and maintaining a solid base of support in Congress.
The problem with NASA today is lack of a clear cut goals and sufficient stable funding to reach them. And the responsibility for *that* can be found in the Capitol Building and the White House.
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Yet James Webb is credited for forging the NASA capable of landing on the Moon - not only by turning NASA's loosely organized (and often fractious) centers into a cooperative and coordinated enterprise, but by gaining and maintaining a solid base of support in Congress.
T
So you're admitting NASA landing on the Moon is a forgery ?
4 years late (Score:2)
Originally designed to see the Big Bang, delays mean it will only be able to see back to 4 years after the big bang.
Cancel SLS, used saved money for science (Score:3)
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.
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The point of the STS (the rockets at least) and SLS are they they use old, proven, reliable tech. It's very easy to sell 'old, proven, reliable' to the old men (particularly conservatives) who decide the funding for this. "If it got us to the Moon, then dad gum, it's good enough for us." To these people, NASA is ALL ABOUT big rockets that say 'U.S.A.' in as large of font as possible. I.e. it's all dick-waving.
Duplicate post? (Score:2)
Nope! It's just the James Webb Space Telescope being delayed yet again.