March 7, 2005
"...Preliminary tests have been carried out on instruments for the James Webb telescope inside the Blackford Hill facility's new £4 million extension..."
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=250242005

The article is here for those of you with subscriptions to Science.

To summarize:
- Northrop Grumman projects construction to cost $309 million more than expected.
- Design changes have added $100 million.
- Launching on the Ariane is going to cost more than expected.
- New NASA accounting rules add another $100 million.

Astronomers say scaling back (like reducing the mirror's size from 6.5 meters to 4) would make the whole mission pointless.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

How does that work?

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papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

"New rules that require NASA projects
to include all costs associated with the
program mean another $100 million."

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

One factor is that, since the JWST project's inception, NASA has moved to full-cost accounting. Among other things of which I'm probably blissfully unaware, this means that certain support services formally taken out of the agency's operating budget at the top are now charged individually to each program. A prime example is use of the Deep-Space Network dishes, which is now charged to the program using it. The effect is supposed to be more transparent costs, with services such as the DSN being paid for by (at least on paper) transfers from users. This ought to be budget-neutral if done right, but in this case, it seems the cost cap didn't change with the new accounting rules. Ths may also affect costs for time of NASA personnel temporarily assigned to the project

Interesting timing. I just got an email about the ESA's mission Herschel, which, except for the primary mirror size, sounds a lot like JWST (and has an easier to pronounce name).

And why couldn't NASA and ESA work together to make one?

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GCS/S d(+) s+:+ a--- C++(+++)>$ W+++>$ L>+ M+>++ w++ P+>++ tv@ PS b+ DI+ G e-> h! r-- !z+

~Jorge Schrauwen

Ditto:P. While I would like to see two of them up and running, I'd rather have 1 decent well funded effort than 2 missions that fail because someone didn't bother converting inches to cm, or because they can't grind a mirror to the correct specifications.

Hint: you may be unaware that ESA is a partner in JWST at a level 15% or more. In fact, their contribution includes launching the instrument on an Ariane V.

Great so not only is JWST not a replacement for Hubble, it might not be anything!

CJSF

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Two years ago moved from my town
I was looking up past the city lights
But the city lights got in my way

See the constellation ride across the sky
No cigar, no lady on his arm
Just a guy made of dots and lines

-from "See The Constellation"
by They Might Be Giants

Perhaps it isn't a coincidence that the JWST cost overrun closely matches the Hubble repair mission cost. Perhaps I'm paranoid. 8-[

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Do try not to take me too seriously.

Webb needs to be axed.

The National Academy of Sciences has JWST first on its wish list of new astronomical observatories. I'd be interested in knowing your rationale for cancelling it.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

To start with--we already have Hubble--and Webb is not a true optical replacement that many want.

Secondly--once Webb is put up there--there will be no way at all to service it--even though it isn't that far away (farther than Hubble--and out of easy reach of CEV).

Thirdly--money from this and other cuts will go into rocketry--which has been neglected. http://www.spacedaily.com/news/launchers-05zw.html

Lastly: You all know of my interest in HLLVs. Here is one reason I support them:

http://www.tsgc.utexas.edu/archive/design/foci/ Now that's a space telescope NO planetbound scope will match.

The infrastructure we need for truly grand missions will be undermined if every Mars rover and every 'scope is given money--money that will be wasted launching these things on EELVs--which can only eat into VSE as envisioned by Griffin.

The robotics types view VSE as a waste and a distraction--but they forget that without human-rated boosters like R-7--we wouldn't even have GOES weathersats up there. The military only wanted TOPOL-M/Minutemen sized missiles no good for anything else.

My point is that we have focused too much on payloads--and not enough on vehicles. The pointy heads and white coats might not like Griffin now--but if they would support him instead of undermining him with every little wish list--the HLLV he supports (with zeal equal to mine) will allow for truly grand probes they can hardly imagine.

But this is what happens when scientists dis engineers and their needs--constantly putting off the folks who give them the rockets--without which there is no space exploration.

Horse first--cart later. That is Griffin's take--and I agree with him.

Webb focuses on the infrared because that's what's of greatest interest to astronomers. Visible astronomy can be done from the ground; infrared can't.

Servicing is overrated (so long as you get it right the first time!). A replacement Hubble could have been launched for the cost of the servicing missions.

I won't argue with you here. It seems like everything we've got now is basically a Delta or an Atlas - 40-year-old technology.

That would be pretty cool. I also have a sneaking fondness for the TAU mission.

People see a limited pot and want their share. With NASA's limited budget, it's hard to blame them.

That seems arguable. There's no way of telling what might have happened if manned spaceflight had gone differently.

But on a limited budget, how can you afford both the rocket technology and the "grand" probes?

But the cart is the reason for the horse. There's no point in developing rockets for their own sake (though that's just about what was done with the space shuttle, it seems).

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Once the big rockets are done--then the money goes on the probes. The money was spent on the Thor IRBM before it could become the Delta--now its paid for and has been around so long it has become a crutch.

Imagine if all 100 or so Shuttle flights had been HLLV stacks without the orbiter. (with Energiya Buran it would have been a mix)

Can you imagine what we would have had up there had the orbiter not been required as part of the stack because it had the three SSMEs and not the ET?

100 missions with 100 tons lofted each time. Do the math.

Now that would be a space program we could all support. It's not too late--if Griffin has his way.

Here's a new scientist story about cost overruns with the James Webb Space Telescope:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7423

They are looking at ways to reduce the overall cost of the mission, but are unwilling to launch on a cheaper Ariane 5, as opposed to a Boeing Delta IV.

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Forming opinions as we speak

Most people directly or indirectly responsible for that state of affairs - costing skyrocketing and making it easier to give up space missions - would find it natural when it comes to their own part, even if they see that it is deplorable on the whole, which many would not concern themselves with. If more than a handful saw the necessity of progress and agreed with the need of at least postponing if not giivng up some of one's own immediate pleasures and so on, humanity would progress far more dynamically.

arXiv today has a paper on the design and uses of JWST here, titled How JWST can measure First Light,
Reionization and Galaxy Assembly.

Many parts are over my head, but much is accessible. One conclusion is

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Ken

Visit the BAUT Team Page
BOINCview: Network control
and a superior UI!

Please anyone.


Were can I find a good link..?

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I still await the compelling Exhibit A.

James Webb Space Telescope

http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/
http://jwstsite.stsci.edu/
http://www.stsci.edu/jwst/

Worthy in its own right as a different window on the universe, JWST won't 'replace' Hubble's visible spectrum capabilities but will compliment the research done by 'seeing' into the IR.

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By asking questions we sometimes get the wrong answers, from wrong answers we learn to ask the right questions.

Yes, in that sense Hubble doesn't have any successor, which is very bad thing. Hubble is also an UV telescope, and no Earth-based telescope can replace it.

JWST is Hubble's successor in the sense that it is the next large NASA/ESA telescope project. Otherwise it is more like Spitzer's successor.

If they pump out pretty pictures, the general public won't be able to tell the difference. For as much great science as HST has done, let's face it: It's a cultural icon because it shows people that the universe is beautiful. Far too many people think that any pretty picture of the sky is the result of Hubble now, in sort of the same way that they just assume that any funny song is the product of "Weird Al" Yancovic (even 10 years after the peak of his career).

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"The plan does not involve mayonaise."
"... I knew there was a catch."

You can't take the sky from me.

Thx guys

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I still await the compelling Exhibit A.

You mean other people write funny songs other than Weird Al?

Ray Stevens was the guy that Weird learned from. Ray's been writin' the funny stuff since I was a kid. (loooooooooooooooooong time ago)

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It's just one of those damn things of which there are many few. -- Dan Blocker

That may be the bad news. JWST is unlikely to deliver sharper images than HST in the deep-red overlap region, blurrier due to diffraction at longer wavelengths, and doesn't have a camera with pixel count remotely approaching ACS. On top of that, most astrophysical objects show less detailed structure in the IR because of we don't see dust clouds as distinctly. (Exception: some nebulae have quite interesting structure to be seen in some near-IR emission lines, uncovered very well by even ground-based IR imaging.) So I worry a bit about the PR impact because JWST images won't look any better than HST's - the new impact will be in the science, for which you have to read the caption which can get garbled anyway.

The resolution does seem to be no better, in general, than the Hubble - both rated at .1 arc-sec. JWST proposed specs.... here .

The Spitzer might be a reasonable PR comparison. Would you say the Spitzer has mostly augmented Hubble's attention-getting work from the public's perspective? [If so, this, of course, is unfair to the great work Spitzer has really accomplished.] The JWST will be in addition to the Spitzer, so it might get even less recognition.

However, wouldn't the adventures into accretion disks and planetary discoveries around dwarfs be a real plus? Yet these will not be very colorful or detailed due to their size and distance.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

Euro50, improved-VLT, CELT, JWST, OWL.
http://www.astrosociety.org/pubs/mer.../ultimate.html
http://www.eso.org/projects/owl/Gallery.html