Scientists balk at space telescope bailout

NASA

The Webb Space Telescope, shown in this artwork, would survey the universe in infrared wavelengths.

By Alan Boyle

The troubles surrounding NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which is often seen as Hubble's successor,?are now drawing grumbles from astronomers as?well as lawmakers.

Keeping JWST alive has been a cause celebre?for the past couple of months, ever since a House panel proposed cutting off funding for the telescope. Over the years, the project's price tag has repeatedly gotten bigger while the launch timetable has faced repeated delays. At one time, the next-generation telescope was slated for launch this year with a mission cost of $3.5 billion. In contrast, the latest estimates suggest that the?telescope won't lift off until 2018 at the earliest, with costs rising as high as $8.7 billion.

In July, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told the House Science, Space and Technology Committee that the JWST would open "new horizons far greater than we got from Hubble." But since then, the space agency has signaled that other areas of space science and exploration might have to face cuts to make up for JWST's cost overruns ? which has sparked the protests from scientists.

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Live Poll

What should be done about JWST?

• 158970

  Do whatever it takes to keep it alive.

  56%

• 158971

  Kill it unless Congress provides more money.

  24%

• 158972

  Just kill it. It's not worth keeping alive.

  20%

VoteTotal Votes: 75

On Thursday, a newsletter published by the Arizona-based Planetary Science Institute published a signed?editorial complaining that the game plan for planetary science in the next decade "is under threat from cost overruns by the NASA James Webb Space Telescope." If NASA is not given more funding to cover the costs, "JWST should not be restored unless and until an open science community assessment is made of the value of what will be gained and what will be lost across the entire NASA science portfolio," the editorial read.

Among the 17 signers of the editorial were the the institute's CEO (Mark Sykes), the CEO of the SETI Institute (Tom Pierson), the principal investigator for NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto (Alan Stern) and the principal investigator for NASA's Deep Impact / EPOXI mission (Michael A'Hearn).

The independent online publication NASA Watch, meanwhile, published letters from Rice University solar physicist?David Alexander, the head of the American Astronomical Society's Solar Physics Division, complaining that "the cost of the JWST threatens to swamp us all." He voiced concern that the space agency's proposed strategy for dealing with the JWST program's problems would reduce the ability of other divisions within the NASA Science Mission Directorate to "accomplish their own nationally sanctioned scientific programs."

Alexander's letters were addressed to the leadership of the AAS and the American Geophysical Union's Heliophysics Section?and obtained by NASA Watch.

All this led Nature News' Eric Hand to observe today?that "the internecine warfare among NASA scientists over the fate of the James Webb Space Telescope has begun," with planetary scientists and solar physicists pitted against astrophysicists.

NASA says the James Webb Space Telescope would be powerful enough to see the first stars and galaxies form on the edge of the observable universe. It could also study the mechanics of planet formation in unprecedented detail, and investigate the potential for life in alien planetary systems. But the debate is starting to turn from those lofty scientific goals to issues of dollars and cents. Is this the beginning of the end for the JWST bailout, or will NASA stick to its view that Hubble's heir is too big to fail? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.

More on telescopes and budget woes:

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Source: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/09/7694316-scientists-balk-at-telescope-bailout

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