James Webb Space Telescope, information, updates and discussion Options

[Redstone]

The manufacture of the JWST mirror blanks has now been completed.

Despite this milestone, the fate of JWST is still somewhat precarious, because although the scientific bang from the telescope is expected to be huge, the bucks required have increased to a staggering $4.5 billion. A Space.com article on the squeeze in NASA's space-based astronomy plans gives some background.

The JWST home page can be found here.

The Space Telescope Science Institute, which runs Hubble, also has a site here. As does ESA.

[Redstone]

It seems JWST is safe from outright cancellation for the moment. A New Scientist article has some detail on how the project hopes to rein in the budget for JWST. Part of it is limiting testing. Scary. The other part is reducing the amount of polishing of the mirrors which will greatly slow down JWST's ability to image in the optical part of the spectrum. JWST was always billed as a near IR telescope, but the lack of any overlap with Hubble is going to hurt.

Launch is also delayed, probably to 2013.

[antoniseb]

JWST was always billed as a near IR telescope, but the lack of any overlap with Hubble is going to hurt.

The overrun is about a billion dollars (so far), and the reduced mirror polishing will save $150M. They've got a few other cost cutting things to do, or somehow get more funding.

Does anyone know how much of the budget is a one time expense to do research on electro-mechanical devices that work at near absolute zero temperatures? I am kind of curious to know where the money for this project has gone, as it will give some guidance for future large space telescopes such as SIM and Terrestrial Planet Finder.

[Bob Shaw]

IMHO, JWST should be put on hold, and then back out to competition - it's just going the way of the ISS, descoped and over budget, when Burt Rutan and Co would just build the damn thing, and hit it with a hammer as required until it was the right shape. If JWST fails, then (near) optical space astronomy goes down the tubes, period.

Failing that, a bunch of throwaway Hubbles (maybe with a He replenishment capability, but that's all).

Really, it's nuts to NOT make JWST man-tended!