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.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

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

Not when you consider that both its sensitivity and its available observation time are tremendously reduced if you put it anywhere near the radiated warmth of Earth. Considering that, it's still more scientifically cost-effective to put it at the Earth-Sun L2 point, even though it's beyond range of human repairmen. (Keep in mind that, once the design work for the first one has been done, the cost of an identical replacement would be considerably less.)