The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been delayed yet again, due to damage to the spacecraft's thrusters, sunshield, and tension cables:
The slip is not exactly surprising, even though construction and testing of Webb's primary mirror and scientific instruments—its riskiest, most expensive elements—is already complete. These components were delivered in early February to Webb's prime contractor, the aerospace company Northrop Grumman, for further testing and integration with the rest of the telescope. But later that month a report from the Government Accountability Office warned that the company had fallen behind schedule on the supposedly easier parts of the observatory. Valves on the spacecraft's thrusters had sprung leaks after being improperly cleaned, and replacing them had taken the better part of a year. Webb's tennis-court-sized, five-layered folding "sunshield" had also been torn during a test as it unfurled, requiring time-consuming failure analyses and repairs.
NASA will also establish an external Independent Review Board to validate assessments of the telescope's testing:
NASA is establishing an external Independent Review Board (IRB), chaired by Thomas Young, a highly respected NASA and industry veteran who is often called on to chair advisory committees and analyze organizational and technical issues. The IRB findings, which will complement the [Standing Review Board] data, are expected to bolster confidence in NASA's approach to completing the final integration and test phase of the mission, the launch campaign, commissioning, as well as the entire deployment sequence. Both boards' findings and recommendations, as well as the project's input, will be considered by NASA as it defines a more specific launch time frame. NASA will then provide its assessment in a report to Congress this summer.
NASA will work with its partner, ESA (European Space Agency), on a new launch readiness date for the Ariane 5 vehicle that will launch Webb into space. Once a new launch readiness date is determined, NASA will provide a cost estimate that may exceed the projected $8 billion development cost to complete the final phase of testing and prepare for launch. Additional steps to address project challenges include increasing NASA engineering oversight, personnel changes, and new management reporting structures.
NASA will report its progress and the new cost estimate to Congress in June. At this moment in time, NASA doesn't fully know what the final cost of the telescope's development will be, but is now warning that it may exceed its $8 billion budget cap ($8.8 billion including 5 years of operations). The agency will have to get the mission reauthorized by Congress if that is the case.
To Keep NASA's Golden Age Alive, We Need More Telescopes--but Far Less Expensive Ones
The downside of this approach [of launching smaller telescopes] is that highly desirable but extremely expensive flagship telescopes along the lines of Webb must be postponed until the commercial space industry comes fully of age. SpaceX, for example, already launches satellites at one third of the traditional cost, and soon, maybe, that will drop to as little as one fifth. That is a sizable saving by itself.
Cheaper launch services also take the pressure off engineers to relentlessly shave mass from the telescopes themselves by using the lightest and most expensive possible components. Without such a restriction, costs could plausibly be cut by two thirds. Shrinking costs makes a doubling of flagship launch rates feasible. As this commercial revolution continues, an even higher rate of flagship missions could come about. If we embrace such a strategy, the good times needn't stop rolling, and the golden age of astronomy doesn't have to end.
Previously: Launch of James Webb Space Telescope Delayed to Spring 2019
JWST: Too Big to Fail?
GAO: James Webb Space Telescope Launch Date Likely Will be Delayed (Again)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by patrick on Wednesday March 28 2018, @05:52AM (32 children)
Yes, but who will check the validated assessments of the testing of the telescope?
Then they'll need someone to certify the checking of the validated assessments of the testing of the telescope.
But of course an independent group has to corroborate the certified checking of the validated assessments of the testing of the telescope ... but only if that group is endorsed by an outside review board that's been appraised by a company verified by an autonomous, nonpartisan committee.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday March 28 2018, @06:12AM
The I3RBC
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @06:34AM (29 children)
Not only that, but they will need someone to certify the certification of the checking of the validated assessments of the testing. You see where this is going, Patrick? They would not have called you a Saint if you had to verify that All the Serpents had left Ireland. Same logic applies to the James Webb.
Juvenal, if I recall correctly. Are you a "private enterprise space advocate", like our takyon, or the khallow? Are you one who think that if the Government is doing it, it must be wrong, and over budget? If so, I suggest you move to the Libertarian paradise of, wait for it! Utah! Yes! Everyone who is faithful will get their own planet, and with their spiritual wives (oh, you are a woman? Sorry, wrong religion) they can start a whole new civilization, and eventually their own James Webb Space Telescope, although everything that it will show them is a lie! Joseph Smith was not a Horndog! He did not tell those young women who were married, that an angel with a fiery sword appeared before him insisting that they have sex with him, for the greater glory of god, and Kolob, and shit.
Woh, this post went off target! May the James Webb Telescope do better! Cheerio!!
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by khallow on Wednesday March 28 2018, @06:59AM (12 children)
Well, certainly was the case with the JWST - order of magnitude growth in costs (originally started as half a billion dollar telescope in 1996) and a ten year delay in deployment and counting. When you've lived through several decades of serial clusterfucks from NASA and other US government agencies, you tend to lose a lot of respect for the process.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Wednesday March 28 2018, @07:31AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday March 28 2018, @07:38AM
With nearly $8 billion already spent, and the JWST being the top science priority for NASA, it's unlikely that Congress won't approve another 5-10% increase. That's why it's too big to fail.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday March 28 2018, @07:52AM (9 children)
So, my dear and exceptionally scientific khallow, where is the private enterprise LaGrange Point Space Telescope project of which you speak? Oh, yes, no profit in it, except for the contracts paid for by taxes. So, clusterfuck, or not even trying to expand human knowledge, since there is no profit in it? Mercenaries can just go and die, as far as I am concerned. If they occasionally take a contract that does expand human knowledge, all well and good. But we should execute them immediately afterwards. We do not want to encourage this kind of Republican behavior. It is bad for humanity, and bad for science.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday March 28 2018, @10:03AM (8 children)
Why should there be one? I'd assert to the contrary that its absence even as a website is a good indication of the actual cost vs. value of such a project.
No profit in any sense. When someone merely speaks of monetary profit as if that were the only reason a private group would ever do something, then I have to wonder why they would ever think that motivations of a public group should be different? This thinking is magical in three ways. First, it ignores that private groups can indeed do these things as well. Someone or some group can put up a JWST-class telescope with their own money. After all, private companies built the JWST in the first place, it would just take a different funding source. And $8 billion isn't out of reach for a lot of potential funding sources.
Second, we have plenty of examples of private groups who do things that are not-for-profit in the monetary sense, but have sufficient non-monetary value to the people involved that they put their own money and effort into them. If you aren't willing to fund a project with your own money, then why should the rest of us do it? There should be a more compelling reason than a vague, "Space telescopes are cool" aspect to this.
Third, the JWST just isn't that valuable and has huge opportunity costs - it's very existence displaces other uses of the money. People don't seem to get the point that $8 billion should go a lot further than that. For example, a few things that you can buy with $8 billion:
Earth-side telescopes:
But let's consider space-only possibilities of that $8 billion.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday March 28 2018, @06:10PM (7 children)
Well, 20 million small, or a few really big, telescopes would send most of that money overseas. The $8B spent on JWST are mostly injected into the economy, as income of thousands of people working on the project (minus some money from bonuses leaking to offshore investments, and a few foreign contributions to the platform).
Hubble/ISS clones would skyrocket in price, even if NASA does have the NRO frames, as modern tech, and not launching on the shuttle, require significant redesigns.
Not quite sure why you'd launch filled swimming pools into space... Igloo habitats? Aluminium boxes have much better space-to-weight ratios. (grin)
Teaching and health grants would definitely be good uses.
Yes there are apparently better uses for that money. But it's sustaining high-tech materials, optical and space research, making it it a lot better than what we all know it would otherwise be allocated for: half of a twelfth aircraft carrier (also local build jobs, but not very high-techend, and very expensive after launch).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 28 2018, @08:01PM (6 children)
We can always inject money more efficiently than by spending on a space telescope.
They only require significant redesigns once.
Just because there is colossal waste in the military procurement doesn't justify colossal waste in space development.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday March 29 2018, @04:51PM (5 children)
> > Hubble/ISS clones would skyrocket in price, even if NASA does have the NRO frames,
> > as modern tech, and not launching on the shuttle, require significant redesigns.
> They only require significant redesigns once.
You must be new to this space thing :)
There are only two NRO frames, and we do not know whether they are actually identical.
Even it there were a dozen frames on which to build up, you'd get Zumwalt Syndrome, and probably end up with at most 3 telescopes, and a price tag above the JWST (not that getting 3 wouldn't be a great thing, science-wise).
It ain't right, but that's just the way it is.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 29 2018, @05:41PM (4 children)
No, it's not. Let's look at your argument, using the Hubble-clone angle:
Since 12 > 2, we would have to build a bunch of frames anyway. Building 12 identical frames and chucking the two NRO frames is not going to be much more expensive than building 10 and using the two probably inconsistent NRO frames.
Why would that happen? We're not designing a completely new vehicle with everything new (which is what happened with the Zumwalt destroyer design). The Hubble already is up there and working, indicating the base design works and the design flaws are well known and addressable. Zumwalt and similar projects failed hard because they made almost everything new at once and were too complex for the contractor to make it all work as planned. That's the JWST in a nutshell - resulting in an order of magnitude increase in the cost and apparently at least a 13 year delay from launch (2007 apparently was the first planned launch date).
So we're to expect that there will be a "Zumwalt" syndrome when the main development cost will be incorporating modern materials and fixing known problems in an established, working design? Sorry, that's nonsense.
The whole point of criticism about the JWST is that we can do things very differently. It's not "just the way it is". This feigned helplessness is worthless.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday March 29 2018, @06:33PM (3 children)
> incorporating modern materials and fixing known problems in an established, working design
That IS the crux of the problem.
You can't just reuse the 40-years-old design of the hubble, because it's designed for specific materials, specific heat and power constraints, specific launcher, specific orbit and shielding ... Even the mirror polishing tools are obsolete and/or discarded.
So you gotta restart from scratch, with "HST-looking cylinder that fits a 5m fairing, without any unfolding or cryo mess". And once everything restarts from scratch, you get Zumwalted, or worse, SLSed. Which we both agree is the part we need to fix.
And indeed, the first step to fixing it is to design something cheaper, to be launched for cheaper, so that not everyone rushes in for their once-in-a-career opportunity. Yet, the performance has to exceed the high bar of Hubble. And once one is up, you never know if another one will get the green light, because the elders in DC are short-sighted. They'll be even more short-sighted if each one is slightly different, reducing the benefits of reuse. So everyone wants to be in the first one, just in case, and/or have hooks in the first one to help the second and third not be too different. That delays and raises the cost of the first one... and Zumwalt waltzes in...
Do you believe that the original designers wanted JWST to be a 9 billion dollars 1-shot, on top of 420 tons of boom-stuff ?
We know what to fix, but short of getting the NRO to look up, how do you fix it?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 29 2018, @07:22PM (2 children)
Of course, you can. I agree that the heavily mass optimized design will take more work and cost to redesign than it would if it weren't so optimized. But that's far from impossible and it will be cheaper than a fresh start much less JWST-style Zumwalt syndrome. And once you've done that, you can split the cost across 12 telescopes.
Then don't do that.
Yes. There's more profit in that. Keep in mind that most of the checks have already been cashed. JWST has already accomplished most of its pork goals. A good portion of the politicians, businesses, and whatnot don't care if the JWST succeeds or not. They already got theirs.
Already pointed out one obvious way - use economies of scale from making multiple copies. And space telescope building should be a conservative exercise not a Zumwalt-building exercise. It'd be in space already, if it had been based on a more conservative design.
Funny how you can rationalize throwing away 9 billion USD on a mediocre space telescope, but can't be bothered to rationalize fixing NASA so that 9 billion USD does enormous things in space like it should.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday March 29 2018, @07:44PM (1 child)
Funny, how you can dismiss the rational explanation of the problem with a "don't do that", and then wave a magic "fixing NASA" wand...
A space telescope will cost a tanker-sized boatload of cash regardless of "conservative" or not. And, to convince people to allocate that boatload, you need to tout its much better performance than the next terrestrial Humongously Ginormous Large Telescope. Short of doing interferometry, a bunch of similar telescopes isn't what's needed.
As far as pork, at least JWST should have a Hubble-scale impact on the science it's designed for. Beats an aircraft carrier.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 29 2018, @09:24PM
I disagree that the explanation is rational. The Zumwalt syndrome is not inevitable. Don't do that is quite viable. And when you steadfastly refuse to even consider the existence of this simple solution, it makes me wonder why you're bothering. Are you truly not interested in improving one of the great societies of the world or of expanding humanity's understanding of the universe?
Number of zeros matters. We can't afford to treat $500-600 million as if it were the same as $9 billion. That economic innumeracy/complacency is a large part of the reason the US is in such trouble on so many fronts in the first place.
I not interested in "convincing" people to allocate money for the JWST. I'm interested in having a future in space. This Zumwalt syndrome and several other political dysfunctions have killed much of the value of NASA. Fix them or the alternative will be to give up on NASA sooner or later.
Again, waste in military spending doesn't justify waste in space exploration and development. I agree that there's a vast amount of waste and corruption in the US military to the level that it is an existential threat to the US. My point though is why should we then be placated by NASA being no more wasteful and corrupt? Why are our expectations so low?
Instead, I say that we should have much higher standards for these organizations that we use to secure our future. That means no more $9 billion space telescopes or several hundred billion dollar jet fighters that may be slightly better than what we currently have.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday March 28 2018, @07:27AM (15 children)
I'm OK with a $10 billion too-big-to-fail space telescope, but it is undeniably over budget. Even if you account for increased capabilities that were added to the original design, it is billions of dollars over budget and over a decade late. NASA readily acknowledges this, and they decided to hold a press briefing yesterday precisely because they believe they have a good chance of exceeding the $8 billion budget cap set by Congress, and will have to get the mission reauthorized yet again.
The $40-60 billion SLS rocket-to-nowhere, which Congress is overeager to fund [soylentnews.org], is the real problem. It's needlessly expensive and won't even be flying the big payloads [soylentnews.org] it was designed for until it has already been made obsolete by BFR. Passengers can be sent to the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway with the Falcon 9 or ULA's Atlas V instead.
Governments can obviously get space missions done with reasonable budgets. Look at NASA's New Horizons, ESA's Cosmic Vision [wikipedia.org], or ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission [wikipedia.org].
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday March 28 2018, @09:28AM (14 children)
Budget? What budget? Whose budget? I am constantly amazed at those who think that knowledge is too expensive. Look, we are trying to understand the universe, not increase the economy by some actually measurable amount! Budgets are like deadlines, they are meant to be ignored.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 28 2018, @10:14AM (13 children)
There is no one path to understanding the universe and we don't have infinite resources and time available. Economics inevitably comes in. You have to decide what to try and what not to. Even if you think the economy is completely worthless except for what understanding it can contribute to, you still have opportunity cost where making a choice always rules out other choices. $8 billion on a space telescope is $8 billion that could have been spent on other scientific projects which could have expanded your knowledge in other ways.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday March 28 2018, @11:37AM (8 children)
This concern over budgets is extremely hypocritical while the US continues to spend more money on the military than the combined amounts of the next dozen biggest spenders. Talk of "we don't have infinite resources" is ridiculous hyperbole. Duh. No one has infinite resources. Of course we must have defense, but we spend far more than we need. Meanwhile, our infrastructure is decaying because we won't spend the money to maintain and improve it. If it was a choice between the telescope or, say, replacing the lead plumbing of Flint, Michigan and all the other afflicted cities, I'd choose the plumbing upgrade. But it's not.
Northrop Grumman works on both the telescope and the F-35. One F-35 costs about $100 million. The whole program is about $1,5 trillion and what are we getting out of that? A stupid manned fighter plane that is at best a marginal improvement over the F-22, when real air superiority has moved on to drones and unmanned fighter planes. Could have afforded a hell of a lot of science and infrastructure with that money.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 28 2018, @03:51PM (7 children)
So ok to waste money with NASA programs because the US wastes money on national defense?
Could have afforded a hell of a lot of science and infrastructure with the present spending on NASA. Meanwhile redirecting all that money without reforming NASA just means that one spends more without actually getting more. It'd get sunk on some white elephants with little future and then we'd be back where we are now.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday March 28 2018, @05:41PM (4 children)
> So ok to waste money with NASA programs
You really believe the telescopes are a waste of money? We don't need to know what's out there?
Or are you saying they could have been done with less waste and corruption? I've been a military contractor, and experienced the accusatory environment, the constant suspicion that we were cheating our country and lying, pretending easy problems are hard, stringing out work and even padding the bills. Real thrilling to have the military boys pressure us by dragging in a snake oil sales team from a rival contractor to do their level best to make us look like incompetent, bungling shysters, in order to persuade the military to contract with them instead, and then our management plays the same game, promising the moon even faster and cheaper than they just did, in order to keep the contract. Another little game the military boys play is the national secret crap, withholding vital information because they'll get in big trouble if secrets leak, but if a project fails thanks in no small part to being hamstrung by such concerns, they have the easy out of blaming it all on the slimy contractors.
If you suspect corruption and conspiracy everywhere, you might want to think about that a bit. It's very demoralizing for the workers to have bosses and customers rush about screaming that everyone is a lying, incompetent crook, without evidence, only the cynical certainly that everyone lies.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 28 2018, @07:57PM (2 children)
That's two very different questions. I oppose squandering $8 billion to answer the second question a little better, precisely because I want more than just that.
Absolutely.
Ok, so what? Those suspicions were probably true, even if you weren't in on it.
So the suspicions were true.
Ok, so what? I'll note this is your second example of corruption.
It's well past suspicion at this point. Sorry you got tarred with the brush, but you could have always gotten yourself a real job. At this point, I think the entire military procurement system is a net liability to the security of the US with liberal use of the nuclear option required - temporary or permanent banning of businesses from any contracts with the US government. For example, Boeing should have been permabanned for the 2004 scandal [corpwatch.org] involving a lease of 767 tankers. ATK Orbital probably should receive a temporary ban for the stupid SLS/Constellation mess. I'm sure I can find plenty of other examples. I think a few years without a major jet producer, for example, would be a small price to pay for a military-industrial complex that actually serves the US's interests.
Or we could continue to to spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year on vastly overpriced gear and services only to lose a major war when it counts because the other side wasn't similarly limited.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @09:32PM (1 child)
Like a sub-contractor to a concessionaire contracting to the Dept. of Interior, instead of a sub-contractor to a contractor to the Dept. of Defense? That kind of a "real job"? Pot and Kettle, I would like to introduce you to the blackest of the black, the sootiest hypocrite there is: khallow.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 28 2018, @10:45PM
I'm not harming national security. And I'm helping a lot of my fellow workers do their jobs better and make those guests happier.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 29 2018, @12:30AM
Waste and corruption goes a really long way to explaining why outcome wasn't proportional to spending.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday March 28 2018, @06:24PM (1 child)
> So ok to waste money with NASA programs because the US wastes money on national defense?
The raise that the Pentagon just got this year ... just the raise ... is three times the NASA budget.
JWST is much too expensive, and should have cost a quarter to half of its final tally. But there is plenty of money out there, which the US does not have to throw at every weapon it can think of, just because that's the one thing that Congress can agree on.
With half of its current budget for a few years, the Pentagon could still kick the ass of any other country on the planet (or any combo of them, because nukes), and the rest of that money could be used to fix most of the US's structural issues (infrastructures, schools, competitiveness, plus poverty and under-employment, which drive so many of them). There would probably still be money left to help with the deficit, too. And NASA would be leading the way to the Moon or Mars, with major benefits as it attracts researchers and their funds.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 28 2018, @08:05PM
It's worse than that. A sensible procurement policy could probably cover that spending cut and still have greatly superior weapon systems and training for military personnel. I think NASA is so bad off because it is part of this cancer. It needs to be pulled out of that or it will never be relevant.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday March 28 2018, @08:58PM (3 children)
Where do you get this rather curious idea from, khallow? Makes you sound like an idiot Republican arguing that the Government must have a balanced budget, because individuals and families must, and you know, reasons! Of course we have infinite resources and time! Mostly because we have infinite time. It is possible that we do not, but we do not know this for certain. But having infinite time entails we have infinite resources, even if we do not have them right now. So the question is, does the James Webb funding, even with increases, preclude a more fruitful alternative in the near term? If not, there is no reason not to go ahead with it. Other than some people's ideological tendency toward cheapness and anti-governmentcy.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 29 2018, @12:18AM (2 children)
So it would be quite reasonable to have our $8 billion telescope produced 1000 years from now? It's just infinite time, no rush right?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday March 29 2018, @12:27AM (1 child)
On the other hand, the James Webb just might spot a Vogon Constructor Fleet! How much would such timely information be worth?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 29 2018, @05:43PM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 29 2018, @08:07PM