XPost: talk.politics.crypto, alt.flame.rednecks, alt.flame.cycle-sluts   
   From: §pam.ßuster@all.com   
      
   "JobKilling GOP"  wrote in message   
   news:Xns9F1EB796A4FC2fdas@194.177.98.144...   
   > In an attempt to further tighten the national belt, the U.S. House moved   
   > this week to cut the James Webb Space Telescope from the budget,   
   > effectively threatening NASA's follow-up to the Hubble, and the future of   
   > our eyes-in-space program. There's something poetic (poetically dismaying,   
   > that is) about the timing, too: Space shuttle Atlantis launched just this   
   > morning—the last launch of a space shuttle probably ever—signaling the   
   > demise of NASA's over 30-year-old shuttle program.   
   >   
   > All it took was a voice vote by a House appropriations subcommittee to   
   > strip funding for the project. Trouble is, the program was already $1.5   
   > billion and change over budget. It's behind schedule, too. The Webb   
   > Telescope should've launched in 2014, but it's currently delayed until   
   > 2018.   
   >   
   >   
   > What's the big deal about yanking a space telescope? For starters, the   
   > Webb Telescope's actually more than your average collection of curved   
   > mirrors and lenses. In fact it's a full-blown infrared space observatory.   
   > Its mission: to scan for light from the very first stars, understand   
   > galaxy formation and evolution and study the origins of life in terms of   
   > planetary systems. It's also the only thing scheduled to follow the   
   > Hubble's mission, which ends (and apparently can't be extended) sometime   
   > in 2014.   
   >   
   > So should we support the funding cull or protest it? If you're coming at   
   > it politically, positions tend to fall along current slash-or-save lines   
   > (Democrats want to save it, Republicans want to quash it). But forget the   
   > politics of spend-or-save for a moment.   
   >   
   > Look at it through Wired's pro-JWST eyes, and you'll hear this sort of   
   > argument:   
   >   
   >    ...Hubble has cost the U.S. a substantial amount of money, but its   
   > contributions to science have been of incalculable worth... And JWST will   
   > be a much, much better telescope than Hubble, and not just because it has   
   > the benefit of decades-better technology. Not only will it be in a much   
   > higher orbit than Hubble, but it will be substantially larger and thus   
   > able to collect considerably more detailed and more distant observations.   
   > Scientists have some educated guesses as to what kinds of discoveries JWST   
   > could make, but it's very likely that, as it was with Hubble, many things   
   > it will find are so revolutionary they're simply beyond our ability to   
   > predict.   
   >   
   > Or, alternatively, consider Science 2.0's hard-knocks counter-position,   
   > arguing that:   
   >   
   >    Budgets are finite. Everyone knows this except partisans in science.   
   > The $1.5 billion that JWST now claims it needs in order to not waste the   
   > billions already spent could fund 5,000 basic science research projects in   
   > space science (see While Webb Bleeds, Space Science Hemorrhages) and $1.5   
   > billion is just the latest cost overrun, not the total budget that may   
   > come up as more engineering concerns arise - so rather than circle the   
   > wagons around this project because it is science and people want to avoid   
   > a slippery slope, scientists can do a world of good holding each other   
   > accountable and making it less necessary for politicians to do so.   
   >   
   > I share the spirit of the first quote, but sympathize with the practical   
   > sense of the second. If the JWST is in fact an artifact of sloppy budgets   
   > or bureaucratic hobgoblins, we need to restructure the system so that   
   > craziness like going over budget by more than $1.5 billion can't happen.   
   > Budgetary compliance shouldn't be political. If we're so shortsighted that   
   > budgets have to overspill by billions for admittedly ultra-complex   
   > projects like the JWST, well, Houston, meet problem.   
   >   
   > I can't say what the right position on JWST is since it's already well   
   > along (according to the Baltimore Sun, one Democrat argues the project is   
   > 75% complete and that it supports 2,000 jobs, including 500 in Maryland),   
   > but if the long-term fix means we have to do more (or less) with less, so   
   > be it.   
   >   
   > Read more: http://techland.time.com/2011/07/08/house-pitching-death-of-   
   > hubble-space-telescope-successor/#ixzz1Rk59sgnv   
   >   
      
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