Astronomers break ranks over space telescope costs

Lisa Grossman, reporter

(Image: NASA

The beleaguered James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) got a reprieve last week when a Senate subcommittee offered to guarantee the money needed to finish the observatory in time to launch in 2018.

But the astronomy community as a whole isn't sure this is good news. Some now fear that the behemoth telescope, which is 7 years late and vastly over budget, will end up devouring money allocated to other planetary science and solar physics projects.

When JWST, the heir apparent to the Hubble Space Telescope, was named a top priority for NASA astrophysics in 2001, it was supposed to cost $1 billion and launch by the end of this year. It is now expected to cost at least $8.7 billion for launch and operations and to launch no earlier than 2018, a dramatic overrun that prompted Congress to propose axing the telescope. On 14 September, a Senate subcommittee marked up a science appropriations bill that granted JWST $530 million in 2012, much more than the $374 million that the White House had requested.

"It's obviously a hopeful sign," American Astronomical Society Executive Officer Kevin Marvel told Nature. "But we need to understand what the extra addition means. We're concerned about offsets to other divisions."

JWST was supposed to take its funding from NASA's astrophysics division, but its budget woes have forced NASA to propose taking money from three other science divisions, Earth science, planetary science and heliophysics.

The wider astronomy community is officially putting down its collective foot. In an 8 September letter to the leaders of the American Astronomical Society, David Alexander, who is head of AAS Solar Physics Division, complained that "the cost of the JWST threatens to swamp us all."

The same day, a group of 17 planetary scientists published a signed editorial objecting that JWST jeopardises their own carefully-laid plans for the next decade, which have already seen some belt tightening. "We individually and together reject the premise that JWST must be restored at all costs," they write.

The telescope isn't out of hot water yet: the bill still needs to be approved by the full appropriations committee, go to the Senate for a vote and be reconciled with the House version of the budget.

The American Astronomical Society, for its part, says it won't choose sides.

"The AAS does not support any one Division or astronomical discipline above others, or to the detriment of others," wrote Marvel and AAS President Debra Elmegreen in a 12 September memo. "As we face the new economic climate, it might be worth recalling Abraham Lincoln's words: 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.'"

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/18902821/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cshortsharpscience0C20A110C0A90Castronomers0Ebreak0Eranks0Eover0En0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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