Hoyer: Don't cut Goddard telescope
Rep. Steny Hoyer, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, sent a letter Friday to members of the House Appropriations Committee asking them to reconsider the decision to strip funding for the James Webb Space Telescope at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.
A House appropriations subcommittee with oversight of NASA and other agencies approved a spending bill Thursday that would cut funding for the project, which is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. The program is more than $1.5 billion over budget and its launch has been delayed to 2018 at the earliest. Maryland lawmakers have been pushing back on the cuts.
“The telescope is in fabrication with the mirror finished and other components nearly complete,” the Southern Maryland lawmaker, whose district includes Goddard, wrote in the letter. “It would be devastating to lose the project at this juncture.”
The full letter, addressed to Rep. Hal Rogers, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, is available after the jump:
Dear Chairman Rogers:
The Subcommittee-reported FY2012 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations bill eliminates funding for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The JWST is of critical importance to the mission of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center in my district and is an investment of national and global significance in the future of space astronomy and astrophysics. The full Committee will consider this bill next week, and I urge the Committee to continue to provide funds for this critical project. Among its merits:
• Scientific Discovery. The JWST is designed to be the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope which is presently used by more than 8,000 scientists. Its observational capabilities will allow those scientists to continue their work and support the next generation of discovery.
• Job Creation. In addition to supporting researchers, JWST is supporting 2000 full time private sector jobs in 22 states. 500 of these jobs are in Maryland, and 250 at Goddard.
• U.S. Prominence and Leadership. JWST technologies are unique to the United States, and will ensure American dominance in space observation.
The Committee has already provided $3 billion for JWST. The telescope is in fabrication with the mirror finished and other components nearly complete. It would be devastating to lose the project at this juncture. It is my hope the Committee can rectify the situation for the benefit of the country.
Comments
They should absolutely cancel Webb. As someone who is an engineer on Webb, I actually support canceling or reducing (significantly) the budget. This is a bitter-sweet desire, because I am a major proponent of the science behind Webb. Why do I say we should cancel it? There are individuals that state that this project is over budget and behind schedule because it is a "never been done before mission". This is absolute hog wash. It is over budget because of stunning incompetence from management, some from NASA, mostly due to the prime contractor. You have unintelligent and greedy people in charge who have created a technical disaster. These people focus more of their effort on corporate politics, and have milked this program and the US Tax Paper for all they are worth. For the sake of justice and the success of a Webb-type mission, this one is better off scraped and then re-bid to perhaps some smaller companies who have honest technical managers with ACTUAL technical ability. If this project continues, mark my words, the costs will continue to grow, the project will continue to be delayed, and more than likely than will fail on orbit. This is my greatest concern, because this will be a larger blow to the US space efforts than canceling/mothballing Webb. This farce simply must stop, and those people who created this disaster (on down to the incompetant technical leads) should be held accountable.
Posted by: CDR | July 9, 2011 5:27 PM
Given the budget situation, how essential is this project? It's obviously necessary to prioritize and some degree of budget cutting (along, hopefully, with some tax increases for the very rich) must be done. If every member of Congress insists that no project in their district should be cut, that doesn't seem to leave us in a very good place. The time of mutual back-patting by members of Congress must end.
Posted by: Ken Stevens | July 9, 2011 6:16 PM