Big Space Science in an Era of Austerity

The James Webb Space Telescope will be an utter marvel allowing us to see deep into past near the very beginning of our universe. I can't comment on the nature of cost overruns, whether they necessary or wasteful. The project itself is entirely worthwhile.

Number of comments shows how many people are actually interested in things like this. Apathy for science is a curse for mankind.

I kinda wonder, today nasa receives less than .5% of our national budget, when we went to the moon it was 4% of the national budget, and while I support our military it gets I think if I remember correctly around 34% of our national budget. What would we be able to do if NASA was given even a half of that?

An article on Snooki without makeup has over 4000 comments. This, has 24. Wow

anyone got spare change?

Hope you weren't counting on your kids or grandkids having jobs. The research and new technology which comes from it will be created elsewhere. As will all the jobs that go with it.

Big science today is what leads to the technological breakthroughs that future businesses are built on. If we'd started this kind of cutbacks in the 60's we would not have the internet today.

We are wasting our life until we dedicate our lives to discovering the warp drive.

Last big budget cuts, 77-85, remote veiwing ops became popular, low cost, sometimes interesting if not amazing results, space exploration and death were 2 of the sideline projects, aside from tracking mobile nukes. the criteria was that ops had to be 100 per cent clean, no drugs or booze, messes up the alpha waves. back in the days when i was somebody, haha

Since we don't want to forget how to fly and have to learn it all over again, the best way to keep our rocketry skills sharp would be via a space defense program because somewhere out there is a comet or asteroid with our name on it, and if we don't develop the means to detect, intercept, and deflect it, absolutely nothing else will matter.

We need to get back to the moon before China does! We can pick up some H3 and forget foreign oil!

Science will always be limited when there's a checkbook involved. And by extension, this limits humans, human intelligence, our ability to help ourselves (via understanding how our world works) and how to best manipulate our natural gifts and natural resources with the least environmental repercussion. Limiting science limits our ability to survive and thrive. IMO -and it is simply IMO you don't have to agree- as a Jacque Fresco kinda girl, I firmly believe as long as a monetary system is upheld and fossil fuels are used, we won't be able to progress very much farther than what we already have. While there is a limit to the availability of fossil fuels, a monetary system can be ran indefinitely, but just because it can be, doesn't make it efficient. The way we do things now has been great for taking us all to the next step, unfortunately, it can't carry us past that step. People are only as stupid as they are trained to be, and only as intelligent as they are allowed to be, by their society.

It is really sad in a way, the original space program to put a man on the moon generated more advances in technology and medical science than any other endeavor. You can thank NASA and the those folks for the computers you are using to read this. Without their basic research and funding of research we would not have advanced our technology this far, this fast.

Actually, space travel is not very costly. What is costly is our current technology to get us into outer space that is very costly. Our current space programs focus on using rockets to reach orbital speed and distance, and that is our current biggest mistake. I am not an expert in outer space or travel, but I am smart enough to know how to plan for me to one day go into outer space. Using new self designed technologies and reinvented current technology. I can use a retrofitted air craft to take off from a runway and fly directly into outer space at a constant rate of 500 mph. In theory it is impossible to fly above 60,000 ft in a winged aircraft and without engine oxygen, but I did say new technology and a retrofitted craft. According to my calculation, it will cost me approximately $5 million to fly directly into outer space, and construct an underground Moon base for around $20 million. Current space programs have large number of employees and facilities, whereas, I would only need a few rented or retired persons as ground crews. I bet NASA would have little problems loaning me a pilot for a jaunt to the Moon and back. One day I would expect to see NASA take a much less active role in space flight, and become more like our FAA in outer space. It will actually be business seeking profit that will push us to venture beyond our current confines, so I started a new company for the sole purpose of venturing into outer space for profit. The first business into outer space will end up making the largest amount of profit.

NASA should be disbanded or at least privately funded. I don't want my tax money going to projects that benefit so few people.
I'm sitting in traffic in Los Angeles for hours for a 15 mile commute because there is no money for highway improvement while NASA spends billions for their personal hobbies. Hey you ruling class life long politicians, join us real people sometime, you might be surprised at what you find out here.

By big science, you mean big government science. We see stories saying that other countries have more scientists than we do or are cranking out more PHD's. I'm skeptical that the vast sum of these people are substantially trained. Just because China is cranking out huge numbers of scientists doesn't mean that sector is growing. I've seen several other stories where Chinese scientists were struggling to find work with just two openings out of hundreds of applicants. Last I check it's been several American's taking home Nobel prizes. It's quality over quantity. While the purpose of going to the moon had nothing to do with generating profit, the argument that government spending creates jobs is void. It's a job program which is not centralized but sprawled all across the country for reasons of job security so that no single lab or group or institute could ever get the axe. And much of the technology used in the Apollo mission for example was already being developed by the private sector but on a small scale. We didn't have personal computers in the 60's so the first microprocessors had no real use to a vast majority of Americans when the first CPU's were put in the spacecraft and still they were rather primitive. The private sector built all of the Apollo hardware. NASA encouraged it's engineers to get the very first laptop computers in the 80's whose limited capacity while useful to them was never profitable to the company that made it except to the government that put out over 2 thousand dollars a piece for each one. All of which quickly went away when better laptops came out in the 90's. When Dwight Eisenhower gave his ending speech, keep in mind he led the largest mobilization of armed men in human history (the guy who spearheaded NASA), despite this he was weary of the idea of a vast majority of America's scientists being amalgamated into a few government think tanks (NASA, NOAA, DARPA, DOE, etc) that worked and was bent to it's will. I love science, I hate the fact that much of the scientific workforce has been absorbed by bureaucracies with bias or prejudice. Who's to say global warming isn't a good thing, most scientists say that would be terrible (even if they're not climatologists). But a new rush climatologists say otherwise touting the benefits of a slight increase in temperature. Michio Kaku is a smart guy, but I'm not trusting him with climate research because he's never done any, he's a physicist. Don't ask him whether that thing on your back looks benign either because he's not a physician, again he's a physicist. Ask him what stars are made of or why black holes suck.....But don't ask him about climate, medicine or anything else he wasn't trained to do. You don't hire a roofer to fix your sink or a plumber to fix your roof.

it is a shame the amount of people interested in this. Ohh no write a story about religion and all of its nonsense and it would increase the amount of comments. The human race is devolving into a just dumb, pathetic, religious, brainless, pack of drones.

Rather than a focus on observation and learning, (that most people don't seem to get because of their less than average intelligence) why not draw more attention and research towards goals with physical rewards such as space mining and colonization; one of the biggest problems facing today's future is the exponentially expanding population and limited resources of energy. We we're able to put a man on the moon over 50 years ago, lets try to put a #$%$ research and/or mining center on it at least. Maybe put more research into alternate forms of propulsion, because I know for a fact there will be no progress for the future of mankind if the fastest most efficient form of travel we can think of is lighting something on fire and throwing it behind us.

Yes because giving tax breaks to the rich is more important then laying the foundation for space travel. Just remember when you die you were able to buy more stuff then you needed at the cost of humanity. Luxury goods are more important then developing technology that will be the base of tomorrows technology.

Passionate supporters of space science here. The recent lot seems to use abusive language to those who disagree.