(Image Source: NASA)

BY MADISON MACK
ANCHOR LAUREN GORES

You're watching multisource science news analysis from Newsy.

Just a month after the House Appropriations Committee recommended terminating the James Webb Space Telescope – NASA has come back with a new proposal to save the Hubble successor.

The project is years behind schedule, billions over budget and has been plagued by management problems - but NASA is defending the telescope – recently making it one of the agency’s top priorities. Nature News explains.

“The flagship observatory is currently funded entirely through NASA's science division; now NASA is requesting that more than US$1 billion in extra costs be shared 50:50 with the rest of the agency. The request reflects administrator Charles Bolden's view … that the telescope is a priority not only for the science programme, but for the entire agency.”

NASA says it will need an additional 3.6 billion dollars to finish the telescope in time for its launch in 2018 – bringing the grand total to 8.7 billion dollars -  more than double the original estimates. A writer for The State Press says the telescope may be expensive -- but it’s on the cutting edge of space technology.

“The people in charge of this country do not see the potential this telescope has to teach us about our universe, and in turn ourselves. Our very beginnings, the start of life is within the scope of this telescope, but it’s a little pricey and Congress just isn’t willing to spend that money.”

But a writer for Science 2.0 says scientific knowledge always comes with a price tag -- and NASA’s James Webb budget could be better spent elsewhere.

“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 … scientists can do a world of good holding each other accountable and making it less necessary for politicians to do so.”

New Zealands’s 3 News interviewed one of the project’s engineers -- who says he’s confident the telescope will see a launch.

“James Webb has been threaten possibly with some cancellation issues in the US. But my feeling is it will get through in the end. There’s a long history in the US of missions being subject to politics and sometimes they’ve been canceled but then they get launched in time and I’m very sure the James Webb will be because it’s so critical.”

Specific details of how the agency will pay the cost will be covered in the fiscal 2013 NASA budget request.
 

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