I must say I'm a little surprised to see it come to this. There are alarms galore about the James Webb Space Telescope sitting on the chopping block.

I can understand the frustrations with cost overruns, but this was truly going to be at the center of astronomy for a while to come. It would be like trying to do more advanced nuclear physics with no new accelerators or equipment.

It would have a particular impact on us. We are already seeing numerous observations that have theorists scrambling for how galaxies could possibly have formed as 'early' as they seem to. Pushing the envelope into the infrared at a great vantage point is exactly what we need.

Seems particularly poignant coming on the heels of the last-ever Space Shuttle mission.

This is far worse than the cancellation of the next-in-line orbiter, because this project is very much farther along.  I actually favored the orbiter cancellation because I believe that private companies will do much better in the long run.  However, the Hubble won't last forever, and the JWST was just what we needed to take the next step.

Congress, you can't live with 'em, and you can't kill 'em.

By the way, check out this blog entry on the subject by Bad Astronomer Phil Plait -
JWST on the Chopping Block

Mike Petersen

And another Bad Astronomer blog post on this subject (slightly more politically ranting, but interesting anyway)

Congress Threatens Space Future

Mike Petersen

Another blog entry from Bad Astronomer Phil Plait:

Hubble's Successor: Doomed or Saved?

"Seeing Further" means absolutely nothing...all they will do is "adjust" the Non-existent Horizons and different Non-existent Epochs :>))

Do they actually have a way of getting around the defunding of the JWST?

RussT said:

"Seeing Further" means absolutely nothing...all they will do is "adjust" the Non-existent Horizons and different Non-existent Epochs :>))

*laugh* At least it can make it a bit more uncomfortable for them :)

Right now, we have folks being amazed at how evolved early galaxies were - including the mystery of how galaxies younger than 1 Gyr after the Big Bang have the carbon they do - and they scramble to make the appropriate theoretical adjustments.

If we can see even a decent chunk further into the red, we can see how much goal-post moving they require :) There may even be a surprise or two.

We need the JWST or something very much like it; we're basically at the limit of what we can see and that's going to leave a lot of hypotheses just "stuck", like the search for Higgs had been.

A Universe Today blog on the JWST.  Not a bad synopsis as they go, plus it has some great photographs.  Not much info on the cancellation, but I loved the pics.

JWST Nearing Completion

Good current summary on the JWST:

Watershed Moment for JWST

JWST SAVED???!!!! 

Senate Saves the JWST

It's looking that way!

Regards,
Mike