The cost overruns and schedule delays of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are widely known, yet Congress, in its final FY12 appropriations bill, gave NASA more than what it originally asked for—$530 million versus the requested $374 million—for the program. However, the language in the conference report for that bill included provisions for a cost cap and regular reports on the program’s progress from the GAO. Moreover, a hearing earlier this week by the House Science Committee suggested that Congress has, in effect, put the program on double secret probation: one more misstep and it may be done.
“Not too many years ago, NASA’s stakeholder community would not be overly surprised with cost and schedule slippage,” said Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), chairman of the full committee, in the opening statement of a hearing by the committee on JWST. He added that while he supports the telescope, that tolerance for delays and overruns has run our. “In my view, NASA’s latest replan for the James Webb Telescope is the agency’s last opportunity to hold this program together.”
The witnesses, which included the NASA and Northrop Grumman managers for the project and two astronomers, expressed a mix of contrition about the past problems and confidence that the program was now on track. “We at NASA recognize that we made your already difficult task of funding important programs in these distressed fiscal times even more difficult through our poor past performance on JWST,” Rick Howard, NASA’s JWST program manager, told the committee. He went on to say that that the program’s recent restructuring has improved its performance: of 21 major milestones planned for JWST in fiscal year 2011, he said later in the hearing, 19 were met on ahead of schedule and one was a month later; the remaining milestone was deferred because of a planned redesign of a component.
“NASA has actually done a very good job on this replan,” said Garth Illingworth, a Univ. of California Santa Cruz astronomer who served on an independent panel last year that reviewed the state of JWST. “I’m highly encouraged by what I have seen over the last six to nine months on this program.”
“The Webb telescope represents a capability beyond anything attempted by NASA, our nation, or anywhere,” said Northrop Grumman vice president Jeffrey Grant. “The Webb telescope has a clear path forward and we have evidence that the current plan is proceeding on track.”
While some committee members appeared satisfied with those explanations, as well as a reiteration of the scientific importance of the telescope, others were more skeptical. “I hat to be the skunk at the lawn party, but somebody’s got to be the skunk,” said Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) as a prelude to questions about the cost of JWST. (Later, he invoked the movie The Money Pit.) At one point he asked Howard what would happen if JWST, like Hubble, was found to have a flaw after launch. Howard explained they have done, will continue to do, extensive testing before launch. “We know we only have one chance to get this right,” he said, because JWST will be located at the Earth-Sun L2 point, beyond the range of any foreseen servicing options. “So we are taking every step we can to mitigate the risks.”
“You’ve just increased my skepticism,” Sensenbrenner responded.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) also had some strong words for the witnesses, asking Howard what programs would be “totally defunded” to pay for JWST’s increased costs. (Howard noted that, at least for FY12, the increased JWST cost would be split evenly between NASA’s other science programs, exluding Earth science, and the Cross Agency Support budget, details of which will be included in the agency’s operating plan that will be released next month.) “Who has been reprimanded or fired from NASA for this?” Rohrabacher asked. Howard responded that the senior managers involved with the project at NASA Headquarters and Goddard Space Flight Center have all been replaced, but reassigned and not fired (to the apparent disappointment of Rohrabacher.)
“If you keep having cost overruns, you’re going to be the laughingstock of the federal budget process, because we will know that we can’t count on what you’re telling us,” Rohrabacher warned NASA. That might be a bit of hyperbole, given the cost overruns experienced by many other programs outside NASA, but additional cost overruns with JWST might not be met with laughter but instead the slicing sound of a budget-cutter’s scissors.
“The world will end with neither a bang nor a whimper but, rather, to the strident cries of little men whining about cost benefit ratios.”
I was dreading that this would be one of those “lovefest” hearings, but it sure turned out to be the opposite. The witnesses, and the project, got a real dressing down for fiscal mismanagement. I think Rohrabacher was just trying to get the witnesses to admit that SOMEONE was going to be hurt by this mismanagement. The witnesses didn’t bite, and in fact barely seemed to even apologize for the fact that other priorities, many in other disciplines, would suffer. This is a hallmark of the JWST advocacy machine, in which finishing the project at all costs conveniently ignores the costs, and won’t even explicitly concede that doing it at all costs means that JWST is more important than anything else.
While the scientific goals of JWST are admirable and profoundly exciting, and I very much wish the team the best of look in achieving them, this project is a huge embarrassment for NASA and the science community. It’s frankly hard to believe, looking at the history of the project, that the costs won’t further increase, although Chairman Hall seems to have drawn the line in the sand.
Replacing all the senior managers may seem like a way to ensure that the mistakes of the past won’t be repeated, but I’m afraid that the mistakes of the past are less from incompetence of individuals and more from ingrained NASA management precepts that just aren’t well tuned to flagship-level missions.
While Sensenbrenner is not the smartest legislator in the sci/tech arena, the fact that a mission of the magnitude of JWST is designed as one-shot-to-get-right is indeed truly frightening. Of course, presuming that astronauts or robots would be available to give the thing a kick if it needed one is almost as frightening, given our poor progress on human space transportation and miniscule investment in in-space telerobotics.
Now, of course, the JWST cost overruns are miniscule, even fractionally, compared with just about everything big on the human space flight side of the house. So let’s be grateful that the JWST project managers weren’t simply replaced with human space flight managers!
Lets face it folks. The JWST design blows. The single biggest program with NASA science missions is the lack of continuity within programs. The successful Hubble design very clearly had no influence on the losing JWST. NASA gave newbee propeller head engineers free reign. That is the primary problem with the program. An important part of technical projects is the management of risk. JWST is loaded with them. MSL suffers from the same problems. Hopefully it will work. But the NASA senior management have left this country in a precarious position, which is surprising given the success of the previous missions.
While Sensenbrenner is not the smartest legislator in the sci/tech arena, the fact that a mission of the magnitude of JWST is designed as one-shot-to-get-right is indeed truly frightening.
But it’s the NASA mentality, and has been for decades, which explains why we’ve made so little progress in space. They play Russian Roulette with five live rounds and a single empty chamber.
“If you keep having cost overruns, you’re going to be the laughingstock of the federal budget process, because we will know that we can’t count on what you’re telling us,†Rohrabacher warned NASA.”
This would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. Rohrabacher certainly knows a thing or two about being a laughingstock. What a dinosaur.
@amightywind: OMG!! I agree with you here!
I wonder if the real issue isn’t that NASA has given up its robust technical R&D where failures are expected and useful, and have had to fold this research into flagship missions. Being engineers, it’s understandable that they would want to put what they now know (or think they know) into actual mission hardware but don’t really know what technology is a bridge too far.
So risk mitigation turns into tightrope walking, funding into bait and switch (or hat over the wall), and success is at the expense of everybody else.
amightywind wrote @ December 9th, 2011 at 8:59 pm
“Lets face it folks. The JWST design blows. The single biggest program with NASA science missions is the lack of continuity within programs. The successful Hubble design very clearly had no influence on the losing JWST.”
The “Hubble design”, as an observatory architecture, offers no advantages to JWST. Very different requirements. As an operations plan, in which serviceability was assumed, it might have. But there are many things about a telescope that has to operate at Earth-Sun L2, and at 40K, that isn’t particularly conducive to servicing.
But there is another way to look at how program continuity could be advantageous. That’s with a program that is based on an extensible architecture. JWST isn’t. If I want a 50-meter telescope, I’m not going to design it to be a thousand hexagonal mirrors that unfold out of a launch shroud like JWST does. That’s a factor of sixty more complicated and more risky than JWST. What I’d rather have is a program that assumes in-space construction, whether by humans or robots. That’s where bigger and better is just about taking more time doing the same thing with more pieces. But NASA perplexingly won’t invest in such extensible architectures.
That consideration, of course, applies to SLS, where doing more ambitious programs with larger structures is assumed to require larger launchers instead of doing things piecewise. One of our main triumphs on ISS was learning how to put pieces together in space. I guess that was an investment in extensibility, but where extensibility was measured by connecting different things together. How are we going to build on that hard-won triumph?
@ almightywind
“…The successful Hubble design…”
Itself late, over budget and requiring (though at least designed for and accessible for) orbital maintenance and upgrade.
Sadly, we know that this hearing will be repeated in a couple of years – to cover the excesses and slips from 2011 – 2013 or so. We have spent so much money on Webb Space Telescope now that we “cannot” cancel it, and the management team knows that.
It sounds counter-intuitive, but three (for example) small missions that take the place of one huge mission could deliver most of the science goals with less mis-management. If we split the mission into three parts, each would be working REAL HARD to not be the slowest, not be the one most over budget, etc! They would know that the slowest of the herd would be cancelled.
JWST has killed astrophysics, and severely wounded all of SMD science. Dr. Morse probably left in part because he didn’t see anything happening in his division till after his retirement as there is no money left in his division for anything new in the next 10 year.
Decadal reports used to inform the divisions on the order of what flies over a decade; now it is used only to award a single winner per decade, as anyone not ranked #1 won’t fly till the next Decadal comes out. Indeed, the 2007 Earth Science Decadal highlighted 3 tiers of missions, about 4 missions per tier. By 2017 NASA will have flown SMAP and ICESat-2 from the 4 missions in Tier 1. Nothing else. Pathetic state of affairs.
Replacing the senior managers isn’t going to make a difference in JWST performance, except that it sends a chill down the spine of those remaining. Folks will now be working overtime out to kazoo, weekends, etc. w/o compensation, because everyone knows one more cost over run and JWST is dead – into this kind of environment we will see mistakes creep in – let’s hope they don’t result in failure at L2.
And the last time I checked, Jeff Hanley Cx fame, now is a senior manager on JWST.
But there are many things about a telescope that has to operate at Earth-Sun L2, and at 40K, that isn’t particularly conducive to servicing.
Small thinking is what dooms our space program to mediocrity. Any of the SLS configurations would serve nicely to transport telescope components and the Orion spacecraft to L2. The experience of building ISS has been incredibly hard won. You’d think NASA would want to apply it in a different, more beneficial area like astronomy.
Sunk costs weren’t an issue in cancellation of Constellation. Though I suppose JWST has fractionally spent more of it’s total cost than did Constellation. I suspect there would be more political points to be scored by cancelling a chronically late and poorly costed mission than there would be by forgiving those mistakes. The JWST management team is naive to think otherwise.
But what the management team knows is that they have Barbara Mikulski firmly on their side. As long as she’s around, JWST will survive at least by earmarkery. The lesson here is that if you’re going to screw up badly, make sure you have an Appropriations leader on your side.
It’s not only counter-intuitive that several small missions could take the place of one huge mission in delivering most of the JWST science goals, it’s also wrong. Aside from an interferometer, which is from the perspective of technology capability a non-starter for such goals, there is no other way to get the kind of spatial resolution that JWST will offer. No way. Three smaller telescopes won’t do it. Most of the science goals are critically dependent on that spatial resolution. It is true, however, that NASA science has competently cost-managed most of its smaller missions.
amightywind wrote @ December 10th, 2011 at 4:06 pm
“Any of the SLS configurations would serve nicely to transport telescope components and the Orion spacecraft to L2.”
Regardless if they COULD use the SLS, the can’t afford it. Using NASA’s own estimates, the SLS will cost $1.6B/launch, and that’s without averaging in the development costs. In any case the NASA Science directorate has said they have no plans to use the mega-rocket.
“The experience of building ISS has been incredibly hard won. You’d think NASA would want to apply it in a different, more beneficial area like astronomy.”
Yet you don’t want to use those same techniques for boosters, so you don’t have to rely on the same rocket to do everything (get the payload to space and then boost it on it’s way). You are always contradicting yourself.
“This would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. Rohrabacher certainly knows a thing or two about being a laughingstock. What a dinosaur.”
In this case the dinosaur is 100% correct. Every time NASA reports to Congress they’re further behind schedule and there are more overruns in a flagship project like JWST it cuts deep into their credibility with both Congress and the public. All Rohrabacher did was state the blatantly obvious.
amightywind wrote @ December 10th, 2011 at 4:06 pm
“Small thinking is what dooms our space program to mediocrity. Any of the SLS configurations would serve nicely to transport telescope components and the Orion spacecraft to L2.”
Actually, an example of small thinking that dooms our space program to mediocrity is the idea that one would service JWST out at Earth-Sun L2. It is well understood that moving back and forth from Earth-Sun L2 to an Earth-Moon Lagrange point is propulsively cheap. Why send astronauts out on a several week trip to service it, or endure a ten-second time delay for telerobotics when you can just drive it into the shop close by?
In fact, the large solar shields of JWST do make it pretty challenging to service. They get in the way physically, and make one side cold and the other side warm. You’d need to service both sides — spacecraft and telescope. So take your pick which one will be accessible. Also, unlike Hubble, JWST has no contamination shielding. So anything you do there strongly risks system performance. Whatever side is cold will be especially prone to contamination. Probably the right strategy is to kick off the old solar shields and install new ones after servicing.
There are many credible plans for putting an Orion and service module at Earth-Moon Lagrange points with two ELVs. An SLS might be considered necessary for something else, but it sure isn’t necessary for this. Sure, it would “serve nicely”, but so would other, much more economical strategies.
But I agree that our hard-won expertise on ISS is that doing things in space piecewise really works. That piecewise philosophy can be a sound basis of any construction or servicing plan.
“Small thinking is what dooms our space program to mediocrity. Any of the SLS configurations would serve nicely to transport telescope components and the Orion spacecraft to L2. The experience of building ISS has been incredibly hard won. You’d think NASA would want to apply it in a different, more beneficial area like astronomy.”
That is a point against SLS. EELVs can used to do the same thing and for cheaper. NASA can not afford any SLS launched spacecraft
@ almightywind:
“Small thinking is what dooms our space program to mediocrity”
Yes, but big missions/projects should not be assumed to also mean big rockets.
“Any of the SLS configurations would serve nicely to transport telescope components and the Orion spacecraft to L2.”
And face the same, if not greater, Shuttle-like criticisms of repair missions that cost about as much as completely replacing the object in question…
“The experience of building ISS has been incredibly hard won. You’d think NASA would want to apply it in a different, more beneficial area like astronomy.”
So you acknowledge that something of value, especially (ahem) in-space assembly experience, came from ISS?
And actually, you have a very good point here. But there’s still that small matter of the cost of transportation to the work site, that can negate all the good you could do, once there…
So you acknowledge that something of value, especially (ahem) in-space assembly experience, came from ISS?
Yeah. The facility itself is useless. But it was no small feat of engineering to get it built. One only regrets what could have been built with the same effort.