A very large part of the JWST cost was I&T, and you’d have to do that on any replacement you build. I&T for JWST is extraordinarily hard, needing to be done at very low temperature and keeping delicate mirrors aligned in 1-g when they’re designed to work at 0-g. But then, there was investment in technology that need not be repeated, if all you’re after is a one-off.

JWST was, indeed, not designed to be serviced. Although there were promises made that a docking adaptor would get affixed to it, there is really very little that an astronaut could do once there. It’s not a shame that it won’t be serviced, but a shame that it wasn’t designed to be serviced.

What “servicing” of Webb would be done? I didn’t think it was even designed for servicing like Hubble was. >>

that is stupidity RGO

What “servicing” of Webb would be done? I didn’t think it was even designed for servicing like Hubble was.

It wasn’t. The idea of servicing it is completely ridiculous.

Doug…we are I think mostly in agreement.

Three points.

First almost any explanation now, other then ISS, for human spaceflight is circular logic…and for the most part it is completely useless. Every few weeks over at NASAspaceflight.com they babble on about some justification for SLS and Orion and its all circular.

But sometimes politics works with circular logic and my viewpoint is that there are people here in Houston who work for Boeing but who are doing this in the “spare time” through the good offices of the Pete Olson and KBH where they are trying to put together a space program for Willard when he comes to Texas. That program’s circular logic is using Orion and Centaur to service Webb when it is at the L point…and to build a modest “semi tended” station there.

Thats what they are trying to come up with.

As for Hubble…I would save it but then thats me. Robert G. Oler

that is what Elliot Ness did. RGO

The democrats have brought us to the threshold of fiscal ruin in the last 3 years.>>

that is patently absurd and one reason that the GOP is becoming more and more likely to receive the beating of its life come election day.

If “space policy” indicates anything; it is that the GOP is far worse in terms of pork then their Dem counterparts. I am not telling you that Dems do not do pork, they do; but at the very least if space politics is to be examined the “pork” that the Dems advocate are things which change the lives of people here on earth; not uselessly building hardware that never flies or if it does accomplishes things of almost no value to The Republic.

Not all spending is equal, even deficit spending. My wife and I spend about 5 grand a month on our new place…I spend about 500 (or maybe a tad more) on my hobby amateur radio. We can do it: my wife and I make the money but in the end the 500 doesnt do much but let me enjoy a hobby, the 5000 changes lives forever.

The GOP is into hobby spending. In rough terms Cx consumed 15 billion dollars. For nothing. It spend three times what Gemini did and that project actually flew. All the 15 billion did was transfer taxpayer wealth to mostly corporations who then gave some of it to employees. There isnt a darn thing from that 15 billion that has value. Period.

Iraq was hobby spending. And that smashed about 1.5 or more trillion into simply NOTHING. OK it cost probably 100-200 million for Obama to kill OBL and thats a lot of money; but at least we got something to show for it. There is zero value out of Iraq and the stupid people in the GOP use to claim it would “pay for itself”. How is that working for you?

In the end the money could have either not been spent, or bought energy independence or???

the 15 billion of Cx? or this years 1.8 billion that mostly GOP people want on SLS?

All spending is not equal. I dont know what all the nation got for the stimulus bill, but whatever it got from that, it got more then it got from Iraq (well one thing that happened the Clear Creek School District was able to open).

Fiscal Ruin was Bush43 taking an economy that was working and killing it. And people like you going along

Paul Ryan is an idiot. RGO

They may well just point out all the other magnificent things we’re doing in space. MSL, LRO/LCROSS, Chandra, as well as ISS, and not be hard over about human space launch technology.

Just for reference, here’s the very long list of all of NASA’s current missions:

http://www.nasa.gov/missions/current/index.html

For people to claim we’ve somehow ceded space leadership is absurd. No other nation on Earth is even doing deep space research. Russia tried with Phobos-Grunt and it fell back to Earth.

The democrats have brought us to the threshold of fiscal ruin in the last 3 years. They have grown the total debt by over 30%. Stunning. There is no running from this fact.

What will happen when large numbers of our big bread earners become social security receipts? We are lucky to have a Space program at all.

All the more reason for all of us to embrace the Ryan budget plan and the radical restructuring of entitlements. We must do our fair share.