That’s simplistic. The smaller missions have their own communities. Moreover, the ratio of yearly operations funding (~$160M) to total cost (~$8.8B) is somewhat lower for JWST than for, say, a Midex. So if JWST had been divided up into 50 Midex’s, more scientists would have gotten fed.

“If someone does not make the case to up the science budget to at least reflect inflation, the Congressional Budget Office will be offering up options to Congress that end SMD all together …”

Makes no sense. Inflation and sequestration doesn’t make a Directorate disappear. CBO is suggesting the demise of human space flight because it might not offer obvious value. No one is saying that NASA science doesn’t offer obvious value.

But a $3B/yr investment in SLS while science suffers is a credible sign of being fracked.

They only have enough money to mount one large mission per decade (and that may not even be a ‘flag ship’, now that JWST has pissed of everyone except B Mukulski) and a few of the competed Explorers (Helio and Astro) and Discoveries (Planetary) etc.

Which means no more big science gains in quantities to keep any of their respective science communities alive.

The smaller missions feed a few scientist; the large ones feed a community.

And since the next flag ship planetary, or astrophysics, will focus only on once aspect of that Divisions science goals, the other sciences disciplines go lacking – which drives away the young post doc’s who see 20+ years till a large flight mission.

And of course, you don’t need the work force NASA has right now with such a dismal flight rate of science missions. JPL, GSFC, LaRC, all will have way too many employees/contractors for the budgets these Science Divisions have to spend on missions.

If someone does not make the case to up the science budget to at least reflect inflation, the Congressional Budget Office will be offering up options to Congress that end SMD all together…along with their recent suggestion to whack HSF.

America is fracked up, and it shows in lack of funding for science, along with the unbelievable debt, and yearly deficit’s we pile up.

Sequestration is not the issue. Unchecked deficit spending by the current administration is the issue and is what spawned sequestration. And SLS is not the issue either. It is techno-welfare to a few select states just like any other USG program fed off the trough of government largess. The troubles in SMD now are the direct result of the cost over-run mentality of Curiosity, JWST, etc. It has just gotten worse now that the wall between science and manned space has been torn down (by the current administration no less) where funding shortfalls and mission priorities on the HSF side are impacting SMD on top of everything else.

“It’s bad enough that we’re going to have to try and trade-off either Cassini or Curiosity in 2015 already.”

We wouldn’t have to do either if NASA would just cancel the Curiosity-2 (i.e. Mars 2020) effort. If we can’t afford to operate more than one flagship, why is NASA directing that a second Curiosity-sized Mars rover be built and launched and operated (at flagship mission levels to be sure)? Terminate Mars 2020 and keep both Cassini and Curiosity operating. Of course, that is contrary to the desires of JPL which effectively runs SMD anyway.

Sequestration and the SLS are just killing robotic space exploration. It’s bad enough that we’re going to have to try and trade-off either Cassini or Curiosity in 2015 already.

I have no problem with delays, even lengthy ones if they are credible. The science will still be out there. International partnerships? Why enable our competitors? Let’s get back to an America first policy.