Mather: Next telescope after #JWST would probably need to be 2-3x bigger that #JWST. Need to find a way to do it for the same price.
— Tony Darnell (@DeepAstronomy) June 4, 2014

I thought it relevant to this prior discussion.

New technologies opens up the possibility of making finer science measurements – furthering answers to scientific questions.

At best, it may cut the costs of a particular observatory subsystem. Like detector advancement often does.

However, there is still the ‘rest of the observatory’ that has to be built around it; and typically, to keep the costs down, PI’s will propose derivative’s of systems flown.

Never have I seen a new technology create efficiency in organizations! Ha! Not gonna happen at NASA – ever. Sometimes, the technology reduces operational costs – Phase E costs, which is a good thing.

In the end, poor cost estimates, along with the “buy in low screw ‘em with higher cost estimates later” game, plus manifest dysfunction everywhere (Still not addressed by the Casani Report) one turns at NASA, has led to JWST being $6B over initial estimates.

I think, but I’m not sure, that you must be talking about being exasperated by mis-estimated and lowballed budgets. Yep. It happens. It happens a lot in space and not just in science. “Efficiency” is a poor metric. You have a bogey budget, and you see what science you think you can buy with it with it. If you miss your budget, it isn’t because you were “inefficient”, but because you just did poor cost estimation. It’s a lame excuse to say that a mission misses budget because it was implemented in an “inefficient” way. The reason budget are missed is usually because a problem was more complicated than it was thought to be.

The mega-fauna effect is already seen in the James Webb. The budget for Webb far exceeds any previous analog like Hubble, if merely adjusted for actual budget increases since that time. One can easily say there will be more capability, but that is my point. The additional capability exceeded budget growth of the last similar thing. This mega-flora effect by definition means less number of systems both in development or in operation over time with fewer number of capabilities. The efficiency has to be at the industry, supply, acquisition, organizational AND technology levels AHEAD of merely little budget increases. You must run in place to stay where you are. You must run even faster to get ahead of a curve, or decline is inevitable.

Perplexing comment.

First of all, space science never will “repeat past systems”. Period. As technologies increase, more ambitious science can, in principle, be carried out for the same investment. There is no scientific sense in just building a new science facility that does what’s already been done. When HST dies, there will be no interest in building a new one that does the same thing. The cutting edge is where you always want to be.

Secondly, technology progress always results in increased efficiency for the same general capability. Detector arrays are far larger than they used to be, and the detective efficiency for each detector is far greater. That’s just one example, for imaging capabilities.

That being said, there is serious consideration being given in the science community about the relative value (as in, science/dollar) of large missions compared with small missions. Large missions can do things that small missions can’t. But a huge benefit of the smal missions is scientist training and responsivity to science progress, as more people have more frequent opportunities to exercise cleverness.

As to regulating ambition, when you’ve got a fairly fixed pot of money, you strategize how to get the most science out of it. In fact, doing that strategizing about the long view question is precisely what the Decadal reports are for, and those efforts think hard about large versus small.

Whatever becomes of these technologies?