Some scientists undeterred by Hubble successor’s costs

NPR : The James Webb Space Telescope will cost about $6.5 billion, rather than the $5 billion NASA had planned to spend, and the launch date has been pushed forward from 2014 to 2018. Nevertheless, enthusiasm remains high for the massive IR telescope, writes Nell Greenfieldboyce for NPR. It will detect longer wavelengths of light than the Hubble Space Telescope and will likely revolutionize astronomy as much as the Hubble has done over the last two decades. It will search for the first galaxies formed after the Big Bang, search for water on planets orbiting distant stars, and help astronomers determine how galaxies evolve. Part of the reason for the cost overruns is that the technologies necessary for the telescope’s operation needed to be invented and it’s difficult to estimate those costs up front. As large as a Boeing 737, the telescope must fold up to fit inside a rocket for its journey 1 million miles into space—and then unfold once it reaches its destination. But JWST isn’t the first such project to have an unexpected increase in cost; when Hubble was launched, it cost about three times as much as had originally been estimated.