
NASA kills X-ray telescope, blames project's cost - ukdm
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57449176/nasa-kills-x-ray-telescope-blames-projects-cost/
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nkoren
The Webb is funnelling too much money into too many congressional districts
for it to be politically acceptable to be de-funded. At $150M, GEMS isn't.

This is the pattern that NASA has been stuck in for decades: frugal projects
that go an inch over their budget caps are cancelled with little hesitation;
projects that spread around billions of dollars worth of pork -- or better
yet, tens of billions -- are unkillable. The message to project managers and
industry partners has been crystal clear: if you want your project to survive,
make it really REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY expensive.

In the early 90s there were a couple of incredibly cheap BMDO (military)
projects (the DC-X and Clementine lunar probe, specifically) which proved to
space enthusiasts like myself that the high cost of space was mostly a
political artefact. The BMDO could get away with that because it wasn't
subject to the same level of political porkbarreling as NASA -- but alas, it
was the exception that proved the rule. Since then, our only hope has been
with the private sector, and it's wonderful to see SpaceX finally delivering
on that hope. I only hope that there will eventually be some spillover for
pure space science itself, which will probably always remain a governmental
endeavour.

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adventureful
Given the insane budget for Webb ($11 billion max cap), the notion that GEMS
was going to be 20% to 30% over budget, and that would end up around maybe
$150 million total, it seems absurd to kill this project. This is the kind of
science NASA should be doing.

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iwwr
NASA is killing every project it can to not lose the James Webb. Casulties so
far are a Mars rover and a Jupiter orbiter, as well as no new missions planned
for the next decade.

The question is, what happened to the Shuttle portion of the budged. You'd
think they have more money for robotic spacecraft after that.

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hexagonal
NASA's paying for Falcon 9 development by proxy.

And the Antares launch system, and the shuttle-derived SLS.

