Dropping the Torch

Is it feasible to hand over JWST to ESA (or someone of that ilk)?

Heliophysics currently has two large missions in the pipeline: Magnetospheric Multiscale (scheduled to launch in 2014) and Solar Probe Plus (2018). There are some medium class missions further out in the timetable, but the big projects after SP+ are European and Japanese. That may change (heliophysics is in the middle of a decadal survey right now), but future prospects for large US-led satellite projects aren't looking good right now.

I also haven't heard anything about a replacement for ACE, which has been up for almost 14 years now. Maybe that has shifted over to NOAA, but not having a solar wind monitor makes space weather prediction (important for people who operate satellites or transpolar airline flights, among others) a great deal more problematic than it is now.

It's the century of biology, anyway. You and I are just vestiges of yesteryear's scientific research.

A concrete, new international facility class science project that the US is going to be leading in near future? It sure wasn't going to be JWST. With the funds still required, and the schedule that would dictate, that project wasn't going to happen in the near future.

Good question, but the answer isn't new.

Re JWST, the astronomy community has pretty much screwed the pooch. Even though I can't imagine that Babs will allow JWST to be defunded, the discipline has lost all manner of fiscal credibility, at least with regard to large space efforts. It's worth some thought how that community is going to work it's way out of the very deep hole it has dug itself into. No, I suspect even successful launch of JWST (whenever that might be) isn't going to accomplish that.

I agree, that one could argue that except for the 1950's and 60's in radio astronomy, the US was the leader in ground based astronomy for a period that until recently lasted about a century.

@Doug: Too right. The particle physics folks never recovered from their SSC disaster. Once Congress notices you like that it's bad news. NASA space astrophysics maybe about to lose it's credibility and we may never get another big toy to play with again. It's a pity that the NASA+astro-community process couldn't uncover and face up to the problem before it reached this point. Too many incremental steps so no-one ever saw the elephant in the room?

Commenters,

I think you are missing Steinn's point. This is larger than the details of JWST's problems (which I think mostly have to do with Congress asking NASA to ask GSFC to lie/optimistically estimate its costs, and very little to do with anyone that most of us would know as a research astronomer). Outside of astronomy there aren't any big ambitious projects either. This is a reflection both that we can't afford it, because we as a society decided to have a big party and buy ourselves lots of McMansions; but also that the society has decided that education and research are not a priority, and that large public works are too scary, a sort of declaration of incapacity.

If we had thrown the big party and invested in infrastructure beyond our means rather than McMansions, at least we might have something useful to show for it instead of more suburban sprawl.

@Ben

No, we're not missing the point. JWST is a signal not just that we don't know how to credibly manage a large space astronomy mission, but probably that this could be the practical end of flagship missions.

What is pathetic are the lame arguments that the astronomy community is using to defend JWST. Leadership, astronomical jobs, and STEM education. Puhleeze. Those are easy, no-thought arguments that a smart science community should be capable of doing better. JWST is going to be not only a test of NASA's ability to pull a managerial travesty out of the dumpster, but also a test of the astronomical community to come up with publicly compelling justification for a fabulously expensive instrument that has shot holes through decadal priorities.

It is, by the way, quite likely that JWST cancellation would lead to some kind of a space astronomy bloodbath, in which other communities who have been sidelined by JWST will swoop in to pick up the pieces of the remaining budget. I hesitate to say it, but one wonders whether those communities are quietly behind this bill language. Of course, we'll also hear a clamor for continuation of HST, which would be a sad way of keeping the space astronomy flame burning. It would burn dimly. HST would continue to do science, though of an incremental nature.

It is, by the way, quite likely that JWST cancellation would lead to some kind of a space astronomy bloodbath, in which other communities who have been sidelined by JWST will swoop in to pick up the pieces of the remaining budget.

If you believe this, Doug, then you are being optimistic. More likely, the money is going outside NASA entirely--probably to pay for part of another tax cut for the rich that we can't afford.

Ben is quite right that the problem goes beyond astrophysics. There have been precious few US initiatives in physical sciences generally in the last few years, and I have not heard discussion of anything that isn't already officially underway. We just had our last shuttle launch, and while there has not been any formal decision (whether or not you think it's a good thing) to abandon our manned spaceflight program, there is currently no US manned vehicle under development. Nor have there been any major initiatives I know of in biomedical fields. Instead there has been a systematic focus on things that tend to make bankers rich, and if anyone else gets rich in the process that is an accidental byproduct.

It has little to do with being optimistic. The bloodbath will come from the swooping, not from the picking up of dollars. Yes, it's almost certainly correct that the money will disappear from the Astrophysics division entirely. But that won't stop people from fighting over money they're unlikely to get.

The Astronomy Decadal survey had a chance to provide guidance about threats such as this. The threat could have come not just from mismanagement (as it has), but also just from national economic troubles. They didn't provide it.

I did not mean to imply that the problem was restricted to astrophysics. My point about the practical end of flagship missions applied to all of SMD.

Doug - as a note on the Decadal Survey: the Survey was explicitly charged in the terms that set it up not to think about JWST, and treat JWST's existence as a given. That may be a failing on the part of the group that set up the terms, but isn't really a failing by the committee themselves.

That's not true. The survey committee was simply charged not to rank projects that had been given a formal start by the sponsoring agency. In fact, the statement of task actually never mentions JWST explicitly. They were certainly not told "not to think about JWST". Charged to develop a strategic perspective on the future of astrophysical research, one might have thought that at least a few words could have been devoted to bad things happening, as bad things can and have happened. As it was, the worst thing the survey committee could imagine happening was a level budget, which is a pretty conservative worst case budget scenario.

But I agree that the agencies and the NRC could have agreed to challenge the survey committee explicitly with more serious challenges to the field than the committee decided to grapple with. One might just as well wonder, for example, what guidance the survey committee provided in the event of a 2014 failure for JWST after launch. I don't believe they provided any. There is a significant chance that such a failure could have happened. Now it's true that four years after the survey report, the detailed response to such an unfortunate occurrence should not come from that survey report, but the report could have given some direction to the planning.

The survey team did a marvelous job, and I don't want to be too critical of them, but what has happened with JWST at least leads to some important lessons for the next survey.