JWST may be shut down by DOGE

  • Context: News 
  • Thread starter Thread starter ohwilleke
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Funding jwst
Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
Sign up Log in
13 replies · 3K views
ohwilleke
Gold Member
Messages
2,672
Reaction score
1,651
The political news these days is enough to make some of us wish they were a million miles away. But consider this: Even in the depths of space, there’s no escape from politics.

The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope is literally parked 1 million miles away. In the nearly three years since it became operational, “Webb,” as it’s called, has made some incredible findings.

Webb uses infrared scanning to show how stars and galaxies form, and to study the atmospheres of distant planets. Its capabilities complement the aging Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits Earth at an altitude of only 340 miles or so.

Among other discoveries, Webb has uncovered the slow-motion process of a star engulfing a planet and provided data about an asteroid traveling at high speed in our direction (It will miss us).
You might think any U.S. president would view this as an asset. Alas, like so much of the country’s ongoing scientific research, Webb is at risk of being defunded.

President Donald Trump’s administration has removed NASA’s top scientist and proposed a nearly 50% budget cut to the agency’s Science Mission Directorate, which oversees planetary science, astrophysics research and more.


From the Orlando Sentinel newspaper.
 
Reply
  • Sad
  • Wow
Likes   Reactions: TensorCalculus, sbrothy, OmCheeto and 6 others
Physics news on Phys.org
Apparently, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (or this NASA link) was expected to launch in about 20 months - but is also under Trump's financial gun. It is at greater risk than JWST.

Here's my secret way to assure this new instruments continued development and deployment:
Rename it the "Trump Victory America Space Telescope
 
Reply
  • Haha
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: pinball1970, sbrothy and ohwilleke
Or you could just give it a far more descriptive title:

MORON – Misguided Opposition to Research and Observation Networks
 
Reply
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: pinball1970, sbrothy and ohwilleke
.Scott said:
Apparently, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (or this NASA link) was expected to launch in about 20 months - but is also under Trump's financial gun. It is at greater risk than JWST.

Here's my secret way to assure this new instruments continued development and deployment:
Rename it the "Trump Victory America Space Telescope
That would be funny if it wasn't so true.
 
Reply
  • Like
  • Agree
Likes   Reactions: TensorCalculus, sbrothy, ohwilleke and 1 other person
Shut down all education except the Bible. That's all you need.
 
Reply
  • Like
  • Informative
Likes   Reactions: BillTre, phinds, sbrothy and 2 others
Hornbein said:
Shut down all education except the Bible. That's all you need.

Talk about “sad but true”!
 
Hornbein said:
Shut down all education except the Bible. That's all you need.
The funny thing is, the Bible actually supports scientists. In other words, the JWST must live on. Our guy in office is anti-Christian and anti-scientific.

Made this in April 2024, and it shows how people of faith can appreciate the sciences. The guy who co-discovered the Big Bang had faith as well. So, Drumpf needs to turn to Psalm 111:2.

Psalm 111 AI Devotional.webp
 
Reply
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: BillTre
No, they’re not irreconcilable (Man, that was a long word for the Danish auto-correct to eat!) This guy is (EDIT: or rather: was) proof of that:

Georges Lemaitre and the Foundations of Big Bang Cosmology.

EDIT: Oh, he was already mentioned in your post there. It was so small on my old iPhone 4 I didn't see it though. Sorry.
 
Last edited:
Reply
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: AlexB23
Borg said:
Or you could just give it a far more descriptive title:

MORON – Misguided Opposition to Research and Observation Networks
If you did that, he'd have the FBI raid your house.
 
Reply
  • Like
  • Sad
Likes   Reactions: TensorCalculus, sbrothy, BillTre and 1 other person
phinds said:
If you did that, he'd have the FBI raid your house.
Errr, why I ended up liking that post instead of expressing dislike or sadness I have to ascribe to my scatterbrain. I’ll leave it as a curiosity
 
Last edited:
First Chandra, now this :cry: :cry: :cry:
doesn't bode well for the coming decade... what will it be like by the time I end up needing astronomical observations for my own work? Will the situation be better, will I have more tools at my disposal than someone born 10 years prior to me, or will politics make it worse? I had always assumed the former: but now I'm reconsidering it...
Borg said:
Or you could just give it a far more descriptive title:

MORON – Misguided Opposition to Research and Observation Networks
On a lighter note, they could add it to this list of extremely forced astronomical acronyms :)
EDIT/ADD: I'm looking at this list after a couple of years and it has so many smaller things yet not the big ones like HAVOC!