House Subcommittee's Budget Bill Puts Most Powerful Space Telescope on the Chopping Block
JWST In Deep Space NASA Lawmakers working on next year's federal finances have taken the ax to the James Webb Space Telescope. That's right, NASA's next-generation space telescope, the successor to Hubble and the space agency's biggest post-shuttle project, may be killed. To be clear, there are many more steps in the budget process before this is final - lawmakers are working on next year's budget despite a stalemate between the White House and Republican leadership, so a lot could change in the next couple weeks. And odds are decent that at least some lawmakers will fight to preserve this enormous technological marvel (and the jobs associated with its construction). But this is not good news for astronomy, to put it mildly. The House Appropriations Committee released its 2012 Commerce, Justice and Science funding bill today, ahead of a scheduled committee markup Thursday. The bill provides $50.2 billion overall for the nation's...