How NASA’s James Webb Telescope Went $9B Over Budget | True Cost

The James Webb Space Telescope took more than two decades and $10 billion to build. It's one of NASA's most expensive science projects. A combination of difficult engineering and mismanagement led to cost overruns and delays. Now it's nearly a million miles from Earth, preparing to capture images of the first stars that formed over 13 billion years ago.

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How NASA’s James Webb Telescope Went $9B Over Budget | True Cost

[iigjdpsjdj]

Aside from being a marvel of engineering, I believe the JWST will prove to be one of the greatest achievements of the first half of the 21st century. Everyone who has participated in the project should be proud of themselves!

[coreylahey]

the fact that only $10 billion is the most we've spent on a scientific project says a lot. The U.S. military spends that amount in 5 days. Imagine what we could do as a species if we had the military's budget. We could advance centuries into the future within a span of years.

About 1.3% of what the military gets Every Year

[PachetePockets]

The cost is 100% worth it. Science like this doesn't just improve our understanding of the universe, it also leads to innovation and breakthroughs back home. I can't wait to see what the James Webb will do.

[welstherd]

I remember seeing the gold mirrors in person and saying "Can't wait to see it launch next year!" (11 years ago)

[username]

I was super surprised to learn that NASA gets just a bit over .5% of the US government budget. This means, for every 1$ of taxes that you pay, NASA only gets half a penny. The general public massively overestimates the amount of money that NASA gets.

NASA's projects look expensive, but they are always done over extremely long periods of time and are more than worth the money. Plus their technology developments have resulted in things such as the mamograms and gps we have now. With that tiny fraction of the government spending, NASA is able to create a massive impact and inspire so many people that the public thinks NASA gets a lot of funding.

[AngryBerb]

That's chump change considering $10 billion is what the US military spends in just a week and the James Webb Telescope will actually be a massive benefit to humanity.

[thedirty]

In a sense, NASA is R&D for our species. I know us average individuals would not see every one of these small advancements as neccessary but every benchmark is a step towards a real possibility. I have never seen better inspiration than the people who have a passion to learn what we don't know. Science is a truly humbling profession where the acceptance of what you don't know isn't a bad thing. I greatly respect these individuals!

[Viivek]

If only congress was that vigilant about military expenditures.

[vr]

i got to visit this telescope with my dad, seeing it before and watching it go up was such an honor and i won’t forget both experiences, i miss you more than i can describe dad

[itrhtne]

Im from far flung of rural north east india ..i have been following this project for years...god bless the scientist...

[rexlongfellow]

Don't forget the time scale. This $10 billion wasn't spent in a single year. It was spent over almost 3 decades.

[gghh]

This is truly in big picture (pun intended), money well spent. No politic, no war, Just an advancement on science for all mankind to come. 10 billion is a small money to what the could b our future space travel and space mining.

[tillthiemann]

The precision of the orbit insertion is just mindblowing. Someone did a very good job!

[donutey]

It's interesting so many people involved are clearly older and have likely spent their entire career working on Webb. We're bumping up against the human lifespan as an issue with how complex and time consuming these projects are (the Voyager program has the same issue, running since the 70s).

Kind of a new frontier in project management, although it is a throwback to things like cathedrals built over hundreds of years.

[al]

People be like "that's a waste of money" when literally that's just less than 0.02% of the US military budget lol.

[ToastyFresh]

The good thing about projects like this is the technology that’s invented to pull it off can be used in different, specialized areas giving it more meaning than it has at face value

[farukozturk]

"It is expensive."
No. It's necessary.

[tgess]

How NASA, ESA and CSA Spent $10 Billion On The James Webb Telescope... 25 countries participated.

[kelownatechkid]

We should be spending 100x on these projects. I am glad that the canadian government contributed.