誰應該為NASA的下一座大型James Webb太空望遠鏡的錯誤付出代價？

誰應該為NASA的下一座大型望遠鏡的錯誤付出代價？
Who Should Pay for the Mistakes on NASA’s Next Big Telescope?

JULY 28, 2018

The space agency has always coughed up the extra cash, but some politicians wonder if the contractor responsible for major errors should pitch in.

If everything had gone according to plan, the most powerful space telescope would be in orbit right now, perched about 1 million miles from Earth, peering deep into the universe, and returning home mesmerizing photos of glittering stars and galaxies.

Instead, it’s still in a factory in California, waiting to receive more money so engineers can finish building it.

The James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s next big astronomy mission, has been in the works for two decades. When the concept was first proposed in 1996 as the successor to the famed Hubble Space Telescope, scientists estimated it would cost $500 million and fly by 2007. But as scientists worked on the telescope’s design, the world around them began to change. Astronomers were making exhilarating discoveries about the cosmos, and engineers were inventing the technology needed to study them. Webb’s stewards believed the telescope could do more than originally envisioned, so they expanded its parameters.

As the years passed and the scope of the mission swelled, so did the cost. By the start of this year, Webb had a price tag of $8.8 billion and a launch date of spring 2019. Most of the telescope—its gold-plated mirrors and scientific instruments—had been completed and tested. But there was trouble with the tennis-court-sized shield that’s supposed to protect it from the heat of the sun, and with the spacecraft that will house the observatory’s various systems. It was enough trouble that last month, NASA officials made a disappointing announcement: Webb would be delayed, again, this time to spring 2021. And it’s would be even more expensive.

Instead of $8.8 billion, the total lifetime cost of the telescope—which includes development, launch, and five years of operation—would come to $9.66 billion, officials said. The new total meant that Webb had breached a cap set by Congress in 2011, when lawmakers had begun to worry in earnest about the mission’s ballooning costs. Now if Webb wants to leave Earth, it needs Congress to approve an extra $800 million for the mission.

Webb is expected to get the money. Even the stingiest politicians recognize that you can’t cancel a mission that has already swallowed more than $8 billion in taxpayer dollars. But lawmakers aren’t thrilled, and some of them are wondering whether it shouldn’t be their constituents who pick up the tab. Maybe, they say, it should be the spacecraft manufacturer that has contributed to most of these delays: Northrop Grumman, a longtime NASA contractor.

“It is clear that Northrop Grumman did not adhere to the best business practices,” said Lamar Smith, the chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, at a hearing on Friday, addressing Northrop Grumman’s CEO, Wes Bush. “When government contractors make mistakes, typically no one is held accountable. The mistakes just happened, or were unavoidable, or won’t happen again. But in every case, the American people pick up the bill.”

https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2018/07/who-should-pay-mistakes-nasas-next-big-telescope/150122/