Topic: Trouble for Dark Energy Space Mission?

[sam]

NASA doesn’t have nearly enough money to do what it wants to do. Well, nothing unusual about that. We’ve talked recently about the constraints that budgetary realities are putting on astronomers’ ambitions — here, here, here. Now it’s chickens-coming-home-to-roost time, apparently. Dennis Overbye has an article in the Times (via Brian Schmidt) about how cost overruns on the James Webb Space Telescope — the giant multipurpose infrared satellite into which basket NASA is putting many of its eggs — are forcing dark energy onto the back burner.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/01/03/trouble-for-dark-energy-space-mission/

[Clive]

I don't have a problem with joint missions and I don't know what the Americans are so worried about.  Hubble and ISS have both been successful so why not a dark energy probe?  I'd love to know the results before I die but to wait another decade may be pushing it.     The delays and overspend on the James Webb Telescope have been a disaster for NASA. 

[sam]

a massive disaster, especially given the marvellous results from the much more technologically superior ground based instruments

[Clive]

Yes, especially with the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (OWL) weighing in at 100 metres! Drat!  It's been cancelled!! 

[sam]

E-ELT will still go ahead. Its high on the STFC list with SKA I believe.

For those of you who don't know that's European Extremely Large Telescope.

[Clive]

Tut!  That's only 42 metres.  I have larger in my garden shed.     That's still 8 years away but I might be able to hold out.   

[Simon]

Tut!  That's only 42 metres.  I have larger in my garden shed.     That's still 8 years away but I might be able to hold out.   

That's some neighbourhood watch! 

[Clive]

 

[Rik]

Is that 8 years walking or by car, Clive?

[Clive]

I wouldn't trust my Dagenham Dustbin to take me to the end of the street Rik.   

[Rik]

Go for a BMW. I still wouldn't trust it, but it impresses some people Clive.

[Clive]

My other car does that Rik.   

[Rik]

 

[Simon]

Go for a BMW. I still wouldn't trust it, but it impresses some people Clive.

I wouldn't have one of those.  Damned uncomfortable, and driven by pillocks!

[Rik]

I'll second that.