As negotiations over the US debt limit continue, potential cutbacks to a huge range of programs may come as part of any deal. But in the background, regular budget work has gone ahead, and on Wednesday that work produced a shock for NASA in the form of a 10 percent budget cut. Also on the chopping block: the space-based observatory expected to replace the Hubble, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
The JWST is meant to provide a window into an area of the spectrum that the Hubble couldn't view. The segment of the infrared it was designed to image will include the light from the earliest galaxies, allowing scientists to get an unprecedented view of the dynamics of the universe as the first large-scale structures emerged in the aftermath of the Big Bang.
Unfortunately, imaging in the infrared dictated a few design complications: the observatory would need a massive sunscreen to allow it to cool sufficiently so that the hardware itself wouldn't generate an infrared signal. It would also have to sit far enough from the Earth's infrared sources that a servicing mission would be overwhelmingly unlikely during its lifetime.
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