Why some astronomers once feared NASA's James Webb Space Telescope would never launch
Why some astronomers once feared NASA's James Webb Space Telescope would never launch Enlarge this image toggle caption NASA Goddard Space Flight Center NASA Goddard Space Flight Center When the rocket carrying the James Webb Space Telescope finally takes to the skies, it will be the culmination of decades of work by scientists and engineers who sometimes feared that the most powerful space telescope ever might never get off the ground. Enlarge this image toggle caption NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center A mission 'haunted' by cost pressures Originally, the cost of the telescope was estimated to be only around $1 billion to $3.5 billion, and expected launch dates ranged from 2007 to 2011. The journal Nature referred to the James Webb Space Telescope as "the telescope that ate astronomy," and in 2010 the journal Science noted that "a project intended to revolutionize astronomy now threatens to derail NASA's entire space sciences program." Now that it's a done deal, however, astronomers around the world are just crossing their fingers and hoping that the telescope will launch safely and unfurl in space the way it's supposed to.
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