Those spectacular pictures of galaxies forming at a time very near the origin of the universe from the James Webb Space Telescope came at a pretty price: $9.7 billion, to be precise. It is fair to ask, “Is the Webb telescope project worth the price?”
The James Webb Space Telescope project began in 1996 with an expected launch in 2007 for a relatively low cost of $1 billion to $3.5 billion. But the project underwent a bewildering array of delays and unexpected scientific challenges. By the time the telescope was launched on Christmas Day 2021, the cost spiraled to nearly $10 billion. One journal referred to Webb as “the telescope that ate astronomy.”
To be fair, that price tag covers the entire lifetime of the project, and it has been partly shouldered by the European and Canadian space agencies as well as NASA. The telescope is scheduled to be operational for more than five years in space but has enough fuel to last more than 10 years, if all goes well.
