Funding Jeopardizes Future Astronomy Missions

摘要

With NASA operating on an increasingly tight budget, the agency's ability to launch future large astronomy missions is at risk, scientists said. And this quandary has no simple solution. Astronomy missions that fall under NASA's flagship program are big, expensive endeavors that aim to answer sophisticated questions about the solar system, galaxy and universe we live in. Flagship missions currendy operating include the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and NASA's next big space telescope - the $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope, launching in 2018 - narrowly escaped losing funding last year. But with funding becoming increasingly scarce, the ability to do these types of missions is severely hindered, said Chris Martin, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology. Martin is the chairman of the Cosmic Origins Program Analysis Group, one of three committees created by NASA to act as forums for members of the scientific community to have input into the scientific and technological issues surrounding the development of programs under the agency's astrophysics division.