Houston Chronicle by Alex Stuckey 7/25/2018
Fourteen years of delays and billions of dollars in cost increase for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope already have cost contractor Northrop Grumman about half of the $60 million it could have received from the agency for its work.
Congressional leaders on Wednesday, however, questioned whether that penalty was enough to hold the Virginia-based company accountable for the success of the country's next great telescope.
These delays are "outrageous and I really think this is just a perfect example of why the American public doesn't trust the federal government in spending their tax dollars," said U.S. Rep. Debbie Lesko, a Republican from Wisconsin, at a hearing in Washington, D.C. "Why should we believe its going to change in the future?"
The U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology met Wednesday to hear NASA's pleas for reauthorization of the Webb telescope after the agency announced last month it would need an extra $800 million and until 2021 to complete telescope development. This request pushes the agency past the $8 billion development cap set by Congress in 2011, which means the project must be reauthorized in the agency's 2019 fiscal year budget.
More:
https://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/space/article/Congress-questions-if-contract-for-NASA-s-James-13103758.php
