Surprise! House spending panel gives NSF far more money for telescope than it requested
By Jeffrey MervisMay. 21, 2018 , 2:50 PM
The chairman of an influential congressional spending panel believes accelerating big engineering projects can save the government money. And last week Representative John Culberson (R–TX) applied that principle to a $680 million telescope the National Science Foundation (NSF) is building in Chile—although neither project scientists nor NSF asked for the additional money for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST).
“I learned from the Katy Freeway project that you can speed up completion of big engineering projects by front-loading the funding,†Culberson says, referring to a major expansion of Interstate 10 west of Houston, Texas, a decade ago. “That helps you to lock in costs and speed up the overall construction timeline.â€
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/05/surprise-house-spending-panel-gives-nsf-far-more-money-telescope-it-requested
