Webb Telescope Cost Swells

Florida Today columnist John Kelly comments on the spiraling costs for the James Webb Space Telescope:

The price of the budget-gobbling James Webb Space Telescope keeps growing and growing.

The telescope, perhaps the most important space science mission of the next decade, is now going to cost taxpayers at least $8.7 billion. What's more, there are legitimate questions as to whether the spacecraft will be ready to launch in the next decade even if Congress agrees to another multibillion dollar bailout.

The original cost in the late 1990s was to be $1.6 billion. Now it's estimated to cost $8.7 billion with a 2018 launch date.