James Webb space telescope axed

[theVOID]

The hugely successful Hubble space telescope is scheduled to be deorbited and burn up in the atmosphere in 2012. It's role was to have been taken by the new and much more powerful James Webb Space telescope. But the Republicans, in the interest of protecting the wealthy from suffering the indignity of doing their part, have gloriously exterminated another nefarious tool of collective human progress.

James Webb space telescope have been Defunded by the house.

This, even from my political perspective, is incredibly stupid. They have already spent $6.5 Billion on the project and only need an extra $500 million to complete it, a sum that I strongly suspect is far less than the return on the investment from material applications of the knowledge gained. Even if the knowledge can't product the wealth equivalent to the project's costs, say it generated $4 billion and the total costs is $7 Billion, allowing the project to continue will be less wasteful than cancelling it outright.

It's a case where scrapping the project in the name of 'stopping wasteful spending' actually causes more money to be wasted...