NASA Estimates $8.7 Billion To Fly Webb

Managers at NASA replanning the troubled James Webb Space Telescope have concluded it will cost $8.7 billion to finish the observatory in time for a launch in 2018 and operate it at the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point for five years.

The agency says that by the end of fiscal 2011 it will have spent $3.5 billion so far on the telescope, which means ...