That made me laugh. I maintain that humor is based on pain, and the Webb cost is painful, indeed. However, despite the armchair-quarterbacking many (ahem) engaged in, I am very pleased to see the machine functioning in a nominal capacity. There are those random rock strikes, though . . .

My beef is not with the principle investigator(s). They have one-year proprietary periods allowing them time to publish their discoveries free of opportunistic piracy.

My beef is with folks who treat stuff like art open to interpretation more than education that gets to the point.

I’m not sure how much interpretation the rest of us are supposed to do. We pay the principal investigator and his team to do this. It seems to me that the importance of these two photographs is for us to understand that the different wavelengths present us with different information, explaining why we want telescopes that see in more than just visible light.

The Hubble telescope originally cost us three times its intended price, but after the scheduled maintenance and upgrades, we are getting science from it that costs reasonably close to the intended price. It is a good thing that Webb is giving us all this information. Each of its photographs costs us about ten times what we had intended (assuming it lasts its intended lifespan), plus it cost us the science that was lost due to the cost overruns (lost opportunity costs). For Webb’s premium price, we should expect premium science.

“They are not keeping it secret, in the slightest.”

I’m busy. The information should have been given up front so I don’t have to do “a little bit of searching ”

Having been a teacher in an earlier professional life, I never told my students to “do my job for me”.

GaryMike: The press release describes in very good detail the different meanings of the colors. If you really want to find out, I guarantee that a little bit of searching on the web will find this info. They are not keeping it secret, in the slightest.

You know I have little trust or love of government. You know I considered Webb an overpriced boondoggle. But I don’t assume everything done by the government is automatically evil. When it comes to these NASA projects, NASA is legally required to make the data available, and does so. You simply have to look for it.

Not in the budget? No need for the curtain to be opened.

Who are taxpayers to care?

Don’t let the curtain be opened.

There are papers to be written for professional credit.

Andi. Fixed. Thank you.