Long, Not all that pretty, History
This project was originally planned to launch in 2007 at a cost 500M USD. The most recent schedule and budget prior to this announcement was 2019 and 8.8B USD. It's now 2020 and "We'll tell you about cost later". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope
Schedule and budget problems are pretty much normal for the MIC, but the Webb Observatory at 1700% (or more) over budget and 13 years behind schedule is pretty extreme even for the Aerospace industry.
On top of which, I'm told that adaptive optics and such have made (hopefully much) cheaper earth bound telescopes more effective than was thought possible when the project was conceived in 1997 -- at least in the visible light window. The Webb observatory seems not without merit because of its IR and UV capabilities. But still, the case for simply walking away from it seems stronger than most folks realize.
I'm not an astronomer or cosmologist -- either amateur or professional. Perhaps if I were, my opinion would be different.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
