As you may or may not know, there is a critical threat to the funding of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). I feel strongly enough about it to write to my representative in the US House of Representatives where a bill to defund the JWST has made it out of committee. Below is the letter I sent Representative Wu of Oregon’s 1st Congressional District.
Dear Representative Wu, I am writing to implore you to protect funding for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It is imperative to our national interest that we continue to push the bounds of science and imagination. Even Senator Mikulski who initiated the study that found modest cost overruns in the JWST program believes that it is imperative funding remain intact. For too many years, I have watched our great nation slowly slash its own scientific wrists as program after program has been cut or reduced. The JWST is too important for our country to lose to short-sighted budget reduction efforts. Bleeding NASA's budget dry will not fix the federal budget deficit. Protecting and continuing to fund the JWST will however reap great benefits, in the form of scientific discovery, technological breakthroughs and spin-offs, and by inspiring another generation of youth as the Hubble Space Telescope did for my generation. Please do not allow the end of the Space Shuttle program also be the death knell of the JWST. As your constituent, I respectfully urge you to protect JWST's funding. Sincerely, Douglas Van Bossuyt
If you feel strongly about scientific progress and the exploration of the unknown, you should write your congressperson about the JWST. Unless our congresspeople hear our voices on such important matters, our great nation will continue its scientific and engineering decline and fall. I don’t know about you, but I’m not too keen on the USA becoming the next Rome, France, or United Kingdom.
UPDATE: It looks like some people on Reddit have found my letter useful and have used it as a template. I’m impressed with some of the letters that Redditors have written and posted on the thread. Please feel free to use my letter and modify it as you see fit. The more people that inform our elected representatives of our opinion on this matter, the better.