NASA's new space telescope costs shoot the moon, AP

"We were missing a certain fraction of what was going on," NASA associate administrator Chris Scolese said in a late Wednesday afternoon teleconference. ... The fault "lies with us, no question about it," Scolese said. ... The Webb telescope is already late. When first announced more than a dozen years ago, it was supposed to launch in 2007. That was eventually delayed until 2014. The new report, issued at the request of the Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., says the earliest launch date now would be September 2015. Scolese said technically the telescope was not confirmed as a project until 2008 -- even though many millions of dollars had been spent on it and NASA had been promoting it since 1998. In 2008, NASA said it would cost $5 billion and that's the number to use for how overbudget it is, Scolese said. But previous numbers that NASA provided said it would cost $3.5 billion."