Comment by pas

I guess the conclusion is that the manned missions since the Moon landing were for Cold War reasons. (With that kind of mentality.) And when that ended they made even less sense.

For example when they had to go up to refill the wiper fluid on the Hubble in '93 it was no biggie, because as shitty as the shuttle was, it was at least reuse-minded, and there were regular missions (and budget for that). The ISS assembly coasted on the Clinton era budget surplus, but then it was evident that prancing in LEO is great for hijacking Soviet satellites, but not much else.

And compared to the Hubble the JWST was a classic Eminem mission (one shot, one opportunity ... no, wait! that's on Mars!), even if it took 5-10 more years than planned, it seems it was completely worth it.