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The author reflects on the importance of the U.S. National Aeronautics & Space Administration's (NASA's) James Webb Space Telescope, which is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, to astronomy and U.S. society. Topics include an overview of the uncertain future of the Webb Telescope project as a result of monetary concerns by the U.S. Senate and the impact of unplanned budget growth for the James Webb Space Telescope.

This article presents information on the future of U.S. particle physics. Right now, the field is poised for breakthroughs as stunning as those that followed physicist Albert Einstein's annus mirabilis 100 years ago. The focus has shifted from searching for the smallest subatomic seed to understanding the universe and the nature of matter, energy, space, and time. Particle physics is on the verge of something really big, as if the past 50 glory years were just preparation. As exciting as these opportunities are, the challenges are great and morale in the U.S. particle physics community is low. With its link to national security severed, particle physics must now compete for funding and students with other fields that also have exciting agendas--from astrophysics and genomics to computer science and biophysics. Telescopes and underground laboratories to study dark energy and dark matter are now as essential as accelerators, making planning more complicated and the cost of discovery higher. And all of this in a time of constrained budgets for all science. In their zeal to explore the world of the unimaginably small, particle physicists have repeatedly shown that they can blaze new trails and overcome formidable barriers.