Another extremely poor piece of journalism. No attempt to answer the obvious questions:
1) The United States and NASA have several launch facilities inside the continental United States. Why is NASA incurring the time, expense and risk of launching it halfway around the planet?
2) If it must be launched from the chosen location, is the US Navy so stretched it can’t send a destroyer to follow the cargo ship? Alternatively, has anyone considered sending some US Marines on the ship to guard the cargo and repel any attempt to hijack the ship and the cargo? After all, isn’t the purpose of the military to defend the nation and its assets?
3) Don’t we now have a military branch, the US Space Force, specifically charged with defending US space assets? Why isn’t it responsible for the security of the telescope before and after it is launched?
I hope all of these questions have been considered by NASA. If not we definitely have a major problem of competence which is another story in and of itself.
Sadly serious journalism died long ago. It seems the mission of journalism today isn’t to inform. Its only purpose seems to be eliciting an emotional reaction from readers - rage, anger, or disgust. Clearly the education system is also failing because the public seems delighted with the garbage it is being fed by the media.
All good questions. Get back to us when you have the answers.
And why does it have to go through the Panama Canal? Can’t it be sent by rail to a port on the Gulf or Atlantic coast and shipped from there?
Can they not safely disassemble it into smaller parts than can be flown and reassembled it at the launch site?
It won’t fit into any military or cmmercial cargo aircraft? How did they get the Space Shuttle around? (I know that answer.)
I’ll bet this whole exercise is just to put money in people’s pockets.
Hear here!
The the playload is very heavy for a lunch at the Cape. NASA will use the heavy rockets off the French rocket pad and use the centripetal force of the earth to sling the payload up. You can launch a 10-15% heavier payload from Ghana than the Florida. Likely they built the payload and tuned the ammount of ISP needed for the launch based on a Ghana launch
1) The United States and NASA have several launch facilities inside the continental United States. Why is NASA incurring the time, expense and risk of launching it halfway around the planet?"
I just can't get past this question -- sorry, but WTF are those people thinking?
This shouldn't be rocket science, why wouldn't they put an American launch site first?
Do they think they'll save enough money to make the risks worthwhile? 
I hope all of these questions have been considered by NASA. If not we definitely have a major problem of competence which is another story in and of itself.
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NASA has long been a hot bed of major competence
Yep, those were my first questions, too. Wouldn’t you provide a serious military escort for a $10 billion telescope?
It is pathetic the “journalist” didn’t look into this.
The James Webb telescope is a joint project between NASA and the ESA (European Space Agency).
The ESA’s contribution is paying for the rocket. That’s why it is being launched from French Guyana.