How do they decide on which direction to point the James Webb telescope?
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There is a whole series of agreements between various bodies that have been involved in funding, building and running it. Some of them get guaranteed time to observe whatever they want, and presumably they have their own internal processes to decide how to use it. But the majority of the time is allocated by committees which examine the merits of proposals which can be sent in by anyone. The proposals are anonymised to try and avoid bias.
I think the person who is ultimately in charge has some ability to override the schedule if something really important comes up, like if a new ‘Oumuamua-type object is spotted.
Bear in mind that because of the need to keep the telescope pointed away from the Sun, it’s only capable of observing a certain ring-shaped area, covering about 40% of the sky, at any given time. So the scheduling has to account for that.
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