Scientists say NASA cutting missions to Mars

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BigBoss

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http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-nasa-cutting-missions-mars-230009593.html

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists say NASA is about to propose major cuts in its exploration of other planets, especially Mars. And NASA's former science chief is calling it irrational.

With limited money for science and an over-budget new space telescope, the space agency essentially had to make a choice in where it wanted to explore: the neighboring planet or the far-off cosmos.

Mars lost.

Two scientists who were briefed on the 2013 NASA budget that will be released next week said the space agency is eliminating two proposed joint missions with Europeans to explore Mars in 2016 and 2018. NASA had agreed to pay $1.4 billion for those missions. Some Mars missions will continue, but the fate of future flights is unclear, including the much-sought flight to return rocks from the red planet.

The two scientists, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the budget, said the cuts to the Mars missions are part of a proposed reduction of about $300 million in NASA's $1.5 billion planetary science budget. More than $200 million in those cuts are in the Mars program, they said. The current Mars budget is $581.7 million.

"To me, it's totally irrational and unjustified," said Edward Weiler, who until September was NASA's associate administrator for science. "We are the only country on this planet that has the demonstrated ability to land on another planet, namely Mars. It is a national prestige issue."

Weiler said he quit last year because he was tired of fighting to save Mars from the budget knife. He said he fought successfully to keep major cuts from Mars in the current budget but has no firsthand knowledge of the 2013 budget proposal.

Mars "has got public appeal, it's got scientific blessings from the National Academy," Weiler said in a phone interview from Florida. "Why would you go after it? And it fulfills the president's space policy to encourage more foreign collaboration."

Two years ago, President Barack Obama said his ultimate goal was to send astronauts to Mars.

NASA spokesman David Weaver said that, just like the rest of the federal government, the space agency has to make "tough choices ... and live within our means."

To do so, Weaver said in an email, "NASA is reassessing its current Mars exploration initiatives to maximize what can be achieved."

Weaver said the United States is the only country to land on Mars and has a car-sized rover on its way to the planet.

One of the big problems for NASA's science budget is the replacement for the wildly successful Hubble Space Telescope. The James Webb Space Telescope, which would be about 100 times more powerful and would gaze farther into the universe than ever before, is now supposed to cost around $8 billion. It was originally estimated to cost $3.5 billion.

The other big part of NASA science spending — Earth sciences — is not being cut, the two scientists said.
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HhkvE.gif
 
*Waves flag of China*
I look up to them to push space exploration onward. Didn't they just announce plans for a Moon mission or something?
 
They had to make a decision between what they wanted to study. I'm not a physicist, so I don't know what area of research has the most potential to yield the most important and interesting science, but if NASA chose deep-space observation over Mars -- I'm with them. Though, I feel that they should have the budget to do both to some extent.
 
Folks, we need those billions of dollars for defense!! We need more guns! More bombs! More jets! We need to put food on the contractors tables or their kids won't be able to eat. Think of the children.
 
ClovingSteam said:
Folks, we need those billions of dollars for defense!! We need more guns! More bombs! More jets! We need to put food on the contractors tables or their kids won't be able to eat. Think of the children.
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Isn't the whole reason the Space program got as far is it did was because of wars?
 
Woorloog said:
*Waves flag of China*
I look up to them to push space exploration onward. Didn't they just announce plans for a Moon mission or something?
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Yep, they're goal is to have a man on the Moon by the end of the decade, I believe. Figured something like this would happen when they announced that they had saved the JWST from being cancelled. They are not getting their science budget increased, and that money had to come from somewhere. Pretty sad state of affairs.
 
Makes me a little disappointed as I watched When We Left Earth a couple of months ago.

I think we should divert more funding, at the risk of sounding like Newt, to colonizing the moon before we land a man on mars.
 
Wilsongt said:
Why is the government defunding NASA again?
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They're not. They're currently on a budget freeze but they went way over budget on James Webb (and probably other stuff as well). The question is, why aren't we spending more on NASA? The answer is that that's money that is going to things like oil company subsidies and further ballooning our defense budget.
 
If it means that the James Webb Telescope continues, so be it. But yea, it shouldn't be an either-or situation even if the JWT is over budget.
 
ClovingSteam said:
Folks, we need those billions of dollars for defense!! We need more guns! More bombs! More jets! We need to put food on the contractors tables or their kids won't be able to eat. Think of the children.
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The irony being that defense was the only reason NASA was ever heavily funded in the past...
 
NASA budget is like a football match, moving the ball back and forth, up and down the lines. There's no magical formula to it. People in Congress have to fund it, and determine that space travel is as important as piecemeal and cheap probes being fired off into space. Right now the War on Terror and all this financial bullshit, and the economic crisis, and propping up the military industrial complex come first. If space could somehow crossover into one of those topics, there would be money for it, but it's not on anyone's agenda, and it's thought of as a money sink by most politicians. It's unfortunate. And the way to change it is to elect people in Congress (ignore the president) who will push money towards it. That's it, plain and simple.
 
The more NASA's budget is cut the more the US falls behind the curve on scientific discovery's. It is so sad this country has become so very anti-space.
 
We can't really have it both ways. You can't demand that the government cut spending and pay for any new projects with cuts and at the same time have a large space program.
 
Majine said:
I guess the first man on Mars will be chinese.
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I see no problem with that, actually. Just as long as they're not ultra-nationalistic about it, claiming Mars for China or something.

ToxicAdam said:
NASA is just slowly becoming the Global Warming research department.
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Thank god for it. Especially when a large portion of our nation's leaders have the opinion 'We don't know. We don't care. We didn't do it. It did it to itself, so why bother? God will find a way.'
 
apana said:
We can't really have it both ways. You can't demand that the government cut spending and pay for any new projects with cuts and at the same time have a large space program.
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Yes you can. It doesn't even cost that much relative to other spending, and has significant economic returns from the technology invented.
 
Majine said:
I guess the first man on Mars will be chinese.
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And if that happens... well, i wouldn't be surprised if the first human on some moon or such beyong the asteroid belt is also chinese.
And if that happens, i certainly wouldn't be surprised if the first human on another star system is chinese. China has nuclear power and capability built nukes, thus they can probably build a nuclear pulse propulsion ship (even with fusion power, this is better with current and near-future technology) which could be used for interstellar travel.
 
Honestly, funding space exploration is near the top of the list of things I want my government to use my tax money on. You want patriotism? Claim another planet.
 
I've got to admit though, that 9 billion has to come from somewhere... Maybe in a few years...

(hopefully someone else read the whole damn article lol)
 
This or some Gingrich power fantasy. One more reason why the world is going crazy, and to a greater extreme of disparity and instability all around. I want the next generation to have something to look forward to that isn't the first half of one's life stuck in school and in a corporate-controlled sensory brothel. We should go into space again, not into the Middle East.
 
Space could use some more privatization right now, but something needs to be done to divert military spending to NASA and domestic departments, as well as gradually pulling out of our foregone conclusive failure in the Middle East to save our butts.

Kennedy was cool, dang it. Gingrich's only claim to fame is that he loves to fling shit across the table. And a Moon base proposal, lol.
 
HOLY SH!T! This spells really bad news for a lot of people I know! WHOA!

Can't they just turn off the air-conditioners for the US military in Afghanistan for a day or two? That would cover the couple of billion needed for this to not happen.
 
If it's between Mars and funding the the James Webb, I have to say James Webb for now. Ideally, of course, this wouldn't be an issue.
 
akira28 said:
I see no problem with that, actually. Just as long as they're not ultra-nationalistic about it, claiming Mars for China or something.
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Well, if anything would get space exploration up and running, that would be it. Kicking those commies of the face of mars would be the wet dream of any would-be republican president.

Wasn't there a UN-treaty or something that said countries couldn't claim other planets in their name? Or was that just for the moon?
 
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