The Golden Age of Planetary Exploration is in Grave Danger from Deep Cuts in the President’s Proposed Budget.

The planetary exploration program has delivered a golden age of robotic exploration of the Solar System that over the past decade that has included a long series of stunningly successful missions. Among many examples are the Mars rovers which have discovered that standing bodies of water once existed on Mars, indicating past

habitable environments; the Cassini mission to Saturn which discovered water erupting from Saturn's moon Enceladus, imaged previously unseen structure in the rings, and is mapping methane lakes and seas on Saturn's moon Titan; MESSANGER which is now orbiting and mapping Mercury, revealing how terrestrial planets evolve; Dawn, which is orbiting and mapping the asteroid Vesta, revealing the earliest history of planet formation; and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and GRAIL which are orbiting our Moon and exploring deeply into its structure and origins.  Other low-cost missions have returned samples of a comet and the solar wind.  These missions have revolutionized our understanding of Earth, its origins, and its place within the solar system and the larger universe.  The planetary science program complements and extends the discoveries and breakthroughs in earth science, astrophysics, and heliophysics.

By Frank Morring Jr. & Amy Svitak, Aviation Week, 02.17.12

“Members of the [U.S. space/science] community go to their congress people and say, ‘this doesn’t make any sense; why are we being punished when we were so successful?’” says Scott Hubbard, who served as the agency’s first Mars Program Director.

NASA faces a loss of confidence in its international space-exploration leadership after the unilateral U.S. withdrawal from a series of joint robotic missions to Mars with the European Space Agency.

Instead of working with ESA’s ExoMars program on sample-return precursor missions in 2016 and 2018, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) will join forces with the Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) directorate and the Office of the Chief Technologist to work up a medium-sized mission in 2018 that may meet the needs of all three NASA units.

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[Image: ESA]

NASA’s official announcement earlier this week regarding its 2013 operating budget confirms what the Mars Society has been warning about since last October – that the U.S. government has ceased to view the exploration of the planet Mars as a priority, and that there is a complete lack of serious commitment for international cooperation on space exploration.

If the budget cuts proposed by the Obama administration are implemented, it will not only destroy America’s Mars exploration program, but will also derail that of our European friends.  The ExoMars 2016 and 2018 missions have been planned as a joint NASA-ESA project, with the Europeans contributing over $1 billion to the effort.  However if the U.S. betrays its commitment, European supporters of Mars exploration will be left high and dry, and both the partnership and the missions will be lost.

“America’s planetary exploration program, in particular that involving the Red Planet, is one of the greatest chapters in the history of science, civilization and our country.  Its abandonment represents nothing short of embracing America’s decline.  This is unacceptable,” said Mars Society President Dr. Robert Zubrin.

The U.S. space program is facing a very critical situation, one that threatens to set back the exploration of the planet Mars, the key to humanity’s future in space, for decades to come, if not longer.  The Mars Society is calling upon its members and friends to mobilize now in order to save America’s Mars exploration program. 

We need everyone to reach out to individual members of the relevant House and Senate subcommittees that oversee space exploration funding and demand that the resources for the ExoMars 2016 and 2018 missions be reinstated in the NASA budget this year!

This is a fight we can and must win!  It’s time to speak up!

If you have any questions or require more information about the “Save the Mars Missions” campaign, please contact us. 

In addition, please consider joining the upcoming Space Exploration Alliance (SEA) Legislative Blitz in Washington, D.C., a three-day campaign (Feb. 26-28) to let members of Congress know that there is strong constituent support for an ambitious U.S. space program, including broad and sustainable exploration of the planet Mars.

[Image: NASA]

As the 50th anniversary of his historic spaceflight approaches, former NASA astronaut John Glenn is pushing for manned exploration of Mars and other farflung destinations.

On Feb. 20, 1962, Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth when his Friendship 7 capsule zipped around our planet three times, then splashed down safely in the Atlantic Ocean. Glenn's flight put the United States back on even footing with the Soviet Union, which had launched the first manned orbital flight in April 1961.

The U.S.-Soviet space race in the 1960s got much of the American public excited about space science and exploration. That enthusiasm has since flagged, but sending astronauts to the Red Planet could help rekindle it, Glenn said.

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The White House released its Presidential budget request for fiscal year 2013 on Monday, including the budget for NASA, and as usual there is some good news and some bad. But the good news is tepid, and the bad news is, well, pretty damn bad. I can lay some of this blame at NASA's feet - a long history of being over budget and

behind schedule looms large - but also at the President himself. Cutting NASA's budget at all is, simply, dumb. I know we're in an economic crisis (though there are indications it's getting better), but there are hugely larger targets than NASA. If this budget goes through Congress as is, it will mean the end of a lot of NASA projects and future missions.

The Budget

The President's FY13 budget for NASA is $17.7 billion in total. This is marginally less than last year. In most cases, the budget for science is stable, with a lot of missions getting modest increases. After perusing the individual budgets, it looks to me that most missions that are getting reductions are either ones that have been up a while and are winding down, ones near launch that are built and ready to go and therefore costs are smaller than during development, or ones that have had launch delays (due to tech issues with the launch systems).

Overall, astrophysics, Earth science, and Heliophysics (Sun studies) did OK. Again, some individual missions got increases and some decreases, but in general the budgets are stable. Funding for commercial spaceflight got a massive increase, more than doubling last year's $400M budget. I'm all for that, as of course is the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. I've been vocal about that, and I think handing off launch and other capabilities to commercial ventures is a good way for NASA to save money in the long run.

To read the full article, please click here.

[Image: NASA]

An extensive discussion on the status of the Mars exploration program and what needs to be done to save it will be held at the 15th Annual International Mars Society Convention, which will take place in Pasadena, California, August 3 - 5, 2012.  Online registration will be open soon on the organization's web site.

[Image: NASA]