America is rightly thrilled by the recent success of the Curiosity landing.  Yet even as the administration is taking a bow for this great achievement, they are moving to kill the program that created it.

The figures speak for themselves.  This year’s NASA Mars exploration budget is $587 million.  The administration is proposing to cut that to $360.8 million in fiscal year 2013, $227.7 million in 2014 and $188.7 million in 2015, a level that would effectively put the nation out of the Mars exploration business.

These cuts need to be reversed.  NASA’s budget is the responsibility of Congress.  If America is to continue to be a nation of explorers and pioneers, the people’s representatives must take this matter in hand.

The Mars Society is therefore calling upon all of its chapters and members, as well as the general public to arrange meetings with their senators and representatives within driving range of their locale, to explain to them the situation and call upon them to act.

Our demand is simple and justifiable: That NASA’s robotic Mars exploration program should be placed on a solid financial footing of no less than three percent of the space agency’s overall budget.

To read the full campaign announcement, please click here.

[Image: NASA/JPL]