Bad news on NASA budget: Mars missions take 20% cut

[LongTomH]

Space.com has a report: Obama's 2013 NASA Budget Request Shifts Funds from Mars to Space Tech:

The proposed 2013 federal budget unveiled by President Barack Obama today (Feb. 13) keeps NASA funding relatively flat next year, but bites deep into the agency's robotic Mars mission coffers while shifting new funds to human exploration and space technology.

According to the White House's 2013 budget request, NASA would receive about $17.7 billion for next year — $59 million less than the space agency got for 2012.

However, NASA's planetary science efforts would suffer a 20 percent cut next year, with the president allocating just $1.2 billion for unmanned missions to Mars and other solar system bodies. Meanwhile, funding for human exploration and commercial spaceflight would rise nearly 6 percent, to $3.93 billion, and space technology would get a 22 percent bump, to $699 million.

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The reduction in planetary science funding compels NASA to drop out of the European Space Agency-led ExoMars missions, which aim to launch an orbiter and a drill-toting rover to the Red Planet in 2016 and 2018, respectively. NASA was due to provide rockets and various instrumentation for the two missions, but Bolden confirmed today that NASA will withdraw from both of them.

This will not only hurt Mars exploration; it will hurt any future cooperation between the US and the European Space Agency. The US has already proven itself an unreliable partner many times in the past.

Sadly, in my opinion, the 'space tech' mentioned earlier includes the space Launch System (SLS), billed as the 'Next Generation Heavy-Lift' vehicle. It's based on the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) used in the shuttle program and (in the current proposal) Russian made liquid rocket motors.

Solid rocket boosters are an obsolescent technology. They were the reason for the Challenger disaster and one of the factors driving up costs of Shuttle launches.

If the US needs heavy lift capacity, it can buy it from SpaceX. The planned SpaceX Falcon Heavy vehicle will have about twice the payload capacity of the space shuttle, and SpaceX and Elon Musk already have plans for 'super-heavy lift' vehicle using an upgraded version of their current Merlin liquid fuel engine.

Sorry about injecting my opinions; but, I've been following our space program closely since Apollo and I've had so many reasons to be apalled at the way politics has repeatedly crippled our space efforts.

[rfranklin]

1. I was hoping Newt and George Bush Jr. would be on the first Mars landing of men...

and women along with Michele Bachmann. (Though she's been in outer space for years.)

[backscatter712]

2. The Senate Launch System is a white elephant.

It's gonna be insanely expensive, based on old technology, and there won't be enough money to produce enough launches per year to make the thing even close to economically viable.

SpaceX's Dragon capsule and Falcon rockets are the true future for manned and unmanned spaceflight.

[TheWraith]

3. I'll believe in the "Falcon Heavy" when they actually light one off.

Right now all they have is design specs and what they think it'll do. Elon Musk is notorious for tweaking and "upgrading" things in such a way that delays production. He nearly managed to kill Tesla Motors that way.