Mars Scout Program Cancelled? Options

[Drkskywxlt]

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1007/29scout/

I hadn't heard this elsewhere and a quick google of "mars scout cancellation" pulled up nothing about this. The article quotes an interview with Doug McCuiston, so it sounds legit. Apparently, since Mars is now included in Discovery proposals, they feel that covers the low-priced Mars missions adequately. They also feel that no high-quality science can be garnered from such small missions going forward. As a Mars atmosphere guy, I beg to differ on that...

I doubt Mars missions are going to fare well in Discovery proposal reviews since Mars gets it's own budget and areas like small body, inner solar system, and perhaps even the outer solar system get such infrequent missions by comparison.

[Drkskywxlt]

I'm a Mars researcher, of course I believe the science is worthy and competes very well with anything else that can be proposed. But the folks at NASA HQ that make these decisions also include non-scientific factors in their decision making process. The fact that the Mars program already gets billions of dollars per year and has a steady stream of missions is going to make it REALLY hard, IMO, for NASA to send a Discovery mission to Mars. We'll see what the Decadal Survey results are, but folks studying small bodies, the inner solar system, and the outer solar system (besides JEO targets) are relying on Discovery and NF for missions. There's not going to be a small bodies or inner solar system flagship mission (or steady program of smaller missions) in the next 10 years and probably beyond.