FY2009 NASA budget request released Options

[monitorlizard]

NASA's next fiscal year budget request was released today, with new starts for a small lunar orbiter for 2011, two small lunar geophysical network landers for 2014, and an official start for the solar probe mission in a lower cost, non-nuclear version. These new spacecraft really snuck up on me, I'd only heard about solar probe before. A good summary of all the Science Mission Directorate budgets for FY2009 is at:

www.nasa.gov/pdf/210258main_SMD_budget_presentation.pdf

runs about 760KB

[Phil Stooke]

I love Mars - uh, in a manly sort of way - but I have to.. no, let me rephrase that - in a sort of brotherly way. - but I have to say I think it got an exaggerated share of the exploration budget ever since the infamous Mars meteorite story a decade ago.

The idea that Mars has to have a flight every 2 years is unjustified. Continuous presence - unjustified. It's a very interesting place, of course. But there is no reason why we shouldn't accept a Mars slow-down, especially if it is replaced by additional efforts elsewhere. And Mars Sample Return will be expensive, so banking some cash by missing an opportunity is quite reasonable.

If some Mars efforts were redirected elsewhere, there are numerous targets in the outer solar system to be picked up. And personally I'd love to see a series of Venus landers going to geologically distinct regions.

I think some responses to the budget changes could be considered a bit exaggerated.

Phil

PS - my brothers are not as weird as this might suggest!