[X] My Assistant

[rlorenz]

Article (and an opportunity to vote) on the Discovery program and the missions under consideration for summer 2012 selection

http://www.nature.com/news/nasa-set-to-cho...mission-1.10982

[stevesliva]

My real question for the future is whether this discovery selection going to Mars means the Mars budget will shrink more.

[mcaplinger]

My real question for the future is whether this discovery selection going to Mars means the Mars budget will shrink more.

Ostensibly, no. For some past Discovery AOs Mars has been explicitly excluded from consideration (when there was a Mars Scout program you proposed Discovery-class missions to that) but that wasn't the case with this AO, and my understanding is that Discovery, regardless of target, is independent of the Mars program. Of course how this really plays out, no one can say. Certainly the part of the planetary science community interested in targets other than Mars has little reason to be happy about this selection.