Scientists slam Obama Mars cuts

2012-02-14 16:26

Washington - The US will scale back Mars exploration under a proposed budget by President Barack Obama released on Monday that has some scientists fuming over the risk of a Nasa brain-drain.

The plan kills a deal between the US and European space agencies to co-operate on Mars robotic rover missions in 2016 and 2018, with a view to preparing to return samples from the red planet in the next decade.

"It is a real scientific tragedy and I personally believe it is a national embarrassment," said G Scott Hubbard, a Stanford University professor who served as the first Nasa Mars programme director.

"Here we had one of the most successful Nasa programmes of the last decade and it is being effectively turned off."

Nasa administrator Charles Bolden admitted that "tough choices" had to be made in axing the European deal, but vowed to restructure the Mars programme so that future robotics mission could potentially be revisited in 2018 - 2020.

Overall proposal

The fiscal 2013 budget, which is unlikely to face a vote in Congress while Obama seeks re-election, called for a $226m reduction, or a near 39% cut in the US space agency's Mars exploration programme.

Meanwhile, it funds other big projects such as the James Webb Space Telescope and a new heavy-lift rocket to propel an eventual deep space mission to an asteroid, and provides seed money for private companies seeking to replace the space shuttle which was retired in 2011.

The overall proposal is to give Nasa $17.7bn, a decrease of 0.3% or $59m less than 2012.

Obama's budget pointed to the successful launch last year of the Mars Science Laboratory, also known as Curiosity, the biggest and most advanced rover ever built which should land in August, as it called for reduced support for new robotic projects.

But according to Bill Nye, chief executive of the Planetary Society, an association of scientists skilled in the search for alien life, such programme cuts could have devastating consequences.

"We are concerned that once planetary exploration programs are stopped, they just can't be restarted," Nye said.

Nasa currently employs the world's top experts in landing robotic vehicles on Mars, he said, noting that the recent failure by Russia to get its Mars probe off to a successful launch provides evidence of the danger.

Controversial projects

"If all the [Nasa] people expert in Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) on Mars have no missions and then retire, the programme just cannot recover," Nye said.

Russia has been floated as potential partner with Europe in the ExoMars project should the US withdraw.

According to the ExoMars deal Nasa and ESA made in 2009, Nasa would have contributed $1.4bn to the project and ESA would have chipped in $1.2bn.

The ExoMars plan would have sent an orbiter to Mars in 2016 and called for two rovers to land on the red planet in 2018. Tens of millions of US dollars have already been spent on the plans, according to Hubbard.

John Logsdon, an external White House adviser and long-time space analyst, said the US withdrew from ExoMars because it "cannot afford now to commit itself to another multi-billion dollar project".

Other politically controversial projects did receive funding, including the elaborate James Webb Space Telescope. The Obama budget urges that the project be capped at $8bn.

The project to build the world's most powerful telescope, 100 times more sensitive than its predecessor the Hubble space telescope, was on track to launch in 2018 at a total project cost of $8.8bn, Nasa said in December after a series of delays and cost overruns.

Nasa would also get $3bn for developing new spacecraft and rockets to take the next generation of astronauts to space, after the space shuttle program ended, leaving Russia as the sole taxi to the International Space Station.

Big projects include $1.86bn for the continued development of a Space Launch System (SLS) heavy lift rocket and $1.2bn for the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle to "with a key initial goal of visiting an asteroid next decade", it said.

The budget comes as Obama is seeking re-election and it is widely regarded in Washington as a partisan document that has little chance of being voted into law.

- AFP