The future of NASA’s outer planets program to send an orbiter to Europa and a flyby of Pluto now appears headed for outright cancellation if the Office of Management and Budget prevails in its funding decisions next year.
Until now, a last ditch effort has been fought by the science community with congressional committee support to keep plans in place to mount an express mission to Pluto before the oversized Kuiper object disappears into deep freeze for a couple of centuries.
But reliable sources have told SpaceDaily that the Office of Management and Budget is likely to cancel funding of the Outer Planets program for the next decade, and keep what money is left to bail out ISS and do a little space science.
ISS is obviously now going to get the new Administration’s attention at last, and will probably be redesigned to a permanent crew of five once the main European and Japanese modules are in place. Meanwhile a committee of many can be expected to meet often.
However, Mars enthusiasts can rest assured that funding in this area will continue to splutter along for the next decade, but forget any manned mission to Mars to hit the Bush agenda during this term or a next.
Meanwhile economic and security issues will obviously drive much of the budget and forward planning activities of OMB, a government department that can be expected to play a key role in much of Bush’s decisions far beyond NASA in the immediate months ahead; until then we wait to see if a new direction can take hold and economic confidence restored.
