NASA has decided to try avoiding any cut in the "Research and Analysis" and "Data Analysis" sectors of its Space Science funding -- which have long been declared underfunded -- and the SSES agrees with this.

But this means that it must accept "as inevitable some delay in the Discovery Program and the Mars Program.... [These problems] have serious negative implications for the Mars Program from fiscal year 2002 onwards. In particular, Mars Scout missions, designed to fill in gaps in the Mars Program and respond to new discoveries, appear to be in jeopardy."

By its next meeting in December, the SSES will know far more about NASA's plans to deal with all these problems, and it said that it "expects to be fully involved in discussions of program slippage and the impact of such slippage", and "expects to play an active role in any discussions of Mars Program modification."

But -- to complicate matters yet further -- the Senate is also trying to cut $50 million out of the Mars Program at least until NASA provides "a detailed plan on future Mars missions beyond the proposed 2007 missions submitted...by January 8, 2002."

While, again, this happened too late for the SSES to give an official reaction, several members have privately expressed their unhappiness on the grounds that we know so little about Mars right now that it's actually foolish to try to plan its exploration in any detail beyond 2007.

This reporter's own feeling is that canceling the 2007 Mars Scout mission in order to keep the big, expensive 2007 "Mars SmartLander" and its long-range rover on schedule -- as NASA is apparently now leaning toward doing -- may be a serious mistake.

The original purpose of the little Mars Scouts (although it's since been a bit diluted) was precisely to provide more information on both the scientific interest and the landing safety of various possible Mars landing sites for later bigger spacecraft, including sample return missions.

It might well be wiser to retain the 2007 Mars Scouts and instead delay the SmartLander to 2009, and its follow-up -- the first Mars sample return mission -- from 2011 to 2013.

SmartLander is an extremely important mission -- a crucial first test flight for most of the equipment to be used on the sample return mission -- and a two-year delay would both allow more testing of its complex new systems, and provide time to acquire more data on the best landing site for it.

Moreover, such a delay need not delay France's plans for a 2007 test flight of the sample return mission's other component: a big orbiter to retrieve the container of samples launched from the surface into Mars orbit, and then return it to Earth.

As for the problems of the Discovery missions to the various inner planets, asteroids and comets, the SSES recommends "raising the Discovery cost cap [currently at $300 million] to an appropriate level", and also suggests that NASA might subdivide Discovery -- like the Explorer program -- into two or three separate programs of missions at different cost levels, with separate competitions for them.

Explorer currently separately selects missions for its Medium-class (MIDEX) program -- where the cost cap is $140 million -- and its Small-class (SMEX) program, which has a cost cap of only $70 million.

It would be useful to find what a separate program of super-low cost Solar System missions launched on a rocket one class smaller than the Delta 2 might achieve.

Meanwhile, there's also the problem of what to do about future outer Solar System exploration -- which, at this point, consists of only one mission: Europa Orbiter, which is continuing to mushroom in cost and thus eat up funds for any other outer Solar System missions.

Europa Orbiter -- which was originally estimated to cost only about $400 million -- is now up to $1.2 billion, and the SSES said, "there is no evidence that these costs can be reduced."

On top of that, there is the SSES' continuing desire -- thus far contrary to NASA management -- to fly the much simpler and cheaper Pluto flyby mission first.

But, besides the cost of the Pluto probe itself, right now NASA has only two RTG nuclear generators, which are necessary for both missions -- and "if one is used for Pluto, inadequate power is available for Europa Orbiter."

The SSES strongly stated its wish that NASA continue to spend money on manufacturing more of the expensive plutonium-238 needed to fuel such RTGs, and also on designing more efficient nuclear power generators --as well as continuing to spend on the development of deep-space propulsion systems, which will vastly assist future Solar System exploration even if they aren't used for the Pluto probe.

But, once again, it seems virtually impossible that it will have anywhere near enough money to do all these things simultaneously.