Scary Messages

I finally found the time to listen to Ed Weiler's talk in early July on the state of NASA's planetary budget (although the messages are similar for other parts of NASA's science budget except Earth monitoring). The key takeaways:

• NASA's planetary budget has shrunk to approximately half of what it was at the end of the last Decadal Survey (~2003) that set mission priorities
• NASA can now fund about 60% of its Mars program -- hence the joint program in definition with the European Space Agency
• NASA cannot afford an outer planets flagship mission without cannibalizing some or all of the Mars program, the New Frontiers program, and/or the Discovery program
• The loss of the low cost, small Delta 2 launcher will raise the cost of small missions by tens of millions of dollars and potentially a $100M

As a result of these pressures (and if anything, I see the planetary budgt shrinking in the future to fund the manned spaceflight program or to hold down deficits), the program that comes out of the current Decadal Survey may be quite different than the current program.

Resources: Ed Weiler's presentation and Q&A before the Decadal Survey committee