Money for manned mission to Mars endangered by spending bill

The Mars Society is upset that more progress isn't being made on plans to …

Despite announcing plans for a manned landing on Mars, the US government has not been giving NASA the resources necessary to do the job, according to the Mars Society. The organization is upset about appropriations bills recently signed by President Bush that included a provision preventing research with no application other than Mars.

"Not only is this language counterproductive to running a coherent multiyear exploration plan, but it is not consistent with the NASA authorization that Congress overwhelmingly approved in 2005," the Mars Society said in a statement. "In that authorization bill, Congress approved NASA's plans to send humans to Mars and supported the expenditures that will be necessary to make that goal possible—something that the omnibus bill does not do."

The appropriations bills do increase science funding for NASA, but only if such research has other applications. In the past though, such earmarks have often turned out to have little to do with what one might think NASA's main mission to be.

Although the idea of putting a manned mission on Mars has its charms, it's starting to look like that kind of multidisciplinary expenditure of scientific and financial capital could be more productive if tasked with solving any one of the growing number of looming problems we face here on earth (alternative energy, climate change, health and biodiversity, to name but three).

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University

Meanwhile, that triumph of NASA's, the Mars Exploration Rover Mission, continues on. Both Spirit and Opportunity are 1,300 days past the end of their expected life, and continue to send back data that's expanding our ideas about Mars. Opportunity is near the Martian equator, and Spirit is being wintered in a sunny spot inside the Gusev crater. Unlike its sibling, Spirit's solar panels are covered in dust and currently needs two days solar power for an hour of travel.

Given the overwhelming success of these missions and NASA's need to compete with many other federal programs during a budget crunch, perhaps more projects in the same mold should be a priority.

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