Science:
When NASA science chief Alan Stern last month announced that
the space agency is backing a mission to collect rocks and soil
from Mars and bring them back to Earth, many planetary
researchers reacted with dismay rather than joy after looking
at NASA's 2009 budget. According to budget documents released
last month projected spending on Mars would be cut by half over
the next 5 years. As a result, many scientists fear that NASA
is abandoning a carefully plotted and extraordinarily
successful research endeavor on the Red Planet in exchange for
promises of an expensive mission far in the future.
