Mars research program under threat
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.
