Mars budget in peril

It is reported that the ambitious plans to put men back on the moon and to travel on to Mars are having a seriously bad knock-on effect on big unmanned missions. NASA is scrambling to find money to run the shuttle fleet and keep the International Space Station alive, but funds are seriously stretched, and despite promises from NASA that there would not be budget cuts, a number of highly important science missions are facing the chopping block. Included in the rosta of troubled missions, a Mars sample return mission. Time magazine has a full (and depressing) report.