House rejects Mars funding reprogramming request

Aviation Week reports that House appropriators have rejected a request by NASA to reprogram fiscal year 2012 funding for planetary science that would have taken money away from Mars and other flagship mission work. The request, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), chairman of the appropriations subcommittee with oversight of NASA, would “drastically scale back spending on Outer Planets Flagship missions, discontinue work on the joint 2016 and 2018 Mars missions being explored with the European Space Agency and allocate a reduced amount to the study of a potential new future Mars mission.” Wolf said he blocked the requested funding shift since the proposed changes there, and in the administration’s FY2013 budget request, “deserves to be fully considered by a process that is more rigorous and more inclusive”. (It was not clear from the report to what projects the reprogrammed funds would have been shifted.)

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a member of that appropriations subcommittee and a staunch advocate for Mars exploration, “applauded” the decision in a statement on Friday. “NASA’s effort to mothball the Mars program is a disaster for America’s leadership in planetary science, and I’m glad this first step has been rejected by the committee,” he said. “While today’s decision by Chairman Wolf is enormously positive, we still have a lot of work to do to put the Mars program back on track.”