When President Obama released his 2013 budget on Monday, we looked for the science and tech winners of the proposal. But one part of the plan is leaving some space geeks adrift: NASA's Mars goals are being put on the back burner.

Obama's plan would reduce NASA's planetary science funding by approximately 21 percent while putting more money into human exploration, new spacecraft and space technology. That moves NASA away from researching Earth's neighbors and towards finding new ways to launch men and women into space.

The overall message to NASA? Times are tough, so we've got to shift priorities.

"Some important, but currently unaffordable missions are deferred, such as large-scale missions to study the expansion of the universe and to return samples from Mars," reads Obama's budget.

Instead of sending people to Mars, the Obama plan would focus on a "lower cost program" that would use robots, not humans, to explore our galatic neighbor. That means the planned U.S.-European joint venture to Mars would get the ax.

NASA administrator Charles Bolden acknowledged the agency's need to keep its budget down to earth, even while blasting astronauts and satellites into space.

"This budget in-sources jobs, creates capabilities here at home — and strengthens our workforce, all while opening the next great chapter in American exploration," said NASA administrator Charles Bolden in a statement. "And as we reach for new heights in space, we're creating new jobs right here on Earth, helping to support an economy that's built to last."

The Obama plan bets on America's burgeoning commercial space industry by investing nearly one billion dollars into private attempts to blast mankind into the final frontier. With the iconic space shuttles retired to museums across the U.S., American astronauts are relying on Russian help to break Earth's gravity. But some Americans are itching for a new homegrown spacecraft.

"Too many men and women have worked too hard and sacrificed too much to achieve America's preeminence in space, only to see that effort needlessly thrown away," wrote a group of former astronauts and NASA employees in a public letter to President Obama in April of last year, when the future of NASA's shuttle replacement was uncertain.

Obama's plan may put those concerns to rest by funding the Space Transport System, a multi-stage rocket that echoes the Apollo design and is the cornerstone of NASA's future human exploration of space. In a press conference about the new budget, NASA administrator Bolden said the first flight of a manned commercial vehicle would likely happen before 2017. The first human-crewed mission using the Orion system would occur no earlier than 2021, he said.

And what about the James Webb telescope, being designed to replace the aging Hubble? The president's plan bankrolls that, too.

However, Obama's space plans aren't putting smiles on the faces of everyone in the known universe. Bill Nye, famous science educator, thinks NASA is headed down the wrong path by focusing on new technology over exrra-terrestrial research.

“I encourage whoever made this decision to ask around; everyone on Earth wants to know if there is life on other worlds,” said Nye, CEO of The Planetary Society, a space exploration advocacy group. “When you cut NASA’s budget in this way, you’re losing sight of why we explore space in the first place.”

What do you think of Obama's proposed refocusing of NASA? Sound off in the comments below.

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