Angry Martians Meet To Plot Their Revenge

Scientists See Red on NASA Cuts of Mars Missions, AP

“To scientists, the message from the White House seems simple: Bye-bye, Mars. On Monday, upset Mars researchers are meeting with NASA officials to figure out how to reboot the program beyond the 2013 mission. If Obama’s budget sails through as outlined, “in essence, it is the end of the Mars program,” said Phil Christensen, a Mars researcher at Arizona State University. It’s like “we’ve just flown Apollo 10 and now we’re going to cancel the Apollo program when we’re one step from landing,” he said.”

– Second International MEPAG (Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group) Meeting (with WEBEX instructions)

– Live tweeting from this morning’s session at @NASAWatch hashtag #MEPAG

Keith’s MEPAG Observation: despite the fact that the Mars community is facing budget cuts all they can think about is more expensive missions to Mars. No interest in alternate approaches to sample return i.e. in situ characterization. FAIL.

NASA Official Announces Chair of New Mars Program Planning Group

“NASA’s associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, John Grunsfeld, has named former veteran NASA program manager Orlando Figueroa to lead a newly established Mars Program Planning Group (MPPG) tasked to reformulate the agency’s Mars Exploration Program. Figueroa’s first assignment is to develop a draft framework for review by March 15.”