Trimming NASA's Sails

President Obama's new budget is cutting way back on NASA's exploration program. As reported in this blog, the shortfall in funding will likely force NASA to withdraw from its partnership with ESA in the ExoMars program, which would have worked towards a robotic sample return mission. Now, NASA is also putting its Flagship program to the outer Solar System on indefinite hold. A Flagship mission is a huge, expensive mission, like Cassini or Galileo, that attempts to answer big, important questions.

NASA will continue to try to develop smaller, less expensive missions, but the first golden age of planetary science might be coming to an end.