NASA's Budget

Scientists, space advocates, and a few members of Congress are protesting the 2014 NASA budget proposed by the Obama administration, which cuts $268 million from the planetary science program.  Scientists argue the budget as proposed essentially stops Solar System exploration.  The budget does not fund a probe to Jupiter's moon Europa, which could support life in an ocean of water under its icy surface, and it could stop funding for Cassini at Saturn and Messenger at Mercury while those two probes are still producing good data.

The Obama administration cites sequestration and the overall government deficit problem as the reasons for the cut.  The fact is, however, budget deficits are driven by the structure of huge entitlement programs coupled with the aging of the American population, not by a few percent of NASA's budget, which is itself well less than one percent of the overall federal budget.

This sort of argument is nearly an annual occurrence with proposed budgets for NASA, and often enough Congress ends up restoring at least some funding.  Stay tuned.