The roving Mars Science Laboratory: the cost for this mission has skyrocketed ("ballooned" really doesn't do it justice) to a cooool $2.47 billion, and it needs $82 million more right now to maintain its schedule to launch next November -- because if it doesn't it would cost even more to launch it in another two years. With the James Webb Telescope already gobbling huge chunks out of NASA's wallet, this would be unacceptable. Impossible, really. And with the GOP looking to cut down the NASA budget to something that wouldn't even support a well-equipped high school chemistry class, anything like this is probably bad news for everything else that NASA is trying to do.
Imagine how bad it could get if the MSL doesn't survive the trip to Mars.
Yikes.
"Another $23.3 million is needed for MSL through the end of summer, and another $46.3 million for the last two to three months before launch, Green said.
However, finding the additional money could prove challenging in the current budget environment. Although NASA's Planetary Sciences Division had been slated for a 10 percent annual increase, to $1.49 billion, in 2011, Congress has yet to adopt a spending plan for the federal government this year, leaving NASA and other agencies operating at last year's spending levels under a continuing resolution approved in December.
In addition, Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives are proposing to roll back discretionary spending even further, to 2008 levels, for most federal agencies, including NASA.
Green said the continuing resolution under which NASA will operate through at least March 4 gives the division $144 million less than the White House proposed for the current budget year, including a $115 million shortfall in the division's Mars program, which is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif."
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