“HAVE a good idea about Mars exploration? We’d like to hear about it.” So tweeted NASA’s John Grunsfeld. Following budget cuts, the US space agency is rewriting its Mars exploration programme and clearly needs all the inspiration it can get.
“NASA is rewriting its Mars exploration programme and clearly needs all the inspiration it can get”
The programme was hit hard by the proposed 2013 US federal budget, and so NASA pulled out of European-led missions planned for 2016 and 2018. It has two other missions in progress – the rover Curiosity, already en route to Mars and set to land in August, and the , which should launch in 2013.
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NASA is looking to the public and the wider science community to help decide what happens next. On 13 April, the new Mars Program Planning Group announced that it wants ideas from researchers, government and industry for how to reach Mars cheaply. The ideas will be in June in Houston, Texas.