US bins (i.e. scraps) joint EU project to visit Mars

EU Observer ^ | 2012.02.14 @ 09:17 | Andrew Rettman

[Olog-hai]

The US is scrapping a joint project with the EU to land a robot on Mars due to lack of money.

Charles Bolden, the chief of US space agency NASA, announced the move at a press conference in Washington on Monday (13 February) on how his agency plans to spend its 2013 budget.

He said: "Tough choices had to be made ... This means we will not be moving forward with the planned 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions that we had been exploring with the European Space Agency (ESA)."

He added the US is not giving up on Mars as such: "This administration remains committed to a vibrant and co-ordinated strategy of Mars exploration ... Our goals include not only new path-breaking robotic missions to Mars, but also future human missions."

President Barack Obama has said the US aims to land men on Mars in the mid-2030s. …

Russia and China have a competing Mars program. But they suffered a setback on 15 January when Russia's so-called Phobos-Grunt probe, carrying a Chinese Mars-observation satellite, Yinghuo-1, fell into the sea.

In an echo of the Cold-War-era space race, Russian news agency RIA Novosti at the time said Russian investigators ruled out "external or foreign influence" in the crash.

For their part, planetary scientists voiced dismay about the NASA-ESA decision. …

[brownsfan]

Bolden to the EU: “Muslim outreach and AGW falsification takes a lot of money, so we’re broke. Beat it.”

[battlecry]

I think ESA was going to pay NASA for a large part of its participation. Bolden’s message is more “We’re not interested in space exploration.”

[Josh Painter]

NASA can’t afford to work with EU to send a robot to Mars, but it can afford to pay the Russians to give our astronauts rides to the space station? That $1.5 Billion over 5 years to hitch rides with the Ruskies.