SETI bioastro: Fw: FY 2004 budget

• Previous message: LARRY KLAES: "SETI bioastro: Fw: Fire in the Sky"

----- Original Message -----
From: Bruce Moomaw
Sent: Monday, February 03, 2003 7:24 PM
To: Alan Stern
Cc: Simon Mansfield; planetary_sciences_at_yahoogroups.com; Jupiter List; Europa Icepick
Subject: Re: FY 2004 budget

OK, here's the dope. NASA will delay the competitive selection of the
second New Frontiers mission and fly the Pluto "New Horizons" probe first --
which actually allows them to cut the formerly planned FY 2004 budget for
the New Frontiers program from $155 million to only $130 million. (And
that's assuming that Congress provides no more money for New Horizons in the
FY 2003 budget than the $15 million the Bush administration had requested
for the NF program. If they do, NH still might fly in 2006 rather than
2007.)

Also, the Deep Impact comet probe has survived its cancellation threat
unscathed. And that nuclear-propelled "Jupiter Tour" mission will cost
$92.6 million in the FY 204 budget alone,although $25 million of that will
be bled off the already-planned NEP and Nuclear Power systems budgets for FY
2004. Also, it will be flown within "a decade", not flown within "the
decade" -- so we're presumably talking about a launch by 2013. The
mission's official name is "Jupiter Icy Moon Orbiter", or "JIMO". Let's
hope "GYPPO" doesn't turn out to be more appropriate.

The only big change in the Mars program seems to be the new initiative to
start switching all of NASA's deep space probe communications over to laser
links, with the actual implementation being first tested on the Mars 2009
missions. In the other space science fields, the "Structure and Evolution
of the Universe" Division has a big new "Beyond Einstein" initiative ($69
million this year), including official initiation of LISA, Constellation-X,
and a new series of competitive selected smaller "Einstein Probes". No big
changes in the "Origins" and "Sun-Earth Connections" divisions.

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• Previous message: LARRY KLAES: "SETI bioastro: Fw: Fire in the Sky"

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