Yup. Obama has been trying to kill planetary missions at NASA: The Obama Administration tried to cut 300 million from planetary science at NASA last year effectively killing exploration: http://www.planetary.org/blogs... [planetary.org] "White house proposes ~$300 million of cuts to Planetary Science in 2013."

Do you have some expense figures for these idiotic HR programs?

Here is a link: The Obama Administration tried to cut 300 million from planetary science at NASA last year effectively killing exploration: http://www.planetary.org/blogs... "White house proposes ~$300 million of cuts to Planetary Science in 2013."

Wrong about Obama, mostly wrong about Congress. The Obama Administration tried to cut 300 million from planetary science at NASA last year effectively killing exploration: http://www.planetary.org/blogs... "White house proposes ~$300 million of cuts to Planetary Science in 2013."

Amazing! The worst of the over-zealous, milch-cow, PC-correct HR departments from huge corporations has infected NASA. Ugh.

The Admin tried to cut 300 million from the NASA planetary science budge last year. This Administration is hostile to planetary science. Check the Planetary Society web site for details and he weasel-y things the Admin and NASA/Houston have done to try to kill planetary science.

Last year the Obama Administration tried to effectively end planetary exploration at NASA by proposing a 300 million dollar cut. This administration has been the worst for planetary science of any in recent memory.

I love how this pummeling of the 4th Amendment is all of a sudden a Big Deal when it is directed at a Senator.

Why don't the shergottites have sulfate salts like the rest of Meridian Planum?

And here I thought American companies are the most slimy, we are continually reminded that BP trumps them all

No, no. Since there are geysers on Europa, these could be spewing fresh organic material onto the surface that could be remotely senses and maybe even sampled directly by flying through the plumes. This would be a moderately-priced mission when compared to the Space Station pork or the Space Launch System pork or the Orion pork.

NASA has been trying to gut the planetary exploration programs for the last few years to feed the pork-barrel manned missions. This is a very odd turn of events. Stealing money from real science (un-manned missions from JPL/ Pasadena) to feed the pork monster (manned missions from Houston) is not new. In fact Carl Sagan started the Planetary Society to stop this poaching way back when.

NASA is geared toward manned spaceflight pork and any time they can steal money from the unmanned missions, they will. That is why Carl Sagan et. al. started the Planetary Society--to prevent the poaching of funds. It is a continual fight. The current admin tried to shutdown all big planetary missions to fuel the pointless SLS and other manned pork. It is was a struggle just to get a whimpy next lander funded. And forget about a Europa probe of Titan.

Wouldn't it be simpler to revise the laws of gravity at astronomical distances rather then dream up some ridiculous, invisible massive particle?

Might as well take the train...