Budget cuts could be felt on Mars - AMINA KHAN, Los Angeles Times

Lean financial times are prompting belt-tightening far and wide - and now that extends to Mars and the rest of the solar system. President Barack Obama's proposed budget for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for fiscal year 2013 would eliminate $300 million from the agency's planetary sciences division, a 20 percent cut from the $1.5 billion it received for 2012. Though the budget plan, released last week, would preserve funding for high-profile projects like the James Webb Space Telescope and manned space missions, scientists were alarmed by the hit to relatively inexpensive programs that explore the solar system with high-tech robots. Scott Hubbard, a member of the NASA Advisory Council Science Committee and the agency's former "Mars czar," has been assessing the effect the cuts would have. Now a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University, he spoke with the Los Angeles Times about what the future holds.