11-Feb-2012 - Ed Weiler Says He Quit NASA Over Cuts to Mars Program

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Next week, President Barack Obama will propose a 300 million cut in NASA's planetary science programs as part of his 2013 request for the agency, ScienceInsider has learned. If adopted by Congress, the 20% cut in planetary science would in all likelihood shelve NASA's ability to participate in two Mars missions to be carried out in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA). And the former head of NASA's nfl jerseys supply science mission says that the targeting of the ExoMars program by White House budget officials was the final straw leading to wholesale nba jerseys his resignation last fall. "The Mars program is one of the crown jewels of NASA," says Ed Weiler. "In what irrational, Homer Simpson world would we single it out for disproportionate cuts?" Weiler's resignation in September caught the space science community by surprise. But he says it was the culmination of a soul-sapping and ultimately unsuccessful battle with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on how to accommodate the rising cost of the James Webb Space Telescope within an overall agency budget being squeezed by efforts to reduce federal spending and shrink the deficit. "It all left a very bad taste," Weiler told ScienceInsider this morning from his house in Vero nfl jersey supply Beach, Florida.

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