WHILE NASA basks in glory after announcing the best evidence yet that Mars was once habitable (see 鈥�Surprisingly youthful Mars surface helps alien hunt鈥�), the future looks bleak for the scientists who make such amazing discoveries possible.
Last week, NASA鈥檚 Planetary Science Division announced a shake-up of its grant system, leaving many up-and-coming researchers wondering where their next round of funding was coming from. Many fear they will be forced to leave the field.
The bureaucratic shake-up is not a bad idea in itself: it could eventually make it easier to respond quickly to events such a comet visiting the inner solar system, for example. But added to years of budget cuts and financial uncertainty, it leaves the immediate prospects for planetary science in a precarious state.
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女生小视频s always worry about funding, and funders have to make agonising choices. No branch of science has a god-given right to be bankrolled by the taxpayer. But the successes and surprises of the Mars mission 鈥� and the public hunger for more 鈥� make it a strange time to risk putting a generation of planetary scientists out to grass.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淢ars cash dash up in the air鈥�
