"Alan Figgatt" wrote in message
...
Stephen Souter wrote:
Judging from the fine print, I'm not sure everyone will be happy:

"Sources said Bush will direct NASA to scale back or scrap
all existing programs that do not support the new effort."
--http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040107-123930-1532r

I note the word "all".

Would that be including unmanned programs, both mooted and/or inflight
(eg JIMO, Cassini etc), as well as manned ones?

My reading of other on-line news reports indicate that the "all" refers
to the science
programs for the space station. I would think most of the unmanned
efforts - certainly the
Mars probes, the space telescopes, the Discovery missions - would
continue, but would they
cut the more expensive deep space missions such as Pluto Express or to
Mercury or Jupiter?
I hope not, but we shall see.

I would hate to see Pluto Express get scrapped. I would like to see a
close-up snapshot of Pluto in my lifetime.