Mars exploration program budget

The relative expenditures of major programs during the so-called "golden age" of planetary exploration - , adjusted for inflation. NASA planetary science spending, by major program, - The transition quarter in fiscal year is not displayed here. What NASA includes in its planetary science budget has changed over the years, which makes it difficult to perform apples-to-apples comparisons. This dataset attempts to normalize out these differences somewhat, in order to provide a clearer picture of how planetary science spending priorities change over time.

It's impossible to normalize budgetary data without imposing a personal opinion on "what matters", or what is worth normalizing. As a consequence, any normalizations that add or subtract to the original budget request are noted within the spreadsheet.

Accounting and reporting variations over NASA's history occasionally leads to gaps in cost data, particularly for annual operating costs of planetary missions. In certain situations, estimated values were used to fill in these missing sections.

Estimated data is always referenced with italics in the spreadsheet, with context for the estimate noted in the source tabs. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. See Subscription Options. Get smart. Sign up for our email newsletter. Sign Up. Support science journalism. Knowledge awaits. See Subscription Options Already a subscriber? Create Account See Subscription Options.

He said that mission did poorly in a recent senior review of extended missions, hence the decision to wind down support by the summer. Those reductions come as NASA proposes to start new missions. A lander mission, led by NASA, would touch down near the Mars landing site and deploy an ESA-developed rover to collect those samples, placing them into a Mars Ascent Vehicle that is launched into orbit. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights.

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Reviewed by Eric Estevez.