``We are examples of what NASA wanted to do, we are the quicker cheaper programs,'' said Donald Brownlee of the University of Washington, whose Stardust mission would capture dust from a comet named Wild 2 and return the sample to Earth. ''It seems totally ironic that we are on the chopping block.''
Under NASA administrator Dan Goldin, the space agency has pushed for faster development of unmanned astronomical missions, using existing technologies to make the projects cheaper and more efficient.
The budget proposal prompted a furious response from NASA.
``These massive cuts will rip apart the U.S. civil space program,'' the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said in a statement. ``They will destroy the balance that has been achieved between science and human space flight in recent years.''
Brownlee and other scientists at a conference in Ithaca on asteroids, comets and meteors acknowledged that the budget reduction is not final, but still worried that projects would suffer.
``I think this is inside-the-beltway maneuvering that's being done and eventually sanity will prevail, but there's always the danger in this maneuvering that things get left out and pieces don't get put together the way they were,'' said Paul Weissman of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Appearing on a dais with models of their respective spacecraft, the seven scientists offered space missions with a decidedly Buck Rogers flavor.
Donald Yeomans, also of JPL, put forward a same-size model of a tiny spacecraft that looked a bit like a clock-radio with wheels that is expected to land on Asteroid 1989 ML in the year 2003.
The mission, a cooperative venture with the Japanese space agency, would have the little rover roll around the asteroid's surface, snapping pictures and collecting samples before returning to Earth. It can also ``flex'' its wheels and leap 100 yards (meters) at a time, Yeomans said.
Another mission known as Deep Impact would purposely lob a 1,000-pound (454 kg) cylinder into Comet Tempel 1, with the big smashup scheduled for July 4, 2005, so experts can study the interior of the comet. The project's scientist, Mike A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, said he was confident the mission would go forward, despite the proposed budget reduction.
But Yeomans and others wondered at NASA's budget process, and contrasted it with other nations' space programs.
``NASA's the only (space) agency that runs this way,'' Yeomans said. ``The Japanese pick a mission, it goes. It may be late, but it'll go. The same with the Europeans. This business of canceling missions at the last minute is unproductive.''
In fact, a European Space Agency project called Rosetta, slated for launch in 2003, is set to travel past two asteroids and a comet, without official U.S. participation.
In all, Yeomans said, there could be seven missions to 13 comets and asteroids in the next several years. Astronomers are interested in these celestial bodies because they represent the remnants of the early solar system and could provide clues about how the solar system developed.
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