WASHINGTON -- A round of steep budget cuts applied to the NASA Fiscal Year 2000 budget Monday would kill the unmanned Mars exploration program that would send robots to the red planet before humans, and a wide range of other, advanced robotic missions to explore space.

NASA administrator Dan Goldin called the latest cuts of NASA's budget "devastating."

"The NASA employees get up every day to achieve what most think is impossible," Goldin said. "They have risen to the challenge of smaller budgets. And this is the reward that NASA gets? Not only is this cut devastating to NASA's programs, it is a knife in the heart of employee morale."

Among the space science projects threatened if Mondays action by the VA-HUD and Independent Agencies appropriations subcommittee becomes law this fall are:

-The entire NASA origins program. A series of space probes that would fan out across the solar system studying other worlds and the formation of planets and moons.

-Mars Surveyor 2001 and the Mars robotic exploration program. The flights of small robotic landers and explorers are aimed at compiling data and returning samples of Mars before deciding when and if to send human astronauts. The surveyor project studies Martian features from orbit.

-Terrestrial Planet Finder. The space telescope probe would hunt for Earth-like planets orbiting other stars, using advanced 21^st century optics and sensors. The space telescope would be parked in deep space and serviced by advanced spacecraft of the next century.

-Next Generation Space Telescope. Spacecraft that would replace the Hubble Space telescope at the end of the next decade.

-Deep Impact Discovery Mission. Probe would send down deep penetrators to explore the subsurface composition of moons and planets.

-Discovery class space science probes. These small projects include Gravity Probe B, Image Explorer, Genesis mission, and Messenger space probes.

-Robotic probes to Europa to search for potential life and oceans of liquid or frozen water.

-Robotic probes to Pluto, including orbiting craft and any potential small landers.

-Earth Observing System Mission PM-1. A second platform of Earth observing sensors that would study global climate change and other ecological science from space. The first EOS satellite is due for launch this year. EOS has been widely criticized by the Republican Congress, which supports environmental data being obtained from commercial firms and not government satellites.

The cuts approved by the subcommittee late Monday must still be approved by the full House appropriations committee Friday, and then sustained by a House-Senate conference committee in the fall. Programs "fenced off" and protected from deep cuts include the Space Shuttle operations budget, and the International Space Station project.