. A moon of Jupiter, Europa is thought to conceal an ocean under its icy facade and, therefore, is a potential haven for life, Weiler said."We still will do a Pluto mission," Weiler said. "I asked them [JPL] to find a way to get to Pluto before 2020," Weiler said.
Pluto Express was targeted for a December 2004 launch, with arrival at Pluto 10 years later. Now that plan has been put on the back burner.
Cost of the Pluto mission had escalated to some $800 million, twice that of a projected mission cost two years ago, Weiler said. "JPL estimates have doubled in two years. I don't like spending money that's not in my checking account," he said.
Science success stories
The House of Representatives hearing was dedicated to the state of NASA's Space Science Enterprise.
Subcommittee chairman, Republican Dana Rohrabacher of California, said NASA's "greatest success stories," despite the recent spate of Mars failures, has been due to the agency's space-science program.
"In less than 10 years, we've gone from launching a few billion-dollar missions per decade to several missions per year," Rohrabacher said. "That has dramatically increased our scientific return, giving more scientists the chance to discover new knowledge without waiting half of their professional careers to get at the data," he said.
The back-to-back Mars failures by U.S. spacecraft "served as a wake-up call," Weiler said. "We intend to do everything humanly possible to have a sound, robust program of solar system exploration, including the continuation of a newly restructured Mars program," he said.
Attending the hearing, Scott Hubbard, Mars Program Director at NASA Headquarters, told SPACE.com that a new Mars program plan is expected to be finalized by mid to late October.
Hubbard said the soon-to-be-released plan will outline NASA's Mars agenda beyond the recent decision to fly two rover missions to the Red Planet in 2003.
Fall from grace
A decision has been made to shut down NASA's Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) at year's end. Launched in June 1992, EUVE is an astronomical science spacecraft that remains in good condition and is producing science data. It is projected to reenter the Earth's atmosphere in early 2002.
The decision to put the science telescope to sleep, despite its still-operating status, is not universally shared by everyone in the scientific community, Weiler admitted.
"This is not a science issue," Weiler said. "There's no question that EUVE is doing good science...it's a matter of priorities," he said.
Terminating EUVE is a tough decision, agreed Claude Canizares, director of the Center for Space Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who also testified at the hearing.
Canizares said that the value of EUVE data has diminished, with the science output from EUVE serving too narrow a science group.
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