WASHINGTON (States News Service) - Claiming that NASA's old Mars program rested on a "failed architecture," the agency is prolonging internal talks on how to revamp the program and isn't ready to announce a new program next week, NASA's space science chief, Space Science Administrator Edward Weiler said Monday.

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"We have a failed architecture," Weiler told the National Academy of Science's Space Studies board in a briefing on NASA's 2000 budget. "We've got to go back now and rethink what we're doing."

As an independent review panel looking into recent Mars failures prepares to announce its findings next week, NASA decided last week to extend its internal discussions about Mars indefinitely, Weiler said.

"We were racing," he said. "If it takes a couple more months, so be it."

The agency had planned to present a new architecture for the program alongside the independent panel's findings on March 15. Also that day, NASA Administrator Dan Goldin will address the House Appropriations Committee on Mars mission setbacks.

Now both the findings of the independent panel -- headed by former Lockheed Martin executive Thomas Young -- and NASA's announcement of its new Mars program appear sidelined for more internal debate.

After two major mission failures last year -- the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander were both lost at the Red Planet -- the agency's old thinking about the Mars program is 'gone'," Weiler said.

"There was no long-term vision of 'what is the reason of going to Mars?'" he said.

The president's budget increases funding for the Mars program from $23.7 million in 2000 to $97 million in 2004, and to $88 million in 2005.

"There was no long-term vision of 'What is the reason of going to Mars?'"

Weiler said the agency needs an extra $300 million to help make a "robust" program with enough funding to cover all major areas of Mars missions -- including the rockets and technology to bring rocks and soil back to Earth, as well as the facilities to study those samples.

Weiler said the longstanding goal of bringing back a rock -- a mission scheduled for 2008 -- is "high risk," given the recent failures. He said it may have to wait until 2010 or later "unless the [science] community comes up with a much simpler sample return mission."

"I don't mind taking risks in programs as long as the payoff is high and there's a chance of success," he said.

Weiler said any changes to the program would not affect NASA's cooperation with France, which is participating in the sample return mission.