Future Planetary Exploration on What Congress' NASA Budget

The two houses of Congress have written their proposed 2015 budgets for NASA. The House bill would add additional funding to almost every category of the Planetary Science budget and would greatly strengthen NASA’s program of planetary exploration. The Senate bill would add substantial funds to the Mars program but pay for this by cuts to other portions of the planetary budget.

In American politics, the President proposes federal budgets but it is Congress that decides federal budgets. Last winter, the President’s budget office proposed a Fiscal Year 2015 planetary budget that was better than proposals for previous years but still well below the levels needed to enact the program laid out by the science community in the Decadal Survey. Both houses of Congress have now proposed their alternative plans (although the Senate budget has not been approved by the entire body yet). How has planetary exploration faired?

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