The result of the day at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference here in Houston undoubtedly came from the Stardust mission to catch dust from the tail of comet Wild 2. You can read more about it on news@nature.com in a few hours when the story goes live, but I was impressed by the healthy turnout of around 600 scientists who came to watch this comet’s life history start to unfold.

But that was nothing. The end of the day saw more than a thousand of the 1,500 or so conference attendees pack into a room to hear Mary Cleave, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, defend the agency’s recent budget cuts in the sciences. And boy, did she have a tough crowd. As the Shuttle and International Space Station eat up more and more cash, scientists are seeing their projects cancelled – sorry, “deferred” – in ever greater numbers.

Cleave and her colleague Andy Dantzler, who oversees Solar System research, made a really good try at mollifying the crowd. A $1.8 billion research budget was not to be sniffed at; it was a temporary blip; don’t forget we love the science program too … all to no avail.

One by one, scientists expressed their outrage. Referring to Stardust’s recent success, one said: “When you’re sitting around your conference table at NASA headquarters, in your science vacuum, you might consider the value of a sample return mission.”

Gerhard Neukum, who is in charge of the hi res stereo camera on ESA’s Mars Express, is normally a pretty jovial guy. But not today. He railed against the decision to defer the Dawn mission to Ceres and Vesta, the two largest asteroids, saying NASA had reneged on international agreements without any consultation of its European partners. “This is not the way NASA should treat these things if you want continued international cooperation,” he said. “Things are really degrading in terms of cooperation, and I’m not the only one who feels that way.” Huge applause from the room.

Another scientist introduced themselves as an American who spends a lot of time working with Europeans. “There’s a growing feeling in Europe that NASA is becoming an unreliable partner,” he said.

Earlier, I’d spoken to planetary scientist Jonathan Lunine of the University of Arizona, Tucson, who told me: “As far as NASA goes we have no strategy for the outer Solar System any more – it’s in a complete shambles.” He worries that the astrobiology program, which has seen some of the most significant cuts, will really suffer.

This comes up again in the meeting, with Cleave countering that astrobiology was not being killed, “just slowed down.” An audience member disagrees, saying that it is the biggest threat to their science in a generation. Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society stood up to announce that they were launching a ‘Save Our Science’ campaign.

At one point, Cleave became so frustrated she said, “I don’t understand why you’re so angry.” The response was gales of bitter laughter.

The last scientist to speak seemed to sum up the community’s feelings: “We feel like we’re just not getting a dialogue with NASA.” This one may take a while to sort out, I think …

[Posted on behalf of Mark Peplow]

The result of the day at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference here in Houston undoubtedly came from the Stardust mission to catch dust from the tail of comet Wild 2. You can read more about it on news@nature.com in a few hours when the story goes live, but I was impressed by the healthy turnout of around 600 scientists who came to watch this comet’s life history start to unfold.

But that was nothing. The end of the day saw more than a thousand of the 1,500 or so conference attendees pack into a room to hear Mary Cleave, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, defend the agency’s recent budget cuts in the sciences. And boy, did she have a tough crowd. As the Shuttle and International Space Station eat up more and more cash, scientists are seeing their projects cancelled – sorry, “deferred” – in ever greater numbers.

(more…)