NASA found clues of life on Mars, but budget cuts threaten future missions
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Summary
Experts are concerned that proposed drastic cuts to NASA’s budget will hamper the space agency’s ability to carry out space science.
Last week, NASA announced new evidence of potential signs of microbial life discovered by the Perseverance rover in a 3.5 billion-year-old rock on Mars.
However, President Trump’s administration is pushing for a 47% cut to the space agency’s budget, as well as terminating missions and slashing the Perseverance budget.
The budget proposal also includes plans to cancel Mars Sample Return, which would analyse samples collected by Perseverance to ascertain if the rocks contain biosignatures.
Many believe that abandoning the project would be a massive waste, as it is not possible to determine if the rocks contain biosignatures without studying them further in a laboratory on Earth.