As the vision for space exploration become near-sided, this week on planetary radio. Hi everyone, welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final

frontier.

I'm Matt Kaplan.

We will make the hard choices necessary to get our

desires for the space agency to be consistent with our funding. That was

NASA Administrator Mike Griffin at a press conference

last week. Summing up the challenge presented by the Space Agency's new budget

proposal. It may have sounded like he was talking about a budget cut.

Not exactly, but the devil is in the details.

And those details have left many supporters of space science and robotic missions

questioning NASA's priorities.

We'll hear from Planetary Society Executive Director Lou Friedman

and former Society President and Jet Propulsion Lab Director Bruce Murray.

Speaking of robotic missions, Emily Loch Duvala's Q&A will tell us if New Horizons,

now headed for Pluto and Beyond, is really the champion speedster of our solar system,

and Bruce Betts wants you in his free online astronomy course,

but you'll have to stay tuned for this week's What's Up segment to find out more.

Spirit is safe at home. Home plate plate that is. That's the name given to an interesting

layered Martian plateau. There's some wonderful photos taken by the Mars Rover in

Emily's blog at planetary.org.

While you're there, check out the images of far away

and not so far away moons of Saturn

...