NASA budget might have less space for JPL's planetary science

President Obama's $17.7-billion budget request for NASA for the 2013 fiscal year includes a $300-million cut to planetary science, the very work JPL specializes in. It's a dark development in an otherwise heady time.

At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, tucked into the hills above Los Angeles, these are heady days: The robot dubbed Curiosity is hurtling toward Mars and is expected to put scientists on their strongest footing yet to determine whether the Red Planet is or ever has been hospitable to life. More than 1,000 of JPL's scientists, engineers and technicians — a full fifth of the lab's workforce — have put in time on the mission.

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