Policy: Budget could send space science off in new directions at NASA.

The budget outline the White House unveiled on 28 February caps a week of startling news for NASA. On orders from the White House, NASA managers last week told Congress they intend to cancel plans for a Pluto flyby and a mission to study the solar wind. The agency is also following orders to make major cuts to the international space station after acknowledging huge cost overruns in the orbiting lab. Meanwhile, the president has called for a blue-ribbon panel of scientists to decide whether the space agency should swallow up the ground-based astronomy program run by the National Science Foundation (NSF).