In its executive summary delivered to the White House on Tuesday, The Review of US Human Space Flight Plans Committee explicitly said that the country’s manned space program would shrivel if the Obama administration does not expand the NASA budget substantially.

Clearly presenting a rather ‘tough’ choice for the government, especially in times of increased public concern over federal expenditure, the panel of space experts said in their report that if a mammoth yearly addition of $3 billion is not made to NASA’s budget - over and above the existing $18.69 billion budget of the space agency - the manned space program would fail to “continue in any meaningful way.”

Though the advisory committee, comprising former astronauts and space entrepreneurs, backed the highly ambitious US spaceflight exploration, which could help the country launch an Apollo-style Mars mission and the proposed 2020 moon mission, it reiterated that the exploration programs necessitate huge cash infusions from the government.

In its 12-page summary report posted on hsf.nasa.gov, the expert panel, headed by Norman Augustine, said: “The US human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory. It is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources.”

The report added that though the committee had tried to develop two set-ups for NASA, staying within Obama's budget, “neither allows for a viable exploration program.”