We have been nothing but amazed by what NASA’s Mars rovers managed to do so far, but it seems that budget will be the issue for future discoveries on the red planet. According to a directive from NASA Headquarters, they will undergo a 40 percent financial cut in the remaining months of the 2008 fiscal year, which will affect the rovers’ mission.

According to Steve Squires, MER principal investigator at Cornell University, a lower budget means shutting down one of the rovers, and that rover will probably be Spirit, although no official confirmation has been given so far. Everything seems to resume now to a matter of money over science, and science lost the battle.

“We’re rapidly coming to the conclusion that if we have to implement this cut, it’s going to mean essentially shutting off science activities for one of the vehicles,” Squires said according to SPACE.com. “We would have to make some very tough decisions about which one we would hibernate and which one we would keep active. That’s a situation I don’t want to face… but that’s a future worry,” he added.

The two rovers landed on Mars in January 2004 and were supposed to be there for just 90 days, in an $820 million mission. NASA decided their mission needs to continue, and the two rovers remained on the red planet ever since. NASA is planning to cut the $20 million annual budget for the rovers by $4 million, which means one of them will end its activity.

However, despite what Squires said, Bob Jacobs, spokesman for NASA’s administrator Michael Griffin said to CNN: “There is a process that has to be followed for any mission to be canceled and the cancellation of the Mars Exploration Rovers is not under consideration. There is an ongoing budget review within the agency’s Mars exploration program. However, shutting down of the the rovers is not an option.”