It's no secret that Mars exploration is in trouble at NASA. Budgetary axes have swung, creating a potentially bleak future for missions and results. After the Curiosity rover mission (currently in flight) and the MAVEN atmospheric orbiter, set to be launched next year, NASA has no missions confirmed for flight.

Plans for joint missions with the European Space Agency seem to be in serious trouble, and face cancellation. This has scuttled plans for advanced rovers and other missions that would eventually lead to a sample-return mission.

The problems are serious. The solution is obvious. NASA needs more money, and Mars exploration needs a lot more. Arguments could be waged about the distribution of funds between a multitude of pleading causes, and these arguments are raging across America. They won't be revisited here, but it does seem unfair that our quest to explore beyond our own world is being hamstrung.

It must be conceded that there's room for improvement within the program, and across spaceflight in general. Too many space missions have gone over-budget, sometimes by gross proportions. There have been delays and failures. Efforts should be made to tighten project management and fiscal management.

Cutting budgets by such gross levels that major programs are essentially scuttled is not an appropriate response to these problems. There is plenty of reason to criticise the way that some previous missions have been managed, but the Mars program as a whole remains one of the most exciting and useful things that NASA does.

There has been plenty of activism within the spaceflight community about these issues. Hopefully, reason will prevail, and we will see a return to funding in the future.

However, it still makes sense to prepare for the worst. There's enough reason to believe that, as unpalatable as it seems, Mars exploration will not receive the support it deserves. Right now, there seems to be no back-up plan. We can launch the ambitious but expensive sequence of missions that had previously been suggested, or do nothing at all.

It's time to consider how to get to Mars on a shoestring. A new series of cheap and innovative missions could fly within a tough fiscal environment. They would keep Mars exploration alive and return useful results. Importantly, they would ensure that infrastructure, personnel and expertise are all preserved during lean times.

One way to do this is by returning to small spacecraft. Some Mars missions could carry single instruments on microsatellite-class spacecraft. They could fly as piggyback missions on large launches, and gradually nudge themselves out of Earth orbit on long but fuel-efficient trajectories. Arriving at Mars, they could explore the planet's tiny moons or graze its outer atmosphere.

Simple landers could also be delivered to the surface this way. Nestled inside small aeroshells, they could make semi-hard landings before sampling the atmosphere or depositing a seismometer on the ground.

We could also have more of our existing instruments used to study Mars. Telescopes on the ground and in space could be targeted there more often, which would help in our efforts to spot methane and other trace gases.

We could also perform more simulations of Mars on Earth. Much is already known about conditions on the Martian surface, and studies have been performed on how terrestrial life responds to these conditions. More studies would certainly be useful.

Admittedly, this would all be a poor substitute for the Mars program that scientists expected. It does little to address some of the most pressing questions being asked about the planet, including the potential for life there. But it still provides answers to some questions, and increases our overall understanding of Mars. That, in turn, helps to gradually build solid answers to the larger questions of the development of the planet and helps us focus our future efforts to find organisms there.

We have been through bleak periods for Mars exploration in the past, such as the incredible shortage of activity that followed the Viking missions. Perhaps we need to recall how we dealt with these earlier mission droughts. We can still think fiercely and work with data from previous missions. We can plan for the future, and develop better technologies and instruments. We can experiment and innovate without the pressure of a looming launch window.

It's worth all the effort to fight for a better program. But if we can't have what we want, we need to regroup. There isn't much talk of this right now. A reduced Mars program would be disappointing, but it's better than nothing. Enough damage is being done to the program by external problems. The custodians of Mars exploration must ensure that they do not compound this damage by mismanaging things themselves.

Dr Morris Jones is an Australian space analyst and writer. Email morrisjonesNOSPAMhotmail.com. Replace NOSPAM with @ to send email.