WASHINGTON (AP) — Money problems will likely force NASA to abandon its ambitious internal goal of having a new moon spaceship ready by 2013, a top space agency official told The Associated Press Wednesday.

The agency should still be able to meet its public commitment to test launch astronauts in the first Orion capsule by March 2015, the official said, unless national budget stalemates continue.

But the agency's own hurry-up plan to get the job done even earlier — with a first crew launch by 2013 — will "very likely" be changed during meetings this week in Houston, said Doug Cooke, NASA's deputy associate administrator for exploration.

"We're probably going to have to move our target date," Cooke said in a phone interview. An actual astronaut moon landing is still set for 2020. Orion initially will just orbit Earth before attempting a more complicated moon launch that also will involve unmanned rockets.

Cooke acknowledged the slipped launch target date during an interview about an internal NASA report leaked to the Web site, Nasa Watch. The document shows that the space agency's overall moon plan has encountered financial and technical problems, which NASA says it can overcome.

The leaked report reflects typical problems of a program this early in the running, Cooke said.

"What you're seeing is sausage-making," he said. "I'm really satisfied with the work that's getting done."

The 117-page report, posted Wednesday at nasawatch.com, shows an $80 million cost overrun this year for just one motor and a dozen different technical problems that the space agency put in the top risk zone, meaning the problems are considered severe. The report put the program's financial performance in that category.

Technical problems included software that may not be developed on time, the heat shield, a dangerous level of shaking during launch, and a hard-to-open hatch door. The report also said NASA's plans would shortchange astronauts' daily water needs, giving them only two liters a day when medical experts say they need at least 2.5 liters.

The report showed technical problems in operations for Orion nearly doubling from May to July, with 24 items now on the most worrisome list.

Outside experts say it's too early to be too worried, but they have some concerns.

"It doesn't surprise me that there are these kinds of pains given the early stage (of development) and the long time since we did anything like this," said John Logsdon, director of space policy at George Washington University. "NASA is trying to do this with inadequate and uncertain funding."

The problem is mostly the political system for not coming up with budgets that are passed and signed by the president so that NASA can go ahead with its financial plans, said W. Henry Lambright, a technology and public policy professor at Syracuse University. The budget for next year still has not been passed.

"We have a government that is dysfunctional," Lambright said. "I'm not blaming NASA. I think NASA is a victim of a political situation we have in this country."

But Nasawatch's Keith Cowing, a former engineer for the agency, said the problem is poor design and planning, repeating some of the problems of Apollo without learning the lessons of such disasters as the Apollo 1 fire.

A group of NASA engineers, working on their own time, and other experts have come up with an alternate moon rocket design that they contend is cheaper and could be ready earlier. NASA has rejected their proposal.

Little did Bucknell University geology professors Craig Kochel and Jeffrey Trop know, as they were working in Alaska, that they would soon predict one of the most important planetary observations ever made.

The pair was in Alaska for an eight-day trip in July 2006, studying geological features and the processes that create them. As they studied photographs taken of the surrounding area, some features caught Kochel's eye. He thought they were strangely familiar, and then realized they reminded him of images he'd seen when working on the Viking missions to Mars in the 1970s.

Kochel and Trop trekked to where the shots were taken overlooking a glacier. Spotting triangle-shaped landforms called "fans" sealed the deal: They looked strikingly similar to photographs taken of features on Mars.

Mystery solved

Although geologists can usually tell what shapes the landscape around us, it was a mystery what formed the Mars-like features found in Alaska.

The conditions on Mars are quite different than anything experienced on Earth. For example, Mars is much colder than even the Arctic — the average martian temperature is -81 degrees F (-63 degrees C) — and the planet's atmospheric pressure is lower than Earth's. Still, for the same features to be present on Earth and Mars, the two professors suspected similar processes would have made them.

They had just over a week in Alaska to discover what created the glaciers and fans.

During this time they managed to see an impressive 289 events, including rock falls and floods. The vast majority of these events were snow and ice avalanches. The frequency of these avalanches astounded the scientists, who reasoned that climate change was the most likely culprit. As temperatures rise, the glaciers pull back, creating large areas where ice has been separated. Material can fall down these cracks and lead to avalanches. This was creating the features seen in Alaska, and perhaps the same thing had happened on Mars.

An astounding prediction

Realizing the importance of this discovery, Kochel and Trop presented their findings to a NASA lunar and planetary science meeting. Their comparisons were based on older photographs of Mars, but the HiRISE camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was sending back new pictures which further confirmed the idea of avalanches on Mars.

Kochel and Trop explained that with a bit of luck and good timing, it would be possible to snap photographs of martian avalanches.

Amazingly, soon afterwards the orbiter sent back images of an ice flow avalanche in action on Mars. Pieces of ice, dust and possibly rocks crashed down from high, steep areas, sending clouds of fine material billowing upwards. The cloud itself was about 590 feet (180 meters) across. The exact cause of the avalanche isn't known with certainty, but it could be because the sun warmed layers of ice.

This was the first time an avalanche had been observed on another world, and was the perfect confirmation of Kochel and Trop's ideas.

Valuable research

Studies like this help us understand the changes that take place during periods of climate variation. They also show that although planets like the Earth and Mars are very different places, in many ways they can be astoundingly similar.

The details of this paper will also be of interest to astrobiologists. Searching for water on other worlds is thought to be a key step toward finding life, and understanding how the water cycle takes place on Mars will help scientists make more accurate predictions. Couple water with a dynamic world experiencing changes to its landscape, and Mars looks all the more promising for life.

Kochel and Trop's research paper was published in the July issue of the journal Icarus