Category Mars Wars

While there was substantial progress made in telescope technology during the 70 years after Lowell’s sensational observations, it was still beyond the abilities of astronomers of the time to unequivocally disprove his theories. In fact, during this period there was little sustained interest in planetary astronomy, and as a result, few new discoveries were made. In 1957, the Soviet launch of Sputnik opened vast new opportunities for scientific investigations. Once the concept of robotic planetary exploration was conceived during the coming years, it was taken for granted that missions to Mars would be a priority. Several failed attempts by both the Americans and Soviets to send spacecraft to Mars during the early 1960s, however, delayed the first close up examination of the red planet.[26]

On 28 December 1964, NASA launched Mariner 4 on a mission to explore Mars. About halfway to the planet, the spacecraft experienced technical difficulties that greatly concerned ground controllers. The “Great Galactic Ghoul,”[27] however, was unsuccessful in its efforts at crippling the probe. On 14 July 1965, Mariner 4 made a flyby to within 6,118 miles of the planet’s surface. It was able to relay 22 images back to Earth with its single camera before passing out of range. The data that was obtained from those images, as well as from the spacecraft’s other instru­ments,[28] were nothing less than stunning. Instead of the living planet that Lowell had envisioned, Mariner 4 discovered a surface that was apparently devoid of life and seemingly unchanged for billions of years. In addition, results of an S-band radio occultation experiment found that the Martian atmospheric density was con­siderably lower than expected and that its makeup was approximately 95% carbon dioxide. Finally, it was discovered that the planet had no discernible magnetic field. The information returned by Mariner 4 resulted in a complete revision of human thinking about Mars, ending forever Lowellian theories regarding vegetation and intelligent beings.[29]

During the early months of 1969, the Americans and the Soviets each sent two more spacecraft towards Mars.[30] While the Soviets continued their string of failures, both Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 were successful. These spacecraft, like Mariner 4, were designed as flyby missions, but they were capable of photographing the planet at much greater distances. Mariner 6 sent 75 images earthward, while Mariner 7 produced 126 photographs. In total, the two probes, which passed within 2,120 miles of the planet, returned data about approximately 20% of the surface. Once again, the information obtained showed a largely cratered landscape, although it also showed large expanses that were like an exceedingly dry and cold desert.[31]

As chance would have it, the first three Mariner missions explored some of the most geographically lackluster areas of Mars. Launched on 30 May 1971, Mari­ner 9, the first successful orbiter to reach Mars, finally revealed the topographical diversity of the red planet. When the spacecraft arrived in November, however, the planet was obscured for weeks by a massive dust storm. Two Soviet landers, Mars 2 and Mars 3, were lost in the storm, because they were not capable of waiting in orbit for it to clear. They did, however, become the first machines to reach the Mar­tian surface. A month after Mariner 9 reached orbit, the dust finally cleared, and it was able to begin mapping the planet. The first features that were discovered were a series of gigantic shield volcanoes—the largest being Olympus Mons, the largest known mountain in the solar system. The second major finding was the immense Valles Marineris system, which dwarfed the Grand Canyon and stretched one-quar­ter of the way around the planet. Finally, the spacecraft detected wide channels (reminiscent of river valleys) and the hummocky terrain that is characteristic of the south polar regions. In October 1972, when the probe ran out of fuel, it had taken 7,239 photographs and revealed a truly unique planet.[32]

After the success of the Mariner program, the next step in the exploration of Mars involved sending robotic vehicles to conduct in situ experiments. In the late summer of 1975, Viking 1 and Viking 2 were launched to the red planet to carry out a search for Martian life, among other scientific objectives. Each spacecraft actually had two separate components—an orbiter based on Mariner 9 technolo­gies and a lander equipped with various scientific instruments. On 20 July 1976, about a month after it had entered orbit and seven years after the first human land­ing on the moon, the 1,300-pound Viking 1 lander settled onto the western slopes of Chryse Planitia—it was the first probe to safely reach the planets surface. The lander quickly began photographing its surroundings, including a stunning 300- degree panorama that showed sand dunes, a large impact crater, low ridges, scattered boulders, and a pink sky.[33]

The Viking 1 lander was outfitted with a large array of sophisticated equipment, including: antennas for communicating with ground controllers on Earth; cam­

eras capable of transmitting photographs in black and white, color, and infrared; a mechanical arm capable of scooping soil for examination; and a meteorology boom for assessing atmospheric humidity, temperature, and wind speed. Eight days after landing, the mechanical arm went into action and scooped up its first sample of Martian soil. The soil was released through a funnel that automatically separated it for chemical and biological analysis. While the findings of the landers various experiments were initially ambiguous, it is the widely held opinion of most of the scientific community that they revealed no signs of Martian life.[34] The Viking 2 lander, which touched down on Utopia Planitia on 3 September 1976, similarly

revealed a Mars with no visible signs of living organisms. Despite the conclusions drawn by mission scientists that Mars was lifeless, however, there is still active debate regarding the possibility that the red planet once harbored life. When the durable Viking 1 lander finally ceased operations in November 1982, the first phase of robotic exploration of the planet officially came to an end. Although many of the beliefs that had endured during the first two-thirds of the 20th century had been disproved by robotic probes, there remained considerable interest in future journeys to Mars. The question at that time was whether this second phase of discovery would be centered on robotic or human exploration.

The ensuing chapters will examine the events leading up to the announcement of SEI, including an effort by NASA to garner political support for a crewed mission to Mars during post-Apollo planning. The central focus of this story, however, will be a detailed account of the agenda setting process that placed SEI on the govern­ment agenda and the intense political battles that virtually guaranteed that an actual program would not be adopted. Finally, the manuscript will investigate the lessons learned from this failed policy process in an effort to provide a tool to current and future policy makers attempting to garner continued political and public support for human exploration beyond Earth orbit.

By late August, the White House was getting gradually more worried about the progress NASA was making on the 90-Day Study. Mark Albrecht was concerned with the weekly status reports he was receiving from the Technical Study Group (TSG), which was the JSC-led team tasked with carrying out the study. “We didn’t like the reaction we got from NASA,” he remembered. “It had an uh oh’ quality to it. NASA reports seemed to be full of lofty verbiage but few technical outlines or alternatives for what a lunar base and a Mars mission would actually look like.”[197] Throughout this period, Albrecht kept emphasizing that the President wanted to see a lot of technical and budgetary options. Based on the space agency’s responses, however, the council staff was beginning to get the strong feeling that it wasn’t going to get any alternatives. Although Congress wasn’t heavily engaged during this period, there was rising concern because of the increasingly frayed Space Council – NASA relationship. The feeling on Capitol Hill was that this strain was caused largely because NASA was “running their own plan, which wasn’t the same as the White House’s plan.”[198]

As time went on, these stressed relations escalated into an all out war between the TSG and the Space Council. NASA’s Douglas O’Handley had actually made a few friends among the Space Council staff, and they were pleading with him to provide assistance. In the end, however, he was not able to provide any support because Admiral Truly and the TSG controlled all information relating to the 90-Day Study. Things got so bad that every time senior NASA officials returned from a White House meeting, there was another story about “those dumb [expletive] on the Space

Council. I have often thought,” O’Handley stated later, that the conflicting “per­sonalities caused many of the problems. If, instead of fighting with the Space Coun­cil, we had tried to work with them, the outcome might have been different.”[199]

While this external battle was being waged between the Space Council and NASA, there was another internal battle being waged within the agency. There was rising apprehension regarding JSC’s control of strategic planning for the initiative. Although the TSG was to a degree soliciting advice from other field centers, there was a feeling that the JSC leadership didn’t really take outside advice very well. Douglas O’Handley argued later, “I absolutely think a wider net should have been cast within NASA, but JSC deprived the other centers an opportunity to contribute to the initiative.”[200] The aerospace industry also wanted to play a role in the mission development, but weren’t heavily involved. Although there were numerous techni­cal concepts and architectural options floating about, the TSG essentially ignored them. JSC became “Fortress NASA” and outside ideas were not welcome.[201]

Despite ongoing problems between the Space Council and NASA, and misgiv­ings about the initiative on Capitol Hill, the TSG was allowed to continue compil­ing the 90-Day Study. The study group was staffed with about 450 people led on a day-to-day basis by Mark Craig, with an average of 250 people working directly on the study on any given day—although the core team was formed by the members of the AHWG.[202] The study began by decomposing the President’s objectives into top level technology requirements. These requirements were then used to develop an end-to-end architecture, which included the following features:

• Characterize the environment in which humans and machines must function with robotic missions

• Launch personnel and equipment from Earth

• Exploit the unique capabilities of human presence aboard the Space Station Freedom

• Transport crew and cargo from Earth orbit to lunar and Mars orbits and surfaces

• Conduct scientific studies and investigate in-situ resource development

The TSG assumed the agency would utilize the Space Shuttle and Space Station Freedom to implement SEI. This, in essence, meant the group never considered whether leveraging these systems was feasible or desirable given the existing fiscal environment. The inclusion of the two systems was almost a foregone conclusion because JSC wanted to protect the Shuttle and continue Station development—in the near term, this meant the ultimate success of SEI was not necessarily the agency’s top priority. From the agency’s perspective, completion of an orbital station was part of a serial progression that started with the shuttle and would eventually end with a human mission to Mars—an idea that dated back to post-Apollo planning. This viewpoint was directly influenced by Admiral Truly’s decision to base the 90- Day Study’s technical analysis on past NASA studies. Douglas O’Handley argues, “this is where the Space Council and the agency were on a collision course. NASA was documenting the past and the Space Council wanted options and innovative thinking. None of the NASA principals knew how to go about” providing those alternatives.[203]

The 90-Day Study alternative generation process was far from optimal. Because the TSG was so JSC-centric, technical and architectural concepts from other seg­ments of the space policy community were not solicited. Perhaps more importantly, the group considered budgetary constraints last. This should have been the first thing that was evaluated, with all programmatic options tailored to the fiscal reali­ties. Instead, the TSG put together a virtual ‘wish list’ for human exploration with­out taking into account the existing political environment. This eventually became an even greater problem because the group never paid “much attention to lowering the initiative’s costs by using emergent technologies.”[204] There is some indication that part of the reason for this was because NASA had been directed to virtually guarantee the safety of the astronauts. Based upon the Apollo experience and a con­temporary understanding of the life science challenges, the TSG had calculated that one member of a seven-person crew may not return. The Space Council staff told agency planners they wanted ‘seven out and seven back.’[205] This would have required 99-9999% mission reliability. As much as anything done by the space agency, this

White House decision drove costs up enormously.[206]

“Mars responds to a fundamental need in all of us.

There is a human imperative to explore. People must explore because
they are human beings with a desire to expand the scope of human
experience. Exploration adds to our knowledge, satisfies our curiosity,
and responds to our sense of adventure. We are going to Mars because
we are alive, and because it reflects something very special inside
each and every one of us. ”

NASA Associate Administrator, Arnold Aldrich, 1 May 1990

During the four decades prior to President Bush’s announcement of SEI, send­ing humans to Mars had often captured the imagination of the space community as the ultimate 20th century goal for the space program.1 Throughout that time period, inspired engineers generated scores of sophisticated mission architectures for accomplishing this objective. During the early Nixon administration, NASA’s leaders proposed exploration of the red planet as the post-Apollo goal of the Ameri­can space program. This effort was thwarted, however, by powerful political and budgetary forces. In the early 1980s, a group of enthusiasts held several confer­ences aimed at reviving interest in exploration of Mars. This campaign, combined with the recommendations of two important advisory committees, resulted in the [35]

Reagan administration officially placing human exploration beyond Earth orbit on the space agenda. This chapter highlights the 40-year “softening up” process that laid the foundation for President Bush’s announcement of SEI in the summer of 1989- This historical background will set the context under which human exploration of Mars ultimately reached the government agenda. More important, it will provide insights regarding emergent trends that increased the likelihood that Mars explo­ration would receive favorable consideration within important parts of the space policy making community, but also should have forewarned key policy makers that there were great challenges to adopting a costly new human spaceflight program from other parts of that community.

In early November, the Report of the 90-Day Study on Human Exploration of the Moon and Mars began circulating at the Space Council.[207] The cover letter attached to the report stated the purpose of the study was intended as a data source for the Space Council to refer to as it considered strategic planning issues related to SEI. The document purported not to contain any official recommendations or estimates of total mission cost.[208] The preface made it abundantly clear that the TSG regarded President Bush’s announcement speech as the initiatives guiding policy directive. As a result, the key doctrine that emerged from the report was expressed as follows. “The five reference approaches presented reflect the Presidents strategy: First, Space Station Freedom, and next, back to the Moon, and then a journey to Mars. The des­tination is, therefore, determined, and with that determination the general mission objectives and key program and supporting elements are defined. As a result, regard­less of the implementation approach selected, heavy-lift launch vehicles, space-based transportation systems, surface vehicles, habitats, and support systems for living and working in an extraterrestrial environment are required.” The analytic team did not include any alternative paths, but chose to strictly interpret Bush’s announce­ment speech. This dogmatic approach was carried through the entire report, with a predictable outcome—a set of reference approaches requiring a massive in-orbit infrastructure and large capital investments.[209]

To achieve the objectives set out in President Bush’s announcement speech, the TSG adopted an evolutionary 30-year plan for SEI implementation. As the AHWG had done before it, the group put forth a strategic approach that depended on Space Station Freedom and followed initial human missions to the Moon and Mars with phased development of permanent human outposts on these celestial bodies—start­ing with emplacement, continuing with consolidation, and finishing with opera­tions. Unlike the briefing that had been prepared during the agenda setting pro­cess, the 90-Day Study included a highly detailed description of NASA’s vision for the robotic, lunar, and Martian phases of exploration beyond Earth orbit.[210]

The initiative would begin with precursor robotic missions intended to “obtain data to assist in the design and development of subsequent human exploration mis­sions and systems, demonstrate technology and long communication time operation concepts, and dramatically advance scientific knowledge of the Moon and Mars.” The TSG developed a logical progression of robotic explorers to address specific operational and scientific priorities. First, a Lunar Observer program would launch two identical flight systems on one-year polar mapping missions. Second, a Mars Global Network program would launch two identical flight systems carrying orbit – ers and multiple landers to provide high-resolution surface data at several locations. Third, a Mars Sample Return program would launch two identical flight systems to return five kilograms each of Martian rocks, soil, and atmosphere to Earth—this was the centerpiece of the robotic sequence. Fourth, a Mars Site Reconnaissance Orbiter program would launch two orbiters and two communications satellites to charac­terize landing sites, assess landing hazards, and provide data for subsequent rover navigation. Finally, up to five Mars Rover missions would certify three sites to deter­mine the greatest potential for piloted vehicle landing and outpost establishment.[211]

Lunar Transfer Vehicle would have provided transportation between Space Station Freedom and lunar orbit (Source: 90-Day Study)

As robotic exploration of the red planet was ongoing, the TSG strategy called for the development of a permanent lunar outpost. The mission concept for achieving this goal was highly complicated, relying on a vast in-orbit infrastructure, numer­ous spacecraft, and multiple resource transfers. The plan called for “two to three launches of the lunar payload, crew, transportation vehicles, and propellants from Earth to Space Station Freedom. At Freedom, the crew, payloads, and propellants are loaded onto the lunar transfer vehicle that will take them to low lunar orbit. The lunar transfer vehicle meets in lunar orbit with an excursion vehicle, which will either be parked in lunar orbit or will ascend from the lunar surface, and payload, crew, and propellants are transferred. [Then] the excursion vehicle descends to the lunar surface.” A combination of cargo and piloted flights (with four crew mem­bers) would be utilized to construct the lunar outpost. The emplacement phase would begin with two cargo flights to deliver the initial habitation facilities, which included a habitation module (to be covered with lunar regolith to provide radia­tion shielding), airlock, power system, unpressurized manned/robotic rover, and associated support equipment. Emplacement would prepare the way for extended human missions during the consolidation phase, which would include erection of a constructible habitat to provide additional living space and experimentation with in situ resource utilization.[212]

The final step in the TSG strategy was the establishment of a human outpost on Mars. Similar to the lunar program, the Martian sequence would begin with the launch of the crew, surface payload, transportation vehicles, and propellant from Earth to Space Station Freedom. In LEO, the transfer and excursion vehicles would be inspected before setting out on the long journey toward the red planet. “Upon approach to Mars, the transfer and excursion vehicles separate and perform aero – braking maneuvers to enter the Martian atmosphere separately. The vehicles rendez-

Inflatable lunar habitat would have been outpost for up to 12 astronauts (Source: 90-Day Study)

vous in Mars orbit, and the crew of four transfers to the excursion vehicle, which descends to the surface using the same aero-brake. When their tour of duty is com­plete, the crew leaves the surface in the ascent module of the Mars excursion vehicle to rendezvous with the transfer vehicle in Mars orbit. The transfer vehicle leaves Mars orbit and returns the crew to Space Station Freedom.”[213] Standard mission profiles for crewed flights to Mars would follow two different trajectory classes: one for a 500-day roundtrip with surface stays up to 100 days and one for a 1,000-day roundtrip with surface stays of approximately 600 days. After initial emplacement, the consolidation phase would entail assembly of a constructible habitat and utiliza­tion of a pressurized rover for long-range surface exploration.[214]

As envisioned by theTSG, implementation of SEI would require the construc­tion of a new launch vehicle and multiple spacecraft to travel beyond Earth orbit. The study introduced two primary concepts for a heavy launcher, one a Shuttle – derived alternative and the other based on the proposed Advanced Launch System.[215] [216] As indicated above, the in-space transportation system consisted of transfer and excursion vehicles—these systems would utilize chemical propulsion, although the report called for research funding to investigate nuclear propulsion. For Mars exploration, the transfer vehicle would actually carry the excursion vehicle to the red planet utilizing a large trans-Mars injection stage. The transfer vehicle would

Mars Transfer Vehicle would have propelled crew and mars excursion vehicle to Mars orbit (Source: 90-Day Study)

Mars Excursion Vehicle would have transported four astronauts and 25-tons of cargo to Martian surface (Source: 90 Day Study)

include a crew module that would be a “single, pressurized structure 7.6 meters in diameter and 9 meters in length with…a life support system that recycles water and oxygen. The crew is provided private quarters, exercise equipment, and space suits that are appropriate for the long mission duration.” The excursion vehicle crew module would provide living space during descent, ascent, and for up to 30 days in case of problems with the surface habitat.44

The TSG developed similar planetary surface systems for both Moon and Mar­tian missions. In fact, the main rationale for development of a lunar outpost was as a testing ground for subsystem technologies for later missions to the red planet. The initial habitats for both outposts would be horizontal Space Station Freedom- derived cylinders 4.45 meters in diameter and 8.2 meters long. Laboratory modules would be attached to add expanded living volume. Each of these habitats would have regenerative life support systems capable of recovering 90% of the oxygen from carbon dioxide and potable water from hygiene and waste water. During the consolidation phase, an expanded habitat would be required to accommodate large crews and longer stays by providing more space. This would be a “constructible [11 meter] diameter inflatable structure partially buried in a crater or a prepared hole. This structure is an order of magnitude lighter than multi-module configurations of equivalent volume. Its internal structure includes self-deploying columns that [217]
telescope upward and lock into place when the structure is inflated. When fully assembled and outfitted, the constructible habitat provides three levels, and has the volume required for expansion of habitat and science facilities. Major subsystems of the constructible habitat include the life support and thermal control systems, pressure vessels and internal structure, communications and information manage­ment systems, and interior outfitting.” During this stage, a 100- kilowatt nuclear dynamic power system would begin providing the growing outpost much needed electric power (the plan called for ongoing progression of this capability, leading to a 550-kilowatt system). Initial surface exploration would be conducted using electric powered, unpressurized rovers. These vehicles would only have a range of 50 kilometers with human occupants, although they could be telerobotically oper­ated for missions up to 1,000 kilometers from the outpost. This provided very lim­ited capacity for long-range human exploration, which was nominally the primary reason for making the journey.[218]

The TSG mission plan was designed as the framework for selection of an overall “reference approach.” The 90-Day Study included five different reference approaches, which were intended to provide different options (using only one mis­sion strategy) for achieving President Bush’s goals. The report introduced a set of metrics (cost, schedule, complexity, and program risk) that could be used by policy makers to decide the appropriate timeframe for SEI implementation. The reference approaches simply altered these metrics to provide different milestones for a single strategic plan. Thus, instead of examining numerous technical, operational, or stra­tegic alternatives, the TSG chose to put forward one basic system architecture with slight timeline modifications. The different reference approaches included:

• Reference Approach A: Formulated to establish human presence on the Moon in 2001, using the lunar outpost as a learning center to develop the capabilities to move on to Mars. An initial expedition to Mars would allow a 30-day stay on the surface, with the first 600-day visit in 2018.

• Reference Approach B: A variation of Reference Approach A, which advanced the date of the first human Mars landing to 2011. This would reduce the ability to use the lunar outpost as a learning center for the Mars outpost.

• Reference Approach C: A variation of Reference Approach A, which advanced even further the date of the first Mars mission, but maintained the same expansion schedule for Mars outpost development.

• Reference Approach D: A variation of Reference Approach A, which

slipped all major milestones two to three years.

• Reference Approach E: Formulated to reduce the scale of lunar outpost activity by using only a human-tended mode of operation and limiting the flight rate to the Moon to one mission per year. Three expeditionary missions to Mars (with 90-day surface stays) would precede the 2027 establishment of a permanent outpost with 600-day occupancy.

In essence, this set of reference approaches provided two limited alternatives (Refer­ence Approaches A and E). The only difference between the two was the magnitude of lunar development and the timing of different milestones. There were no alterna­tives provided that suggested that it was not feasible from a budgetary perspective to attempt both a permanent return to the Moon and human exploration of Mars. In addition, as pointed out above, there were no alternatives that were based on sig­nificantly different mission profiles or technical systems. This represented a major shortcoming of the report, which would come back to haunt the space agency in subsequent months and years.[219]

The 90-Day Study included a cost estimate for the TSG’s vision of SEI. It was based on a 30-year planning horizon and employed historical experience to “derive the approximate values for supporting development, systems engineering and inte­gration, program management, recurring operations, new facilities, and civil service staffing levels.” The TSG performed a parametric cost analysis using three regression models developed at different NASA field centers. The Marshall Space Flight Center Cost Model consisted of subsystem level data gathered from past human spaceflight programs, which was employed to estimate space transportation vehicle costs as a function of mass (assigning each reference approach a subjective complexity factor). The Johnson Space Center Advanced Mission Cost Model used a broader dataset drawing on developmental program statistics from NASA and other technology organizations to calculate expected surface system costs. Finally, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Project Cost Model estimated program costs for robotic missions draw­ing on past analogous mission figures.[220]

The study provided funding estimates for reference approaches A and E, apprais­ing expected costs from 1991 to 2025 (in constant fiscal year 1991 dollars). The esti­mates included reserves that accounted for nearly 55% of predicted expenditures, which was intended to allow for programmatic uncertainties. The report included tables that detailed the cost estimates for both reference approaches, separated into key phases:

• Reference Approach A

— Lunar Outpost: $100 billion (FY 1991-2001)

— Lunar Outpost Emplacement &: Operations: $208 billion (FY 2002-2025)

— Mars Outpost: $158 billion (FY 1991-2016)

— Mars Outpost Emplacement & Operations: $75 billion (FY2017-2025)

— Total: $541 billion

• Reference Approach E

— Lunar Outpost: $98 billion (FY 1991-2004)

— Lunar Outpost Emplacement & Operations: $137 billion (FY 2005-2025)

— Mars Outpost: $160 billion (FY 1991-2016)

— Mars Outpost Emplacement & Operations: $76 billion (FY2017-2025)

— Total: $471 billion

The report also included two startling charts, which illustrated the impact of the reference approaches on the overall NASA budget. Starting with a base budget of approximately $ 15 billion, the implementation of both reference approaches would require increasing the annual agency appropriation to $30 billion by FY 2000, where it would stay for another 25 years.[221] In the coming weeks and months, it would become increasingly clear that these budgetary requirements were simply staggering to all outside observers. Admiral Truly and the TSG clearly believed that President Bush was prepared to support a major escalation in annual spending for the space program. This judgment was reached despite the fact that the nation was facing large budget deficits and almost every other sector of the government was expecting significant funding cuts. It proved to be a tremendous miscalculation.

In 1952, Dr. Wernher von Braun[36] published the first detailed mission architec­ture for human exploration of the red planet in his classic book, The Mars Project. The manuscript was actually the appendix of an earlier, unpublished work that von Braun had written while interned with his fellow German rocket engineers in El Paso, Texas after the conclusion of World War II (WW1I). Von Braun had a sweeping vision for human travel to Mars. His plan called for ten 400-ton space­craft capable of transporting a crew of 70 to the red planet—almost 1,000 ferry flights would be required to assemble this massive “flotilla” in Earth orbit. The strat­egy incorporated a minimum-energy trajectory that would carry the ships to Mars in approximately eight months. Upon arriving in Martian orbit, a glider would descend for a sliding landing on one of the planets polar ice caps. The crew from that ship would then trek 4,000 miles to the equator to build a landing strip for two additional gliders, which would transport the remainder of the exploratory team to the surface. After setting up an inflatable base camp habitat, the crew would com­mence a 400-day survey of the planet—which, von Braun assumed, would include taking samples of local flora and fauna and exploring the Martian canals—this was more than a decade before Mariner 4 returned the first close-up images of Mars back to Earth. Following a year of exploration, the crew would return to Earth,

completing its three-year journey.[37]

In the early 1950s, Collier’s magazine approached Wernher von Braun and sev­eral other prominent engineers and scientists with an offer to write a series of eight articles about space exploration. The publication of these articles in Collier’s, with its circulation of almost four million, represented the beginning of a concerted “soft­ening up” process for space exploration in general, and Moon and Mars explora­tion in particular—with the express purpose of educating the American public.[38] In April 1954, von Braun and journalist Cornelius Ryan penned an article for Collier’s entitled “Can We Get to Mars?” This piece drew heavily from the mission concept found in The Mars Project, but also included an Earth-orbiting space station that would be used during the projects construction phase. In addition, Von Braun included a discussion that analyzed the potential physical and psychological dif­ficulties that the astronaut crew would face on the voyage. He concluded, “…we have, or will acquire, the basic knowledge to solve all the physical problems of a flight to Mars… [but] psychologists undoubtedly will [have] to make careful plans to keep up the morale of the voyagers.” In 1956, von Braun collaborated with fellow German engineer Willy Ley to expand on the Collier’s articles in a book entitled The

Exploration of Mars. The manuscript introduced a refined, cheaper mission architec­ture that reduced the number of ships going to Mars from 10 to 2, and the number of crew from 70 to 12.[39]

In the mid-1950s, the Collier’s articles served as the basis for three animated films about space exploration produced by Walt Disney. Wernher von Braun served as technical advisor for the shows, while Disney provided artistic direction for the series. The American Broadcasting Company aired the first episode entitled “Man in Space” on 9 April 1955- Disney, introducing the broadcast, stated that the aim of the series was to merge “the tools of our trade with the knowledge of the scientists to give a factual picture of the latest plans for man’s newest adventure.” The epi­sode introduced fundamental scientific principles and concluded with von Braun’s vision for a four-stage orbital rocket ship. The second show, entitled “Man and the Moon,” aired on 28 December 1955 and “present[ed] a realistic and believable trip to the moon in a rocket ship—not in some far-off fantastic never-never land, but in the near foreseeable future.” The final show in the series, entitled “Mars and Beyond,” aired almost two years later on 4 December 1957- During this episode, von Braun and Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger revealed plans for “atomic electric space ships [that] feature [d] a revolutionary new principle that will make possible the long trip to Mars with only a small expenditure of fuel.” The Disney technicians provided dramatic animations of a 13-month voyage employing these nuclear rocket engines. TV Guide stated that “Mars and Beyond” represented “the thinking of the best sci­entific minds working on space projects today, making the picture more fact than fantasy.”[40]

Howard McCurdy argues in his book Space and the American Imagination that von Braun’s collaborations with Collier’s and Disney were part of a larger concerted effort to prepare the public for the inevitable conquest of space. He contends that scientists, writers, and political leaders sought to construct a romantic vision of space exploration laid upon images already rooted in the American culture, such as the myth of the frontier. The resulting vision of space exploration had the power to excite, entertain, or frighten (i. e. Cold War)—and it was incredibly successful. In 1949, only 15% of the population believed that we would go to the moon in the 20th century. By the time President Kennedy announced the lunar landing goal, however, the majority of Americans viewed it as inevitable. McCurdy asserts that the primary reason for this shift in national mood was the introduction of space concepts to the mainstream public by von Braun and other visionaries during the 1950s.[41]

Building on the clear rise in interest in space exploration following the launch of Sputnik (and solidified with President Kennedy’s decision to send humans to the Moon), NASA began a series of studies to investigate alternative mission profiles for sending humans to Mars—continuing the softening up process that Wernher von Braun had initiated in the early 1950s and beginning a long-term alternative gen­eration process within the policy stream. In April 1959, Congress approved funding for NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio to conduct the first official architecture study for human exploration of Mars. Under the Lewis plan, a crew of seven would be propelled toward the red planet by an advanced, high-thrust nuclear rocket engine. The strategy called for a 420-day round trip with a 40-day surface stay. The ship design provided substantial living space for the crew and a heavily shielded cylindrical vault in the hub to protect the crew from radiation exposure. This basic model, using nuclear propulsion for the Earth orbit to Mars journey, became the standard within NASA for the next decade.[42]

In 1961, the year in which humans first reached Earth orbit, NASA was largely focused on mission plans for sending humans to explore the surface of the moon— not Mars. However, there was at least one important study of Mars exploration that was produced that year. Authored by Ernst Stuhlinger, who directed advanced propulsion work at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), the study expanded on earlier designs for ion-powered spacecraft. This form of propulsion used an electric current to convert a propellants (e. g. cesium) atoms into positive ions. The engine would then expel these high-speed ions to create a constant low-thrust acceleration. The primary benefit of this vehicle type was that it used relatively little propellant, drastically reducing the amount of launches required to assemble a ship in Earth – orbit. The main drawback, however, was that the low-thrust vehicle would take longer to make the trip to Mars and back. Stuhlinger also introduced a new inno­vation, twirling the spacecraft to generate artificial gravity for the crew. His overall mission plan called for five 150-meter long twirling ion ships to take 15 astronauts on the voyage to the red planet.[43]

In mid-1962, MSFC commenced the Early Manned Planetary Roundtrip Expe­ditions (EMPIRE) study. Wernher von Braun, now director of Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and the leading advocate pushing for exploration of Mars, recog­nized that his field center would need a post-Apollo goal if it were to survive after completion of the Saturn V rocket program. The goal of the EMPIRE study was to provide a long-term human exploration strategy. The study participants were tasked with creating mission plans that utilized moderate modifications of Apollo tech – nology for Martian flyby and orbiter (but not landing) missions. Three EMPIRE contractors submitted reports to MSFC—Lockheed, Ford Aeronutronic, and Gen­eral Dynamics. The Lockheed and Aeronutronic teams focused primarily on 18 to 22 month flyby missions conducted by spacecraft that utilized a rotating design to create artificial gravity for the crew. The General Dynamics report, on the other hand, focused on orbiter missions conducted by convoys of modular spacecraft. Krafft Ehricke, the principal author of the General Dynamics study, also included options for landing missions. All of the missions proposed under the auspices of the EMPIRE study required launch vehicles capable of lifting 2 Vi to 5 times the weight of the Saturn V being developed for Project Apollo.[44] [45]

In 1963, at the same time MSFC was conducting the EMPIRE study, the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) (later renamed the Johnson Space Center—JSC) started to conduct its own advanced planning for the future of the space program. Assistant Director of MSC, Maxime Faget, favored a phased exploration approach, with a space station and lunar base preceding a human mission to Mars. The MSC study produced the first detailed designs for a Mars Excursion Module (MEM), a piloted craft that would be capable of landing on the Martian surface. The mis­sion plan developed by MSC called for a complicated flyby-rendezvous where two separate spacecraft would be sent toward Mars—Direct and Flyby. The Flyby ship would depart Earth on a 200-day trip to Mars. The piloted Direct ship would leave 50 to 100 days later on a 120-day trip to Mars. Upon arrival, the Direct ship would release the MEM, which would land on the red planet. After completing its mis­sion, the MEM would rendezvous with the Flyby ship as it swung past Mars and headed home. This high-risk approach saved propellant because it utilized a free return trajectory to return the MEM to Earth.11

In July 1965, Mariner 4 conducted the first flyby of Mars and snapped its historic 21 images of the red planet. The photographs revealed a planet with an exceptionally thin carbon dioxide atmosphere and an apparently lifeless, cratered landscape. These findings had a dramatic impact on planning for planetary explora­

tion. Researchers had always assumed Mars to be an Earthlike planet that would support a human crew. Instead they found a resoundingly hostile environment. As a result, the next major Mars study, conducted the following year by the Office of Manned Spaceflight at NASA Headquarters, called for humans to orbit the planet but counted on robotic landers to conduct actual surface exploration. By 1967, with the Vietnam War heating up, Congress eliminated all funding for studying human exploration of the red planet.[46]

“And so as this century closes, it is in America’s hands
to determine the kind of people, the kind of planet, we will become
in the next. We will leave the Solar System and travel to the stars.
Not only because it is democracy’s dream, but because it is
democracy’s destiny. ”

President George Bush, 11 May 1990

Throughout the fall of 1989, President Bush had not been heavily engaged in the evolution of SEI within his administration. He had largely delegated responsibility for the initiative to Vice President Quayle, while he addressed more pressing events on the international stage—most importantly, the virtual implosion of communism in Eastern Europe. International tensions remained a fact of life during the coming months as reunification efforts began in East and West Germany; independence movements gained momentum in several Soviet republics; President Gorbachev proposed that the Communist Party give up its monopoly on power in the U. S.S. R.; and Panamanian dictator General Manuel Noriega overturned democratic elections that had effectively ousted him from power. Regardless, during the early part of the new year, President Bush was able to return his attention to domestic mat­ters—including the fate of the American space program.1 [263]

On 8 January 1969, President-elect Richard Nixon received the “Report of the Task Force on Space,” a thirteen-member blue-ribbon panel charged with advis­ing the incoming president regarding options for the American space program. Chaired by Nobel Prize winner Charles Townes of the University of California at Berkeley, the task force issued a number of recommendations. The board favored a more balanced program that promoted expanded utilization of robotic probes and satellites for scientific research and exploration, and in a wide variety of applica­tions (e. g., communications, weather, and earth resource surveys). With regard to planetary exploration, the task force did not support the immediate adoption of a human spaceflight program based on a planetary lander or orbiter. Instead, the panel favored continued lunar exploration that built on Apollo technology to allow for greater mobility and extended stays on the surface.[47]

The following month, President Nixon asked Vice President Spiro Agnew to chair a Space Task Group (STG) created to provide a definitive recommendation regard­ing the course the space program should take during the post-Apollo period. The other members of the STG were Secretary of the Air Force Robert Seamans, NASA Administrator Thomas Paine, and Presidential Science Advisor Lee DuBridge. Joan Hoff argues in Spaceflight and the Myth of Presidential Leadership that the creation of the STG was “a mixed blessing for NASA because Paine assumed almost imme­diately that Agnews personal and public support of a ‘manned flight to Mars by the end of this century’ would carry the day inside the White House and BOB [Bureau of Budget], when nothing could have been further from the truth.”[48]'[49] At an early STG meeting, Paine pushed forward based on this incorrect assumption by con­tending that the space agency needed a new program to rally around. Agnew was supportive, stating that NASA needed an ‘Apollo for the seventies.”[50]

As the primary policy entrepreneurs supporting a human mission to Mars, Paine and Agnew selected an approach for post-Apollo planning that did not mesh with either President Nixon’s basic ideology or changes in the national mood regarding space exploration. Hoff writes “Nixon was concerned about scientific-technological programs that might stress engineering over science, competition over cooperation, civilian over military, and adventure over applications…[and his] emphasis on fru­gality in government spending prompted caution on his part in endorsing any effort in space.” Public sentiment toward the space program had also begun to shift, with increasing concerns that the government had misplaced priorities. A Gallup Poll conducted in July 1969, at the time of the Apollo 11 mission, indicated that only 39% of Americans were in favor of U. S. government spending to send Americans to Mars, while 53% were opposed.[51] Thus, Paine and Agnew were pushing for a large new Apollo-like commitment despite the fact that there appeared to be little or no support for such an undertaking within the White House or the mass public.[52]

On 16 July, at the launch of Apollo 11, Vice President Agnew told reporters that it was his “individual feeling that we should articulate a simple, ambitious, optimistic goal of a manned flight to Mars by the end of the century.” Up until this point, NASA had been focusing primarily on a large space station as the logical post-Apollo program. The space agency had been unsuccessful in gaining political support for such a program, however, so Administrator Paine decided that it was the appropriate time to make a human Mars mission the center of future planning. On 4 August, Wernher von Braun came to Washington to brief the STG on options for human exploration of Mars by 1982. After the briefing, Paine informed the panel that the mission could be accomplished if NASA’s budget was increased to $9 to $10 billion by the middle of the decade—at a time when the NASA budget was only $4.25 billion.[53] This seemed to be contrary to President Nixon’s fiscal philoso­phy as well as existing budgetary realities.

As it became clear that the STG was seriously considering an early Mars mission, widespread criticism of such an undertaking emerged. What was most troublesome for NASA was that formerly vigorous supporters of the space program were opposed to large new projects. Senator Clinton Anderson, Chairman of the Senate Com­mittee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, stated “now is not the time to commit ourselves to the goal of a manned mission to Mars.” Representative George Miller, Chairman of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, said “five, perhaps ten, years from now we may decide that it would be in the national interest to begin a carefully planned program extending over several years to send men to Mars.” The Washington Post and New York Times both questioned the validity of the enterprise, the latter stating that an early crewed Mars mission was scientifically and technically premature.[54]

In the face of growing opposition to a Mars project, Robert Seamans grew con­cerned that his colleagues were considering recommending a program that had no political support. Seamans, who had been a senior NASA official from I960 to 1968, argued that the space agency should utilize its capabilities to address “prob­lems directly affecting men here on Earth.” He contended that new human explora­tion initiatives should be deferred until their technical feasibility was determined. Budget Director Robert Mayo, who had observer status within the STG, agreed with this position. He believed that from a budgetary viewpoint an Apollo-like program was not practical in the near-term. Due to a lack of consensus regarding the exact direction that the post-Apollo program should travel, it was decided that the panel would present the White House with several future program alternatives. Presidential advisor John Erlichman demanded that the report not include any politically infeasible goals, such as a human mission to Mars by 1982.[55]

On 15 September 1969, the STG report was submitted to President Nixon. The panel recommended that “this Nation accept the basic goal of a balanced manned and unmanned space program conducted for the benefit of all mankind.” To accom­plish this goal, the report stressed five program objectives, including:

• Expansion of space applications

• Enhancement of space technology for national security purposes

• Continuation of earth and space science projects

• Development of a new space transportation capability and a space station

• Promotion of international cooperation in space

Finally, the group recommended that the nation “accept the long-range option or goal of manned planetary exploration with a manned Mars mission before the end of this century as the first target.” The STG report did not, however, support an immediate commitment to any particular future program or initiative. Instead, the panel provided President Nixon with several alternatives and left it to him to choose the best option.[56]

On 7 March 1970, six months after the STG report was submitted, President Nixon offered his first official comments on the future course of the space program. In his statement, the president declared that the space program would be less of a government priority during his administration. Nixon rejected the need for a bold new exploration initiative, arguing “many critical problems here on this planet make high priority demands on our attention and our resources. By no means should we allow our space program to stagnate. But—with the entire future and the entire universe before us—we should not try to do everything at once. Our approach to space must be bold—but it must also be balanced.”[57] This statement formally ended NASA’s attempts to get approval for a mission to Mars and led to the even­tual endorsement of the Space Shuttle program. Joan Hoff argues that there were four major reasons for the failure of NASA to gain approval for a bold post-Apollo initiative. First, President Nixon never “need[ed] to use the space program to prove himself able to deal with the Soviets, as Kennedy and Johnson apparently thought they did. NASA administrators and White House science advisors in 1969-72 failed

to appreciate this important shift____ ” Second, the Nixon administration inherited

economic problems generated by immense spending related to the Vietnam War and Great Society social programs. Third, an anti-technology mood within the American public forced policy makers to question whether large spending for the space program was a proper allocation of scarce government funding. As a result, the president decided that there was no political downside to supporting budget cuts for

NASA. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Hoff contended that “institutional obstinacy at NASA when asked to comply with changing government budgeting methods and changing public expectations about the meaning of the space program” led to a deceleration within the space program.[58] John Logsdon agreed with this line of reasoning, writing in Exploring the Unknown: Organizing for Exploration, “…the results of NASA’s attempt to mobilize support behind the manned Mars objective were, from the Agency’s perspective, little short of disastrous…. What happened to NASA plans and the STG report is best viewed, not in terms of NASA winning’ or ‘losing,’ but in terms of what happens when an agency’s plans are significantly at variance with what political leaders judge to be both in the long-term interests of the nation and politically feasible.”[59] The fact that NASA pushed the Mars initiative despite substantial opposition resulted in discussion of sending humans to the red planet being a taboo subject within NASA for the next decade.

During the early months of the new year, the Space Council staff began devel­oping actual policy directives for the implementation of SEI. Based on direction provided by the full Council during two meetings on the subject, the staff was tasked with drafting two documents. The first would provide general policy guid­ance, while the second would introduce a course of action for including interna­tional partners in Moon-Mars missions. In a sign that the Administration had lost complete faith in NASA, the staff turned to the Department of Defense to conduct most of the analytical work necessary to develop these documents. Although NASA leaders had originally been in favor of re-establishing the Space Council, this view had dramatically shifted now that the new organization had turned to the military to comment on and critique the space agency’s plans and projects.[264] Regardless, over the period of several months, the council staff worked closely with military analysts and the ‘deputies committee,’ a group consisting of high-level representatives from each of the Council’s member agencies, to gain a consensus on the wording of the forthcoming policy statements.[265]

On 21 February, President Bush signed a Presidential Decision on the Space Exploration Initiative. Fully supported by Vice President Quayle and the National Space Council, its public unveiling three weeks later was clearly timed to coincide with the release of the NRC review of the 90-Day Study. The NRC panels’ find­ings and recommendations largely validated the policy guidance found within the presidential directive. The objective of the document was to provide the American space program with near-term guidance for carrying out the long-term SEI vision. The policy consisted of the following components:

• The initiative will include both lunar and Mars program elements

• The initiative will include robotic science missions

• Early research will focus on a search for new and innovative approaches and

technologies

— Research will focus on high leverage technologies with the potential to greatly reduce costs

— Mission, concept, and systems analyses will be carried out in parallel with technology research

— Research will lead to definition of two or more significantly different exploration architectures

— A baseline program architecture will be selected from these alternatives

• Three agencies will carry out the initiative, with the National Space Council coordinating all activities

— NASA will be the principal implementing agency

— DOD and DOE will have major roles in technology development and concept definition

Coming eight months after President Bush first announced the initiative, this direc­tive provided the direction that had clearly been needed within a fractious policy making community.[266] It was among the most significant documents in the chronicle of SEI. It represented an outright skirmish in the battle to gain control of strategic space policy planning within the Bush administration. Mark Albrecht said later, “it took us almost a year to go where we wanted to go directly and it cost us time, it cost confusion on the Hill.”[267] Although this was a criticism of NASA, the Administration itself shared equally in the blame for not providing the required direction earlier. It is unclear whether the ultimate fate of SEI would have changed even if policy guid­ance had been provided much earlier, but it seems safe to conclude that the lack of administration leadership significantly reduced the initiatives chances of success. By the time the council finally supplied the needed direction, it was probably too late to resurrect an undertaking Congress presumed would be outrageously expen­sive. Dick Malow recalled that even with of a presidential directive providing policy guidance for SEI, “the general feeling about the program on the Hill continued to weaken.”[268]

At the end of March, the White House made public a second presidential direc­tive announcing President Bush’s decision to commence discussions with foreign nations regarding international cooperation for SEI. This idea had been encour­aged the previous summer by Carl Sagan, who sought to take advantage of warmer relations between the United States and Soviet Union. The Department of Trans­portation’s (DOT) Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee had likewise recommended cooperation with the U. S.S. R. The committee’s chairman,

Alan Lovelace, said “cooperation with the Soviets is logical given the great desire of the administration to take steps to support developments in Eastern Europe.” Another potential reason to cooperate was to reduce the U. S. contribution to the expensive initiative. It was suggested that the issue should be placed on the table for the Bush-Gorbachev summit planned for the summer.[269] The policy document itself indicated that the nation should pursue negotiations with Europe, Canada, Japan, and the Soviet Union. It was believed that this decision directive would sup­port three important objectives. First, and most importantly, it would expand the coalition of initiative supporters by adding a foreign policy rationale. Second, it would involve partners capable of contributing financial resources to an expensive undertaking. Third, it would involve partners with important technical capabili­ties—most notably Soviet experience addressing the impacts of prolonged space – flight and constructing nuclear space systems.[270]

The Soviet reaction to President Bush’s call for international cooperation was extremely positive. Four years earlier, President Gorbachev had asked President Reagan to join his nation in a joint mission to the red planet, which would have met a long held ambition within the U. S.S. R. for human space exploration focusing on a voyage to Mars. After the release of the presidential directive, the spokesman for the Soviet embassy in Washington stated, “we have always been for cooperation with the United States in this area.” Despite this encouraging response, by the end of the month, the NRC panel that had been evaluating SEI publicly warned against any cooperative robotic sample return missions to Mars with the Soviets. While the NRC did not address human exploration, it found that a highly interdependent undertaking could make planetary science “a potential hostage to political events.” In the long-run, the potential benefits sought from exploring international coopera­tion were never realized.[271]

While the Space Council was working to provide long overdue policy guid­ance for SEI’s implementation, senior NASA officials were appearing on Capitol Hill to defend the proposed increase in the agency’s budget. In late March, the House Appropriations subcommittee with authority over the NASA budget held two days of hearing on the matter. It became apparent very quickly that the com­mittee, chaired by Representative Bob Traxler (D-MI), was committed to identify­

ing and eliminating all funding associated with SEI. Chairman Traxler began the SEI-related questioning by asking NASA if the net increase in spending associated with the initiative was approximately $300 million—if on-going programs such as the National Aerospace Plane, Space Station Freedom, and Mars Observer were not included. NASA Comptroller Thomas Campbell answered that this was cor­rect. Traxler then asked a series of questions regarding the technologies included in the 90-Day Study, which led to a long response from Admiral Truly defending the report—he concluded that the $188 million in funding for new technologies were dedicated to ascertaining what innovations would be required to efficiently explore the Moon and Mars. An undeterred Traxler followed-up by asking whether Truly agreed with the NRC report, which concluded that SEI as envisioned in the 90-Day Study would be technically challenging and very expensive. After Truly answered in the affirmative, Traxler got to the heart of the Congressional concern by asking whether fully implementing the TSG plan would require more than doubling the NASA budget. Once again answering affirmatively, Truly stated that regardless of what technologies or strategies were selected, exploration of the Moon and Mars would be an expensive undertaking. Truly suggested that the technological, educa­tional, and spiritual benefits derived from such an endeavor was worth the cost.

After a brief foray into technical details, Traxler returned to budgetary concerns, questioning the space agency’s ability to accurately forecast programmatic costs for long term projects. He asked whether Truly was confident in NASA’s estimate for reference approach A ($541 billion). The administrator simply said it was prema­ture to make this determination, but that he believed the program would be “very expensive.” Traxler followed-up by asking when NASA would be able to provide firm numbers, to which Truly said it would take three or four years of focused technology development to provide a more definitive estimate. In essence, Truly was suggesting that Congress should invest billions of dollars in technology development programs before the agency could tell it how much the long-term project would cost. During the second day of testimony, with many Congressional concerns presumably con­firmed, Chairman Traxler only returned to SEI in an attempt to accurately identify exactly where new money for SEI could be found within the NASA budget request. This was an ominous sign, calling into question whether Congress would provide any funding for implementation of the initiative.[272]

By the end of April, with Congress preparing to eliminate all SEI-related funding from the NASA budget, the Space Council set into motion a concentrated lobby­ing effort aimed at garnering support for the space program and SEI. The first step

in the strategy was to hold a “space summit” at the White House. While President Bush met weekly with the senior Congressional leadership to discuss selected sub­jects, this meeting was notable because it was the first time in American history that space policy would be the sole topic on the agenda.11 According to an internal White House memorandum, the primary purpose of the summit was for Bush to show support for the FY 1991 space budget. Secondarily, the gathering provided an opportunity to discuss SEI. Not since the initiation of the Apollo program had a president given such high priority to the space program. During the intervening period, space activities were kept alive by a select group of congressional appropria – tors and top-level NASA officials. The belief within the administration was that this traditional coalition would not be able to deliver on President Bush’s ambitious request for a 24% increase in funding for the space agency or obtain approval to implement SEI. Senator Barbara Mikulski and Senator Jake Garn (chair and rank­ing member of the Appropriation Subcommittee on VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies) had confirmed this opinion, warning the White House that the Moon – Mars initiative was particularly vulnerable in the current budgetary environment, absent strong intervention by the White House. Based on this advice, the White House plan was to have President Bush actively promote the initiative, both pub­licly and with top congressional powerbrokers.[273] [274]

On 1 May, after being delayed in mid-April by the death of Senator Spark Mat – sunaga (D-HI),[275] the summit took place at the Old Executive Office Building. The event was attended by sixteen congressional participants[276] and nearly twenty mem­bers of the White House staff.[277] President Bush opened the meeting by affirming his personal commitment to the American space program, which he believed to be of vital importance to the nation’s future. He contended that space leadership was crucial to maintaining national leadership in the high tech world—in particular, he lauded the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) aboard the Shuttle Discovery in late April as an example of U. S. accomplishments in space science. He further argued that there were real and tangible benefits derived from invest­ments in the national space program, including revolutions in communications and computerization, advances in industrial materials and medical knowledge, the cre­ation of millions of high-tech jobs, and inspiring future generations of scientists and engineers. President Bush then appealed for congressional support for his increase in civil space spending—which he asserted would put the nation on the path of recovery from many years of underinvestment in space. He made the case that Mis­sion to Planet Earth and SEI embodied what the space program was all about—to use space to examine Earth from above and to push outward to new frontiers. In conclusion to his remarks, Bush acknowledged that Congress was concerned about the proposed investment in the Moon-Mars initiative. To address these issues, he turned the meeting over to Vice President Quayle.[278]

Vice President Quayle began by emphasizing the Space Councils priorities, including: a balanced mix of human and robotic, scientific and exploratory mis­sions; pursuit of challenging initiatives; and pushing space innovation designed to ensure national leadership in cutting edge technology. He then launched into a defense of SEI. Stating that the Council had dedicated significant effort to creating a strategy for SEI, Quayle argued that it was fundamentally in the national interest to implement a new round of exploration that would produce countless direct and indirect benefits. He told the attendees that the councils approach for SEI was to begin a multi-year technology research effort. The administration was asking Con­gress for the funding ($188 million in FY1991) and the time to examine alternative ways for better, faster, cheaper, safer ways of reaching the Moon and Mars. Quayle made clear to the assembled congressional leaders that this should not be considered a new program start, but an opportunity to investigate what was involved in achiev­ing the initiative and ultimately to save money. He was adamant on this point, stating unequivocally that the White House was not asking Congress to commit to a new program. Quayle argued, however, that it was important to start the technol­ogy research needed to initiate the program immediately, rather than waiting for the program to get bogged down in bipartisan politics during an election year. He also suggested that SEI offered an exceptional opportunity to showcase U. S. leadership during a time of rapid political change around the globe.

Mark Albrecht remembered the congressional position during the summit “hadn’t changed much, it pretty much remained the same—highly skeptical.” The participants indicated that while they were willing to provide money for studies, they did not believe there was enough justification for a major new program start. Instead, they wanted to see more detail regarding what the actual initiative would look like before they got fully behind the program.[279] One senior congressional aide recalled, “By this time, Chairman Traxler was carrying the message around that ‘we can’t afford this given our allocation. We can’t do it.’ He was already negative about it, so coming out of there I don’t think he was convinced differently. Congress had already pretty much made up its mind.’”[280]

Indeed, there was little public dialogue at all regarding a human mission to Mars in the decade after the rejection of such an undertaking by the Nixon administra­tion. By the late 1970s, however, the goal of human exploration of Mars reappeared within the aerospace community—primarily due to the work of a small group of space enthusiasts that became known as the “Mars Underground.” The movement began in 1978, during the quiet period between the Skylab and Shuttle programs. That year, Chris McKay, an astrogeophysics graduate student at the University of Colorado at Boulder, offered an informal seminar on “The Habitability of Mars.” Among the roughly 25 participants were fellow doctoral candidates Carol Stoker and Penelope Boston, engineer Tom Meyer, and computer scientist Steve Welch. The study, which concentrated primarily on the examination of potential Martian terraforming,[60] continued for several years.[61]

In the spring of 1980, McKay and Boston met Leonard David of the National Space Institute at an American Astronautical Society meeting in Washington, DC. After a lengthy discussion regarding Mars exploration, David suggested that the Mars Underground organize a conference to analyze options for near-future human exploration of the red planet. The group of twenty-something graduate students enthusiastically latched onto the idea and began planning the event for the fol­lowing year. McKay, Stoker, Boston, Meyer, Welch, and Roger Wilson, another University of Colorado graduate student, sketched out the key areas to be investi­gated, including: propulsion, design, psychology, medicine, finance, life support, and materials processing. As the idea progressed, they began putting together lists of speakers for what they dubbed the “Case for Mars” conference.[62]

In late April 1981, the Mars Underground hosted the first “Case for Mars” con­ference at the University of Colorado. It was a relatively small conference, with approximately 100 attendees, but to the organizers it was viewed as an important start. Given that no official report on human missions to Mars had been released in a decade, the gathering was largely an organized brainstorming session. Over four days, workshops and presentations were given on a wide variety of topics. The most important outcomes of the conference were “first, that the participants made con­tact and communicated their ideas to the public, and secondly, [the development of] an approach to begin answering the questions of whether or not a manned Mars mission was a viable option for our space program.”[63]

During the four days of the Case for Mars conference, the participants examined not only the technologies required to carry out a future human mission, but assessed the social, economic, and political impacts of such an enterprise. The general con­sensus of the conference participants was that the exploration and settlement of Mars offered a technically feasible, unifying goal for the American space program in the 21st century. The proceedings stated, “this is not only a natural evolutionary step of space development, but it can be a new symbol of the pioneering spirit of America in the eyes of the public.” Mars was seen as a logical next step for the space program because the Martian environment provided resources that could be utilized for in situ manufacturing of life support materials. It was assumed at the time that the Space Shuttle would provide cheap space transportation services, resulting in a Mars expedition that would cost less than the Apollo program.[64]

The attendees produced a list of four precursor missions that would be required before attempting a human landing on Mars. First, to identify a suitable base site, a robotic Mars Polar Orbiter would be required to locate water resources to support the crew. Second, high resolution maps were needed to provide topographic and geological data since the base must be in a safe but scientifically interesting location. Third, a sample return mission would be essential to carryout engineering proof – of-concept tests. Finally, a mission to either Phobos or Deimos was included as a potential launching point for extensive exploration of the Martian surface.[65] The participants produced interrelated technology options to be used when designing the mission profile, which ranged from using a modified Space Shuttle External Tank as a Mars transit vehicle to mining the Martian atmosphere for fuel to artificial gravity. In conclusion, the conferees produced a list of surface activities that could be carried out by the astronaut and scientist crew during its stay. This included construction of underground habitats in a region with access to a confirmable water supply, establishment of processing facilities to utilize Martian resources (to provide air, water, fuel, industrial compounds, building materials, fertilizers, and soil), grow­ing fresh food to supplement stored supplies, and conducting scientific research.[66]

The Case for Mars conferences, which continued every three years until the mid – 1990s when the Mars Society was created (this advocacy organization now holds an annual conference), were essentially a resurrection of the “softening up” process that had been started by the space community during the 1950s. Each conference built on those preceding it, spending time studying the fundamentals of spaceflight (from payloads to orbital trajectories) and establishing a close-knit community of engineers and scientists enthusiastic about sending humans to Mars. In 1984, the second conference was utilized to design a complete space system architecture for a Mars expedition. More importantly, however, the conference attracted attend­ees with greater political influence within the space policy community, among them former NASA Administrator Thomas Paine. The following year, Paine was appointed to lead a blue-ribbon presidential committee tasked with making recom­mendations for the space agency’s future.

In early May, with congressional support still very much in doubt, the Space Council staff began preparing for President Bush to make a major space policy speech. The intention was that this address would provide some much needed focus for the program, and at the same time allay Congressional fears that Bush was com­mitted to a $400 billion, crash program. Mark Albrecht recalled that by this time NASA had “leaked their numbers out to everybody on the Hill, attempting the crib death of this whole initiative. We still didn’t have the full support of the space agency, I don’t believe even at this time NASA was embracing it. I think they were more worried about the space station than they were interested in setting a new course.” To combat this behind the scenes attack, the White House decided that a presidential rebuttal was needed to make it clear that the Administration was not talking about a crash program[281]

On 11 May, ten days after the space summit, President Bush delivered the com­mencement address at Texas A&I University. He utilized this speech as an opportu­nity to discuss the role the national space program would play in America’s future. Bush told the assembled graduates that SEI formed the cornerstone of his far-reach­ing plan for investing in America’s future, saying, “Thirty years ago, NASA was founded, and the space race began. And 30 years from now I believe man will stand on another planet. And so, I am pleased to return to Texas today to announce a new Age of Exploration, with not only a goal but also a timetable: I believe that before Apollo celebrates the 50th anniversary of its landing on the Moon, the American flag should be planted on Mars.” With this speech, Bush set a timetable for SEI and answered critics that argued he lacked the vision of a great president.[282] As he had done ten months earlier, he did not speak to the cost of achieving these lofty goals. When asked by reporters as he boarded Air Force One where the money would come from to fund the initiative he simply said, “Thirty years is a long time.”[283] Coming in the wake of months of strategizing within the Space Council regarding how to get SEI back on it feet, this answer was most unsatisfying. It left the impres­sion that either Bush was not fully engaged in the decisions that were being made with regard to space policy, or that the White House simply couldn’t produce a good answer to this fundamental question.

As had been the case with his speech announcing SEI the previous summer, the reaction to President Bush’s commencement address was not entirely positive. The New York Times complained he “did not give any estimate… of how much the program would cost. Nor did he discuss whether the mission would be mounted alone or with international partners.”[284] The Washington Post quoted Senator A1 Gore saying, “before the President sets out on his mission to Mars, he should embark on a mission to reality by giving us some even faint indication of where the $500 billion is going to come from.”[285] Dick Malow actually felt that setting a 30-year timeframe weakened the initiative on Capitol Hill. It was the “antithesis of the whole Apollo idea. How do you spread an initiative like this over so many presidential adminis­trations?”[286] These reactions from key Democratic leaders pointed to the difficult position the administration still found itself in due to the expensive policy alterna­tive generated within the 90-Day Study. Even some NASA officials felt that setting a timetable for the initiative was a mistake, believing it would drive costs up whereas a ‘go-as-you-pay’ program would have had a significantly reduced budgetary impact on an annual basis.[287]

Outside the Capitol Beltway, the speech seemed to play even worse. The edito­rial page of Salem, Oregon’s Statesman Journal contended, “A rocket trip to Mars begins on a foundation of common purpose and sound finances at home. A nation that doesn’t know how to balance its budget, reduce a $3 trillion deficit, and fight the decay of its citizens through the effects of drugs, disrupted families and crippled schools will never find the money and willpower to visit the heavens. Bush has given us an empty challenge. We should ask him to return to Texas and repeat the same speech. This time let him add a page at the beginning, one that spells out how this country can first get its feet back on the ground. Then we can head for Mars.”[288] The response was no better in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, where the opening line of an opinion editorial read, “Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to space we go!”[289] A letter the White House received from a local official in Kittery, Maine (just south of President Bush’s vacation home in Kennebunkport) suggested, “American pride will best be shown by meeting the needs of all the people here on Earth. $500 billion would make a good start.”[290] Once again, this was not the reaction the administration was hoping to elicit from a presidential address on the importance of space exploration.

A few weeks later, Vice President Quayle met briefly with the person the Space Council hoped would be able to build confidence in SEI—Lieutenant General Tom Stafford (USAF-retired). Stafford was a former astronaut who commanded Apollo 10, the ‘dress rehearsal’ for the first lunar landing mission, and the U. S. portion of the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. He had recently agreed to head the Explora­tion Outreach Program, which had been created by NASA in response to the Space Council request that the agency seek out new technical approaches that might reduce SEI’s implementation costs. Under this outreach effort, the space agency expected to obtain wide-ranging ideas through public solicitations, which would be evaluated by the RAND Corporation—a California-based think tank. The most promising of these proposals, and others directly from NASA, DOD, and DOE, would then go to a “Synthesis Group” headed by General Stafford. This group’s recommenda­tions would be reviewed by the NRC and reported directly to the Space Council in early 1991. At the meeting with Stafford, Vice President Quayle expressed his belief that the Synthesis Group would serve as a vehicle for generating enthusiasm and support for SEI. He concluded the meeting by conveying his hope that the group would identify at least two fundamentally different approaches to carrying out the initiative.[291]

In early June, at the fourth Case for Mars conference, an alternative emerged that would captivate Mars enthusiasts for years to come—and would work its way into NASA planning years later. The most talked about presentation of the symposium was delivered by Martin Marietta aerospace engineers Robert Zubrin and David Baker. Named ‘Mars Direct,’ their system architecture included several key elements designed to reduce mission costs and increase scientific return, including:

• Direct flight to and from the Martian surface (which eliminated the need to use Space Station Freedom)

• No earth orbit or lunar orbit rendezvous (which eliminated the need for multiple spacecraft)

• Fueling of the Earth Return Vehicle using propellant generated on Mars from the atmosphere

• Extended operations on the Martian surface (up to 555 days)

Although this approach was considered a high risk alternative to the TSG architec­ture highlighted in the 90-Day Study, Zubrin and Baker argued Mars Direct would only cost $20 billion—approximately one-twentieth the price tag associated with the space agency plan. Because it was based on existing technologies packaged in an innovative system architecture, many in the space policy community viewed this as an option worth serious consideration.[292]

In mid-June, the Bush administration set in motion a flurry of events intended to garner public support for SEI. These activities were commenced largely in response to a House Appropriations subcommittee vote to eliminate all spending associated with the initiative.[293] This lobbying effort began with a series of meetings to brief key actors within the space policy community. Held at the White House, the presenta­tions were tailored to the corresponding audiences in a coordinated effort—with Vice President Quayle and Admiral Truly as the featured speakers. The message conveyed to a group of congressional staffers was that a failure to provide funding for SEI would create the impression that the United States lacked the political will to take risks to expand humanity’s reach into the solar system. Reporters that regularly covered NASA were told that SEI would produce significant economic, technical, and educational benefits for the nation. Finally, industry and academic leaders were informed that SEI would be part of an overarching administration strategy designed to foster innovation by permanently extending the research and experimentation tax credit and reducing regulatory burdens on corporations.[294]

These briefings were immediately followed by a major presidential address on space policy at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama. After attending a fundraising luncheon for Governor Guy Hunt, President Bush arrived at the center for a tour. This included a visit to the Hubble Space Tele­scope (HST) Orbital Verification Engineering Control Room, where a NASA team was coordinating the adjustment and final checkout of the groundbreaking orbital observatory.[295] Bush then conducted a full press conference on the center grounds. Despite the setting, the majority of the event was spent detailing the American response to ongoing unrest in the Middle East. However, Bush was asked a few questions regarding the national space program, among them one directed at SEI:

Q: A question about space. How serious are you about this lunar base and Mars mission proposal? Would you go so far as to veto the bill that con­tains NASA appropriations if Congress decides to delete all the money?

A: I haven’t even contemplated any veto strategy. I’d like to get what I want. I think it’s in the national interest. I think that the United States must remain way out front on science and technology; and this broad pro­gram that I’ve outlined, seed money that I’ve asked for, should be sup­ported. But I think it’s way too early to discuss a veto strategy. We took one on the chops in a House committee the other day, and I’ve got to turn around now and fight for what I believe.[296]

Following the press confer­ence, the President took the stage before a crowd of 4,000 MSFC employees.[297] President Bush opened his remarks by recalling his campaign speech at MSFC two and a half years earlier, during which he had vowed to launch a dynamic new program of exploration.

“I’m pleased to return to Mar­shall to report that we have made good on these prom­ises,” Bush said, “and we’ve done it the old-fashioned way, done it the American way— step by step, program by program, all adding up to the most ambitious and far – reaching effort since Marshall and Apollo took America to the Moon.” He criticized House Democrats for voting to deny funding for SEI-related concept and technol­ogy development, stating that partisan politics had led his opponents to turn their backs on progress. He compared them to naysayers in the Court of Queen Isabella who argued against Columbus’ voyage that discovered the New World. President Bush stated that during the Apollo era, significant funding for the space program had fostered a golden age of technology and advancement—one that he hoped would be equaled by a permanent return to the Moon and crewed missions to Mars. He concluded his remarks with a challenge for Congress “to step forth with the will that the moment requires. Don’t postpone greatness. History tells us what happens to nations that forget how to dream. The American people want us in space. So, let us continue the dream for our students, for ourselves, and for all humankind.”[298] The day after President Bush spoke at MSFC, the administration coordinated a full day of events aimed at further building support for SEI. Newspapers through­out the nation contained opinion editorials written by supporters of the initiative, including: Representative Tom Lewis (R-FL) in the Orlando Sentinel, former astro-

naut Buzz Aldrin in the Los Angeles Times-, Dartmouth University Professor Robert Jastrow in the Baltimore Sun-, and former astronaut Eugene Cernan in the Hous­ton Chronicle.[299] [300] [301] On Capitol Hill, Representatives Bob Walker and Newt Gingrich hosted a press conference praising Bush for his leadership with regard to the Ameri­can space program. On the Senate floor, Senator Jake Garn formally introduced the program and Senators Bob Dole, Phil Gramm, and Malcolm Wallop spoke on SEI’s behalf. In the late afternoon Vice President Quayle appeared in a series of satellite interviews in targeted states, including California, Florida, Texas, and Virginia. Finally, the Republican National Committee released radio actualities in key districts around the country.3839 By mid-June, there was a feeling that “SEI was gaining momentum.”[302]