Category Why Mars

Sagan Seeks an Upgrade

What the Mars program needed, the Planetary Society urged, was to translate Mars Observer into a robust set of continuing activities. And to help reach that goal, the program required a new and compelling rationale. Geophysical obser­vation, the stated purpose of Mars Observer, had little public appeal. Sagan, the society’s president, for whom the search for life was the prime rationale, under­stood that his views were not widely shared in the scientific community. “Life” was out as a motivator for most Mars researchers. But what other rationale would work to rekindle widespread enthusiasm for Mars and elevate robotic Mars exploration on the NASA and national agenda? It lay with the Soviet Union, the Society decided.

The Soviet Union had competed vigorously in the 1960s and early 1970s to explore Mars and to discover life first. It had lost in Mars exploration and abandoned the Red Planet. But just as the United States was now planning to go back to Mars, with a 1990 rendezvous, so also was the Soviet Union. The difference was that the Soviet Union was first targeting Phobos, one of the two Mars moons. Rivalry was a motivation for the United States. The Planetary So­ciety also saw opportunity for cooperation. Here was a possible novel rationale for Mars exploration: partnership. The strategy that Sagan and his associates evolved was “To Mars. . . Together.” Cooperation embraced both the robotic and human programs and gave space a political rationale, making it an instru­ment of foreign policy.

In 1984, the Planetary Society brought a number of scientists from the United States, Soviet Union, and Europe together in Graz, Austria, to discuss common interests in space exploration, with Mars as focus. It also commis­sioned a technical analysis of what it would take to go to Mars in human space­flight. This activity was taking place at a time when President Reagan was using heated rhetoric about the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” and promoting his “Star Wars” antimissile system. NASA was not in a position actively to market cooperative programs with the Soviet Union, but the Planetary Society, as a nongovernmental organization, was able to do so.

Sagan called space a unifying force in the world. The Society’s vice presi­dent, Bruce Murray, joined Sagan in this refrain. The former Jet Propulsion Laboratory director had returned from a stint in the private business sector to the Caltech faculty in 1984. He now saw Mars as did Sagan, as the flagship for reviving the entire planetary program.

What helped spur them was an ally in the Soviet Union—Roald Sagdeev. Born in 1932, Sagdeev had distinguished himself as both a physicist and techni­cal manager in Soviet government. Elected to the Soviet Academy of Sciences at 36, he was appointed to run the Institute of Space Research at 40. The robotic space program in the Soviet Union had divided responsibility, with the Babakin Center responsible for the spacecraft, another organization the launch vehicles, and the Institute of Space Research the scientific payloads. Sagdeev was a very influential man in USSR science and had “somehow managed to put a limited form of glasnost [openness] into practice years before [Mikhail] Gorbachev [the Soviet leader] came along.” The Planetary Society made him a member of its board of advisors, “a bold affiliation for a Soviet official” at that time.2

The Soviets were planning a return to Mars in 1988. The primary target was Mars’s moon Phobos. Phobos was the darkest body in the solar system known at that time. It was believed to possibly contain “fossil” chemicals dating back to the solar system’s beginning. The mission’s intent was to drop instruments on Phobos and take new observations of Mars.3 Since NASA’s Mars Observer would not launch until 1990, the United States could learn from cooperating with the Soviet Union. The Planetary Society began actively using the expres­sion “To Mars.. . Together,” touting the robotic program as prelude to human exploration.

Gorbachev, who came to power as head of the Soviet government in 1985, established himself as a reformer, one who wanted more openness and inter­national goodwill. The Planetary Society, meanwhile, was linking Mars with internationalism, taking advantage of Sagdeev’s influence and an emerging thaw in the Cold War. It sponsored a meeting in Washington in mid-1985, “Steps to Mars.” Various scientists, astronauts, and federal officials attended. The confer­ence dealt with detailed engineering and scientific matters and gave equal atten­tion to robotic and human roles. At the meeting, Sagan challenged the United States and the Soviet Union to rise to the emerging opportunity and connect in going to Mars. The first American woman in space, astronaut Sally Ride, spoke in support of the concept of a U. S.-Soviet human expedition. NASA Admin­istrator Beggs attended and indicated that it was becoming possible to think about new opportunities of this kind. President Reagan had meanwhile asked Tom Paine, the former NASA Administrator, to head a National Commission on Space (NCOS) to consider space exploration in the future. The vision of “To Mars. . . Together” gained momentum as a political rationale.4 On January 7, 1986, the New York Times endorsed the concept.

Then, on January 28, 73 seconds after takeoff, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. The explosion was seen on television by millions. All seven aboard were killed, including the first teacher in space. The immediate cause was later determined to be a seal that malfunctioned in one of the shuttle’s two solid rocket boosters. The underlying causes were management errors, including a false belief in the shuttle’s capacity to launch many missions over a brief period of time and failure of NASA to observe its own safety procedures. The fact that NASA included a teacher on the mission revealed the degree to which the agency had grown overly optimistic about shuttle risks as it shifted attention to developing a space station.

President Reagan gave NASA strong rhetorical support. However, he turned to an independent body to investigate the accident, which became known as the Rogers Commission after its chair, William Rogers, a former secretary of state. Unluckily for NASA, James Beggs, the Administrator, was on leave fighting a charge of illegal activity while in industry, before coming to head NASA. His deputy, William Graham, was new to the job and unprepared to defend the agency as the Rogers Commission conducted its inquiry and media launched a blistering attack on NASA. The charges against Beggs were found ultimately to be bogus, but Beggs had had to resign to fight them. In May, Reagan asked James Fletcher to return to lead NASA, moving Graham to the White House and out of the line of fire. Fletcher inherited a wounded agency. For Mars ad­vocates, Challenger was a huge setback.

The Catalyst from Mars

In April 1996, Huntress was working in his office when one of his science man­agers came to his door and said, “You ought to see this pre-print. It makes some remarkable claims.” “What is this?” Huntress asked. It was a possible Science magazine article about fossilized life in a Mars meteorite found in Antarctica, the manager said. It was written by a team of government and university scien­tists led by a NASA investigator, David McKay, based at Johnson Space Center.

While conscious that the idea of fossilized life in a Martian meteorite was directly relevant to the Origins theme he hoped to push, Huntress quickly dis­missed the article. There had been other claims about life on Mars over the years. “It won’t survive the peer review process at Science,” Huntress commented. “Come back when you have a print date,” he told his lieutenant. Huntress as­sumed that the paper would die and largely forgot the matter.10

Then, on July 12, the same manager appeared again at Huntress’s office door, obviously agitated, and announced that the article had survived peer review. It was going to be published. The manager handed Huntress the embargoed pre­publication copy, saying, “You need to know about this!” “My eyes bugged out,” Huntress recalled, as he looked at the article. It drew a number of strands of evidence together that made a compelling, if not absolutely convincing, case.11

Huntress immediately took the document to Goldin. “He came out of his chair,” Huntress remembered. “Is this right?” Goldin asked. “Did it get past peer review? Oh my God! I’ve got to see the president.”12

Goldin immediately set up a highly select (and secretive) task force to study the findings in the article and determine how to handle the public announce­ment. He also got an appointment with Clinton’s chief of staff, Leon Panetta, the former OMB head, for July 30. Goldin decided that NASA should keep the matter “contained” until the article came out, August 16. Then, NASA would hold a press conference, with McKay and his team present, along with a scien­tific “skeptic” to provide balance. Goldin did not want this announcement to come across as a NASA public relations stunt.13

However, the potential significance of the Mars meteorite discovery for sci­ence and NASA was obvious. It would give the Origins concept credibility. The search for life would have a centerpiece, and it would be Mars. The implications for accelerating Mars exploration and returning a sample were clear. But there was enough doubt about the fossilized bacteria claims that it would be a mistake to push for an Apollo-like search.14 Getting White House endorsement for ad­ditional Mars research and for Origins would reverse the unfavorable budget trends and counter OMB.

On July 30, Goldin and Huntress arrived at the White House. After brief­ing Panetta, they and Panetta went to the Oval Office and Clinton. It was 10 a. m., and Clinton initially seemed tired, but once he heard Goldin speak about the Mars rock, he became quite alert and attentive. As journalist Kathy Sawyer wrote in describing the scene, “The president’s posture straightened, and his eyes opened wide. It seemed to be dawning on him that this could be big.” The meeting lasted 30 minutes, and the president asked a number of questions. At the end, he told Panetta, “The vice president has got to hear this. Leon, take ’em to see the vice president.”15

Gore was equally fascinated once he heard Goldin’s story. Moreover, he “peppered” Goldin and Huntress with questions. He “asked about the age of the meteorite, when the purported Martian microbes would have been alive, and how that related to the initial bombardment of both Mars and Earth. He asked about the relative conditions that would have existed on Earth and Mars at the same time.” He wanted to know “whether this life-form, if it existed, could have evolved on Mars, how the McKay group’s result related to the Viking experi­ments of the 1970s, and what this new evidence in combination with the Viking results might mean for the possibility of current life on Mars.”

Gore also asked about the implications for future policy. Sawyer wrote, “Huntress was ready with the ‘Origins’ pitch.” That accomplished, they were ready to leave after what had been a 45-minute meeting. Before departing, Goldin pointed out that the announcement about the Mars meteorite would take place at the same time as the Republican national convention. Goldin wanted to know if that was a problem. Gore emphasized, “Follow Science’s pro­cess. Do not make this a political issue. Do not ever make this a political issue. This is a scientific discovery.”16

After the meeting, Goldin called McKay, based at JSC in Texas, and directed him to come to Washington for a meeting as soon as possible. The next day, July 31, McKay and a colleague on the meteorite team, Everett Gibson, sat in Goldin’s office. Goldin, flanked by Huntress, “pounded” the two with questions. The “grilling” went on “for three punishing hours.” At the end of the session, Goldin asked McKay, “Can I give you a hug?” The Mars rock was exactly what

Goldin wanted—a gift of “evidence [of Martian life] that could launch a big revival of public interest in space exploration.”17

Meanwhile, Dick Morris, Clinton’s friend and political advisor in the White House, heard about the Mars meteorite. He passed the information along to his mistress, who in turn sought to sell the information about extraterrestrial life to the media. Morris also began pushing Clinton to make a Kennedy-like decision for a crash human Mars mission. The president’s science advisor, Jack Gibbons, fought that possibility. “I said: ‘Hell no!’” he commented in retrospect. His message to Clinton was that Morris’s idea “would make us look like fools. We’d be sending a mission impossible.”18 Morris called Goldin to get his support for the crash venture. Nobody wanted more to go to Mars than Goldin, but, as Sawyer wrote, Goldin felt he had to be honest. He explained to Morris that a venture to the Red Planet was simply not technically or fundamentally feasible under current circumstances.19

NASA’s hope to contain the news failed—the leak occurred, but not necessar­ily via the Morris mistress. Not only did the White House know, but also senior lawmakers concerned with space had been informed. By early August, the story was getting out in bits and pieces, and Science and NASA were blaming each other. With the story poised to break fully in the print and television media, and both Science and NASA wanting some semblance of accuracy, NASA had little choice but to act.

On August 7, NASA held a hastily arranged press conference at its Washing­ton headquarters. Numerous officials from NASA and the administration were present, along with a McKay meteorite team. Goldin had a startling announce­ment to make. The research team believed that it had discovered credible evi­dence of fossilized Martian microbiological life in an ancient meteorite found in Antarctica.

For two years, the scientists explained, they had been examining the rock using the most sophisticated equipment available. The team found a number of factors that, taken together, pointed to fossil microbiology. They had a peer-reviewed article coming out in Science on August 16, explaining, in-depth, their findings.20

Goldin made sure he noted various caveats about the claim and the need for further confirmation by the scientific community. As planned, a skeptical sci­entist who had read the article was present at the conference to give dissenting views. But Goldin could not control his excitement. “We’re now at the doorstep of the heavens. What a time to be alive!” he exclaimed.21

Goldin had invited Jerry Soffen of Viking to the conference and pointed out that he had pioneered in Mars-life research and that “we all stand today” on his shoulders.22 Everyone present was fascinated with the announcement and anxious to know how certain the scientists were of their findings. Many congres­sional leaders were said to be “almost childlike in their excitement about the possibilities and very humble about the news.”23 Gore was fully engaged, and Clinton made a statement to the media that day: “If the discovery is confirmed, it will surely be one of the most stunning insights into our universe that science has ever uncovered. The implications are as far-reaching and awe-inspiring as can be imagined.”24

Clinton said he “was determined that the American space program will put its full intellectual power and technological prowess behind the search for fur­ther evidence of life on Mars.” Vice President Gore, he went on, would convene a bipartisan space summit of national political leaders to consider an appropriate response.

This “summit” was based on the one for which Senator Mikulski had earlier called. She was concerned about NASA’s cuts in money and human resources. Clinton was now agreeing to the summit, with the Mars meteorite his stated reason. Goldin was extremely careful not to say anything about needing “more money” to follow up on the Mars rock. He did say that NASA would reexamine the Mars Surveyor Program strategy in view of the meteorite. He indicated that NASA might accelerate the program’s timetable for MSR.25

O’Keefe Succeeds Goldin

In mid-October, Goldin announced he would be leaving NASA in November after his record-setting nine-and-a-half-year tenure. While departing with con­troversy over the space station’s $4.8 billion overrun swirling above his head, Goldin won plaudits from friends of space science. He had seemed personally to favor space science over human spaceflight (Space Shuttle, ISS), and that fact showed up in the increased percentage of NASA’s budget that went to space science under his leadership. Wesley Huntress, Goldin’s former science chief, commented that working under Goldin could be “brutal,” but praised him for raising the position of space science in the agency.10

No administrator in NASA’s history had been more passionate about Mars than Goldin. He had prioritized the robotic program and given it close atten­tion. He could leave believing that the 1999 problems of the Mars effort were being alleviated in 2000 and 2001. As Odyssey sped into the orbit NASA had planned for it, Goldin left NASA. Meanwhile, Congress completed work on the NASA budget, raising the overall level to $14.8 billion. Mars did well, and some of the missions Bush had tried to kill, particularly the Pluto project, were back in the NASA program.11 The process of adoption for the new MEP was complete.

Bush announced that Sean O’Keefe would become NASA Administrator. O’Keefe got the job principally because the White House believed that NASA’s major issue was to get the ISS budget under control. As deputy director of OMB, O’Keefe was already deeply enmeshed in ISS issues. O’Keefe had also been supportive of Mars interests, as indicated by OMB’s actions.

O’Keefe, age 45, came aboard at the beginning of January 2002 and brought a consolidating and incremental-innovating style to NASA. He was seen as a competent, nontechnical manager, not a space enthusiast. While not visionary like Goldin, he brought political connections Goldin lacked to the Bush White House and was especially close to the powerful vice president Dick Cheney. As expected, he concentrated on the space station in his first year, bringing NASA’s major project under better financial control. Weiler found he had much more autonomy under O’Keefe than Goldin to set space science policy.12

The Bush budget proposal announced in February emphasized priorities as­sociated with changes in national policy following the terrorist attack of “9/11,” 2001. NASA was a modest winner among domestic agencies, and its budget reflected O’Keefe’s desire for continuity, with a few, targeted changes. NASA got a 1.4% raise, elevating its budget to $15 billion. The most striking change was $125 million for a nuclear systems initiative—nuclear electric propulsion systems and nuclear electric power generation systems. Seizing the opportunity O’Keefe’s personal interest provided, Weiler contended that nuclear systems were the best choice for long-term missions to Mars and beyond, allowing for greater use of a more complex array of instruments. Weiler was thinking well beyond Mars—that is, the outer planets. However, the major immediate impact of this new stance was on MSL. What had been discussed and planned among scientists and engineers now became NASA and national policy. MSL would be powered by nuclear batteries, thereby allowing it to operate continuously. But the launch of MSL would necessarily be postponed from 2007 to 2009 in part to take advantage of new nuclear power systems and other technical improvements now foreseen for it.13

Aside from augmenting MSL, O’Keefe generally maintained the Mars pro­gram he inherited. The White House’s interest in the search for life triggered by the Mars meteorite in 1996 had led to a relatively stable and politically sustain­able MEP costing more than $500 million annually. “Biocentric arguments had tended to do well,” commented Steve Isakowitz. As a part of the Mars-friendly continuity in the Clinton-Bush transition, Isakowitz stood out. His influence soon became even more obvious when O’Keefe brought him to NASA to work with him as comptroller.14 For O’Keefe, policymaking and budgeting went hand in hand, and Isakowitz and O’Keefe were on the same wavelength when it came to decision making.

The continuity between the Clinton administration and the Bush admin­istration, seen generally in Mars policy, extended to support of astrobiology.

Ironically, the new astrobiology program NASA had launched under Goldin, and which O’Keefe inherited, ran into resistance from various scientists. Science magazine reported that astrobiology got “little respect from many traditional planetary scientists.” They saw it “more as a creation of Washington politicians than as a legitimate research area.” Bruce Jakosky, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Colorado Boulder, gave an astrobiology briefing to a Na­tional Research Council panel in November 2002. He likened the experience to “teaching freshman geology.” He complained that as he spoke, panel members leafed through newspapers or chatted quietly with other participants. Weiler’s response to such academic snobbery was, “It’s really scary when OMB may have more vision than scientists.”15

On April 12, O’Keefe traveled to his alma mater, the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. There he gave his own “Vision” address. He declared that NASA’s mission was “to improve life here, to extend life to there, and to find life beyond.” In doing so, he said NASA would not be destination driven. Instead, science would drive NASA, and NASA would invest in technologies (like nuclear propulsion) to better enable science to advance.16 The O’Keefe strategy facilitated what the Science Mission Directorate and Mars program wanted to do.

Leaping Ahead with MSL

Then, there was MSL, the biggest and most important project of the MEP, set for 2009. In June, after years of planning, exploratory design and research, and continuing debate, MSL came up for Preliminary Design Review (PDR). This is a critical milestone in any NASA mission’s evolution. It is the point at which NASA decides either to go ahead with full-scale development to meet a launch deadline or not to do so. It is the point when sufficient technical agreement is reached on design, schedule, and cost for top NASA officials to say, in effect, “go forward and implement.”

Richard Cook, the project manager, and his team made their case to a review board headed by Figueroa during lengthy meetings at JPL.42 Various technical experts and managers were present, and there was considerable participation. The PDR process took the whole week. Getting to this decision point had been tortuous. As with all landers, matters of safety and science had to be equated. In the years leading up to the PDR, NASA had reconsidered the question raised in 2001 by Isakowitz, when at OMB, about whether it would be better to send two MSLs to lower risk of failure. As Spirit and Opportunity were performing so remarkably well, some scientists also suggested sending a number of Spirit – Opportunity-scale missions to various sites.

JPL engineers recommended that NASA go beyond Spirit-Opportunity technology in a major way with one flagship mission.43 There were also scien­tists who felt that breakthroughs were more likely to come with a single bold mission than with a number of smaller missions having incremental improve­ments over Spirit and Opportunity. Both scientists and engineers wanted to go beyond following water to detecting chemical building blocks of life. Out of the myriad technical discussions and debates prior to the PDR meetings, a consensus emerged—that NASA go for a truly significant MSL mission. The performance of Spirit and Opportunity was so outstanding that it gave confi­dence to those who favored the more ambitious approach to MSL. Moreover, MSR and the quest for life seemed to many to require a leap forward with MSL, rather than a more incremental strategy.

JPL and the Mars science community had devised a host of cutting-edge scientific instruments. They had conceived a new mechanism (called sky crane) to deliver MSL to the Mars surface. MSL had by now grown to be the size of an automobile and was thus heavy—and also very vulnerable to damage. It had to land with precision and delicacy, and JPL believed that retro-rockets or the kind of cushions Spirit and Opportunity used would be inadequate. But would this sky crane device work?

Many of the scientists and engineers employed on MSL had migrated from Spirit-Opportunity once its development was done. They brimmed with con­fidence, perhaps bordering on hubris. In 2005, Griffin had visited JPL and met with Elachi and the MSL team. “Can you do this?” he asked the scientists and engineers on the team. They said “Yes.”44 “Do you believe you can launch MSL in 2009?” Griffin asked Elachi. Elachi responded, “No problem.”45 Now, in 2006, the time for formal decisions had arrived, and grilling at the PDR sessions revealed at least two key problems that remained to be solved for mission suc­cess. One had to do with the motors that moved various parts of MSL. They were called actuators. NASA had opted for an advanced technology that would improve the capacity of the actuators to perform in extremely harsh places scien­tists wanted MSL to go. The other pertained to sample processing technology, critical for scientific understanding of the ingredients enabling life on Mars.46

There was considerable debate at the meetings, and Gentry Lee, who worked at JPL and had advised Hubbard when the MEP was planned, stood up and expressed skepticism with what the project team was saying. He believed that MSL could be built, but not by 2009. “Impossible!” he exclaimed.47 But the consensus view was more optimistic that the problems could be solved quickly enough. “Yes, we can” was the mood at the end of the PDR process, and it was widely shared. MSL got the go-ahead from Figueroa and his review team. The message from Figueroa to the project management team was, “We trust you. Don’t get cocky!”48 Reviews up the chain of command led to the neces­sary approvals from NASA leaders, and MSL advanced to the next stage: full implementation.

Lee did not relent. He was convinced that the MSL team, as outstanding as it was deemed to be, was asking for too many technical miracles to launch in 2009. He went to Elachi to express his reservations. He was not able to persuade Elachi to hold back. Elachi believed that JPL would come through and had con­veyed his confidence in MSL success to Griffin.49 The PDR process established the best estimates technical people could make about design, schedule, and cost, as a basis for NASA decision making. The MSL cost estimate that followed PDR, and which became the number NASA used in dealing with OMB and Congress at the time, was $1.6 billion.

At the same time that the PDR process was under way in 2006, NASA was also initiating a process to determine where MSL would land. In late May and June, NASA gathered 120 Mars researchers together to initiate siting discus­sions. It was noted that Viking had initially been wrong in its siting decisions and was forced to make last-minute changes. Indeed, luck had played a major role in its successful landing. Spirit’s initial site was predicted to be scientifically interesting, but it turned out not to be so. Only its roving capability saved it from disappointment. Opportunity’s site was one that quickly proved fortuitous, however. With only one expensive rover and an exceptionally ambitious goal, NASA had to pick the right place. The group discussed a long list of possibili­ties and narrowed the list. However, this assemblage was just the first of several meetings.50 Existing NASA missions at Mars would provide further information as time went on.

The question of NASA’s post-MSL future was also still open. A panel of the SSB in July released a report responding to the plan for 2011-2016 which McCuistion had provided earlier. While generally supportive of McCuistion’s proposal, the NAS panel suggested that NASA consider postponing the 2016 Astrobiology Field Laboratory mission until 2018 and instead use the 2016 op­portunity to build a seismic network. It was concerned that NASA research not neglect Mars’s structures and evolution in the agency’s quest to find past or pres­ent life. The panel backed the notion of resurrecting the telecommunications orbiter that had been killed. Further, it called for beginning technology devel­opment leading to MSR. The panel said that given the financial constraints, future plans as presented by NASA were “not optimized.”51

NRC’s Decadal Survey

The budget flew in the face of scientific recommendations for the planetary pro­gram, especially Mars exploration. The NRC, on March 7, released its Decadal Survey for the planetary program. NRC made Mars the top priority among planetary scientists for the ensuing 10 years. It placed the Mars Astrobiology Explorer-Cacher (MAX-C) at the pinnacle of its list of recommended large – scale missions. This would be the flagship for the planetary program in the period 2013-2022. MAX-C, as the first step of a multimission MSR campaign, would collect Martian samples that would be returned to Earth by spacecraft launched in the ensuing decade.32

This stretched-out sequence was a function of budget constraint. For the first time, the NRC used an independent analysis of costs in its planetary planning. The cost of MAX-C would be $3.5 billion. That was too high relative to other needs in the planetary program, it said. NRC recommended that NASA reduce the cost to $2.5 billion.

As a second priority, NRC listed an outer planets mission to Jupiter’s ice – covered moon Europa. However, this mission’s cost was even higher than that listed for MAX-C, at $4.7 billion. Steve Squyres, the chair of the NRC group, spoke of “sticker shock” and the realization of the scientists that expense might preclude any flagship missions, leaving room only for smaller projects.33

Commenting on the NRC Decadal Survey at the time of its rollout, Weiler was characteristically blunt: “If we’re going to do any more big missions, they’re going to be international. The days of $3 billion-$4 billion missions that we do on our own are gone.”34

Squyres called on the planetary science community—not only the Mars ad­vocates—to back the NRC report and lobby for its funding. Otherwise, there would be few flagships for years to come. James Green, the planetary director, called the Decadal Survey “a guiding light” for NASA as it maneuvered through the short-term political and economic perturbations influencing the program. However, in putting the guiding light into action, the bilateral relationship with ESA would have to be reconfigured, he said. The assumptions about what NASA could back were not likely to be realized under the recent Obama-budget projection.35

In late March, Green met with Fabio Favata, head of ESA’s Science Planning Office. His purpose was to begin rethinking the bilateral relationship. The exist­

ing plan called for ESA (with NASA’s help) to launch its ExoMars spacecraft in 2016. This was a combination orbiter-lander, with the orbiter critical to the 2018 mission as a communications system. The 2018 mission consisted of two rovers, one by ESA and one by NASA. The U. S. rover would be akin to the MAX-C, thus initiating MSR. There were different rovers because the two agencies had somewhat distinct requirements, requirements that included work for respec­tive nations and their industries. But now, NASA knew it could not afford an independent rover.36

On March 29, Weiler and his ESA counterpart, Southwood, met at JPL. Weiler told Southwood that NASA could not build its own rover and proposed that NASA and ESA combine their interests in a joint rover. Although rumors had circulated that the NASA rover might be cancelled, Southwood was initially “shocked” to hear it directly from Weiler. Southwood, who was soon to retire, saw the bilateral program, aimed at eventual MSR, as his most enduring legacy in leading science at ESA. Was this the breakup of a marriage? he wondered.

But then he thought about the “joint rover” as a solution to ESA’s own finan­cial problems. One rover, designed correctly, could incorporate both agencies’ needs. What was critical was to get agreement to the change from European nations whose stakes lay in having work for their respective companies and their employees on the joint machine. The same interests applied to the United States, which was also particularly mindful of keeping a Mars scientific group employed at JPL. One rover would presumably be less expensive than two sepa­rate rovers.37

NASA wanted MAX-C, or something close to it, and the combined rover might make it possible financially to have this machine. NASA would want to include a drill to obtain samples beneath the surface, as well as the ability to rove over a large area to enable soil samples to be cached. The samples would then await a future mission that would collect and return them to Earth. Only in this way—holding to its objectives in a combined rover—would the United States have anything resembling a MAX-C. To be sure, ESA wanted MSR as a long-term objective, but its original 2018 priorities had been somewhat different in terms of payload from those NASA favored.

Weiler and Southwood had a relation that went back years. They trusted one another. They went away from the meeting with a sense of progress in spite of the budget challenge.38 They established on April 6 a joint engineering working group to investigate how a single spacecraft might be configured.

Shortly thereafter, ESA issued a stop-work order to contractors working on its 2016 mission. For ESA, the two missions, ExoMars 2016 and ExoMars 2018, were mutually dependent and mutually approved in its decision-making pro­cess. With the ESA 2018 mission likely to be greatly changed, there was a need to determine its implications for 2016. ESA led the 2016 mission, with NASA contributing instruments and launch services. Who would lead the 2018 mission was to be determined, although the likelihood in April seemed to be NASA. The agency that led would presumably pay the bulk of the costs. In any event, the replanning process got under way immediately. Both agencies were intent on keeping the partnership going. They increasingly saw no alternative in view of budget trends in both political contexts.39

Conclusion

Mars has always been the compelling prize in exploration for most space enthu­siasts. For many involved in the space program, from von Braun’s time to today, the dream that has galvanized them has been that of landing human beings on the Red Planet. Fulfilling that dream lies ahead. The reality that has marked the space program profoundly to date has been robotic exploration. Robotic exploration of Mars has been one of the great achievements of the space age. It has not been easy. If Apollo was a one-decade dash, characterized by Kennedy’s singular decision to go to the Moon, Mars exploration has been a multidecade marathon, marked by a host of smaller—albeit important—decisions, usually at the NASA level.

Today, the United States and other nations are gradually extending human senses over the millions of miles to Mars, building a permanent infrastructure for exploration with orbiters, landers, rovers, and communication links. The ro­botic program has been sustained mainly by the quest to determine whether life exists or has ever existed on Mars, and also by the need to send robotic precur­sors if human beings were ever to go there. There are other rationales that have applied—including international competition and, conversely, international co – operation—but life has been the most influential driver for Mars exploration over the years. In 1976, when it was thought that there was no life on Mars, the program suffered, and it was not until the early 1990s that flight resumed. The

Mars meteorite claims of the mid-1990s were a catalyst for reemphasizing the life rationale in the years that ensued.

This association of Mars with life in the human psyche has made this fabled planet the planetary magnet for the public as well as scientists. It is close enough to visit every 26 months, but still so far away that spaceflight to it, much less landing on it, remains daunting. Over the decades, more flights sent by spacefar – ing nations have failed than succeeded. The United States has been relatively successful, especially in recent years. But it has also suffered hugely disappoint­ing losses among the victories, losses that have wasted years of effort, cost hun­dreds of millions of dollars, and adversely affected the space program and those associated with it. With each setback, however, there has been the struggle to respond and the reality of recovery. Mars has been a continuing challenge to the United States and its agency, NASA. For the most part, NASA and the nation have responded to daunting failure with spectacular success. The Mars Science Laboratory landing of 2012 exemplified such remarkable technical achievement.

This study penetrates behind the technical quest for Mars exploration to the agency responsible for it. It looks at the advocates driving the organization politically. The Mars advocacy coalition seeks to make the Red Planet a fund­ing priority for NASA and the nation. For the most part, the influence of this loosely coupled, often changing group of individuals and entities inside and outside NASA has enabled Mars scientists and engineers to achieve their techni­cal goals. It has moved the agency to establish a long-term program and see it carried out successfully. However, when the advocacy coalition has lacked influ­ence in relation to opponents, that fact has inhibited Mars progress. Moreover, even when influential, there have been times when advocates pursued a flawed scientific or political strategy that had a deleterious effect on the evolution of the Mars program.

Mars advocates succeed to the degree they make NASA the institutional em­bodiment of their quest. NASA is a base for resource acquisition and program action. The advocacy coalition has pushed most effectively for Mars when cer­tain conditions have existed. One is having senior administrators of NASA in the coalition to actively provide passion and power behind the drive for Mars. A second is for the advocates to gain the support of NASA’s political masters, thereby neutralizing rivals and helping in dealing with the Office of Manage­ment and Budget. A third is maintaining a common front in scientific and politi­cal strategy. Absent any of these conditions, the Mars advocacy coalition loses clout.

Why Mars

W. Henry Lambright

In 2006, a conference took place at Syracuse University’s Minnowbrook Cen­ter in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. The focus of the conference was on the “great stories” of humanity, including Greek tales such as Homer’s Odyssey. The conference organizer, Kaye Lindauer, asked me to speak about a contemporary great story, namely, space exploration. The immediate interest of those attending my talk, a cross section of professionals, was the Moon and Apollo, about which I had written. However, it was clear that most also wanted to discuss “what next,” or Mars. I left the conference feeling that Mars would be my next book.

I needed resources to accomplish this work. NASA, which celebrated its fif­tieth anniversary in 2008, was interested in having its history told. It opened a competition involving various topics, and I was fortunate to be an awardee. NASA provided funds, but left it to me to do the research and writing without any constraints.

I soon commenced research. In undertaking this task, I felt a responsibility not only to examine the past and convey an active present, but also to analyze what it takes to sustain a very long and difficult quest. NASA and its allies have chosen to keep at the Mars endeavor over many decades in spite of ever-shifting political winds. That the program has achieved much in spite of obstacles is testament to the persistence of scientists, engineers, managers, and the political appointees heading NASA. The Mars record has flaws to be sure, and these are chronicled in this work. But, for the most part, the Mars story is remarkable. Exploration is a struggle. Individuals and their institutions have stretched to perform deeds that are daunting. They have been motivated mainly by the lure of Mars and its association with life.

This book emphasizes what they have done to formulate missions, establish priorities, and get the funds to accomplish technical miracles. It is thus a politi­cal history of the Mars program. It is about decisions, policy, and power—the push for exploration. It is about leaders behind NASA’s Mars program, and their

Washington, D. C., travails. It is primarily about the robotic program that has taken NASA, the nation, and Earth from a Mariner flyby in the mid-1960s to Mars Science Laboratory’s Curiosity rover in the second decade of the twenty – first century. The robotic program is immensely valuable in itself, especially in regard to finding evidence of Martian life, present or past. It is also essential to eventual human exploration of Mars.

I have had much help in accomplishing my own Mars project. Once under­way in 2008, I had the aid of many at NASA’s history office: Steve Dick, NASA historian, at the outset and then Bill Barry, his successor; Steve Garber, who read early drafts of the manuscript; and archivists who helped me locate mate­rials, including Liz Suckow, John Hargenrader, Colin Fries, and Jane Odom. Nadine Andreassen, on the staff of the history office, helped maneuver funds through NASA’s bureaucratic complexities. Jens Feeley, of the Science Mission Directorate, was always available to help me set up essential interviews with busy agency officials. I wish to thank the many individuals inside and outside NASA who gave their time for interviews. There are too many to list separately. I also had the help of history staff at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, including Julie Cooper and Charlene Nichols. Erik Conway, JPL historian, aided me enormously with background information and interview arrangements. I also drew on voluminous files at the National Archives, where David Pfeiffer and his staff helped me greatly.

At Syracuse, I was assisted by a sequence of students, particularly Erin D’Loughy, Kimberly Pierce, Madison Quinn, Bindya Zachariah, and Dayana Bobko. Also helping me were staff at the Center for Environmental Policy and Administration of the Maxwell School, where I am based: Carley Parsons and Marlene Westfall Rizzo. I am grateful also for the assistance of the Johns Hopkins University Press staff, including Bob Brugger and Melissa Solarz. An anonymous Johns Hopkins reviewer provided valuable advice. Jeremy Horse – field added his editorial skills to measurably improve the book.

My sons and their wives—Dan and Sue, Nathaniel and Kristina—and my grandchildren, Ben, Katie, Bryce, and Darius, have been a source of inspiration. They will all someday, I believe, see humans on Mars. Finally, I owe a special sense of gratitude to my wife, Nancy. She got me started on this project by urg­ing me to accept the invitation to speak at the Minnowbrook Conference. She then endured its frustrations along the way and provided the final push for its conclusion. To all who helped, directly or indirectly, I hope the final product is worth the time you gave me. Any errors are my responsibility.

Achieving Success: Mariner

Although NASA and the Soviet Union both sent missions to Venus, they both made Mars the overarching priority. For years, Soviet scientists and their politi­cal masters “consistently targeted the planet Mars as the singular most impor­tant objective in plans to explore space.” First, they would send robotic space­craft, and then they planned to dispatch human explorers.12 The Soviets, like the Americans, believed that the nation to be the first to not only get to Mars but find life would have a scientific and propaganda victory of historic proportion.

The Soviets had sought unsuccessfully to reach Mars in i960. They tried again in 1962. Again they failed. The next launch window was 1964, and the Soviets were sure to try once more. This time, the United States intended to

be ready to make an attempt at a flyby. NASA was fully aware of the difficulties. JPL referred to a “Great Galactic Ghoul” lurking in space between Earth and Mars, ready to devour all spaceships that sailed into its lair.13 NASA, under­standing risk, if not the ghoul, planned to send two spacecraft.

NASA and its various constituencies were unsure what the flyby would reveal of Earth’s mysterious neighbor. The media attention was frenetic and reflected the substantial public and scientific interest. In October 1962, the National Academy of Sciences Space Science Board called Mars the “primary goal . . . in the exploration of the planets.” One month later, NASA gave the official go – ahead for a 1964 launch. JPL was well along in its preparations. Casani contin­ued his association with Mariner Mars. However, Pickering appointed as overall project manager a well-regarded division manager, J. N. James. He was able to attract some of the best and brightest of JPL’s engineering talent to the effort.14

In 1964 NASA sponsored a summer study, one aim being to nurture the exobiological community. Lederberg was there. So was Carl Sagan, 30 years old, blending astronomical and biological interests with exceptional eloquence. He was already articulating an intense belief that life was possible on Mars. Among the scientists who attended was Gerald Soffen, then 38, who had joined NASA in 1961 soon after getting his PhD in biology from Princeton.

Mariner 3, launched in November 1964, failed soon after launch. A few weeks later, NASA tried with Mariner 4, this time successfully launching the space­craft. The Soviet Union also launched in this year and again failed. The United States had an open opportunity for a first after trailing the Soviet Union in most other aspects of space.

On July 15, 1965, Mariner 4 sped past Mars, snapping photos as it went. Politicians called this event an important Cold War victory. Virtually everyone hailed Mariner 4 and congratulated NASA and JPL. Pickering, seen by most observers as the key leader behind Mariner 4, won special praise, including a profile in the New York Times and the cover of Time magazine.15

But from the perspective of those academic scientists, media, and NASA/JPL personnel anxious to find evidence of life, the Mars photographs were a disap­pointment. Where were the canals? Instead, the photos showed craters. Also, Mariner 4 sensors found no significant magnetic field, as well as an atmosphere so thin it would allow radiation to reach Mars that might well kill anything on the surface. The media pronounced Mars boring. In effect, said the media, NASA looked for Mars and found the Moon! Pickering tried his best at a press conference following the flyby to emphasize how little of the Mars surface was viewed. Mariner 4 was not intended to deal with the life issue, he said. Hence, as far as he was concerned, “the evidence of possible life on Mars … is still there.”16

Still, reaching Mars first was a great accomplishment, and President Lyndon Johnson wanted to make the most of it for public relations and propaganda purposes. Johnson had taken power when Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and he promised to continue the journey to the Moon. He also understood the importance of Mars from a political perspective. Webb, anxious to maximize NASA’s advantage from Mariner 4, coached NASA/JPL officials and scientists on how to deal with the president, Congress, and media. Bruce Murray, Caltech and Mariner scientist and later JPL director, was impressed with Webb. He was “shrewd and skilled in negotiating Washington’s corridors of power.” He could play the informal southern politician with Congress, but in the privacy of the NASA meeting room, he was “crisp,” all “Washington, DC.” “He left no ques­tion as to who was in charge and what was expected of us.”17

A few days after the encounter with Mars, NASA and JPL officials, along with various scientists associated with Mariner 4, met with Johnson. He gave the Mariner team medals for their good work and was attentive when Pickering explained what the pictures of Mars revealed. Johnson did not express unhappi­ness with the failure to find Lowell’s canals. “As a member of the generation that Orson Welles scared out of its wits,” he declared, “I must confess that I’m a little bit relieved that your photograph doesn’t show more signs of life out there.”18

The New York Times and other general media called Mars “dead.”19 But what incensed many scientists of the exobiology camp was the “I told you so attitude” of some other scientists. Phil Abelson, editor of the prestigious Science maga­zine, had written an editorial on February 12,1965, predicting that searching for life on Mars was a fool’s errand. “In looking for life on Mars, we could establish for ourselves the reputation of being the greatest Simple Simons of all time,” he wrote.20

Sagan was offended and angry. He said a photo of Earth taken from 6,000 miles out (as Mariner did for Mars) might show that no life existed on Earth. Sagan could think of all kinds of possibilities for life that Mariner 4 did not ad­dress. What about life “beneath the surface,” asked Sagan, “where there might be ice deposits and, in some places, even pockets of liquid water?” He suggested that there might even be underground lakes and other habitats where life could thrive which would have been absolutely undetectable to Mariner’s instruments. “Sagan insisted that critics who called Mars ‘dead’ were making more out of the data than anyone had a right to do.”21

Like Pickering, Sagan pointed out that Mariner 4 had taken photos of only a small portion of the Red Planet. As he later recalled, “So I took it as my respon­sibility, maybe a quixotic mission, to point out the possibilities [of Martian life], which were being excluded.”22 It was a remarkable personal decision. He opened himself to media interviews and used his rare communication skills to advantage on late-night television talk shows. His campaign to rouse interest in space and especially the search for life would cost him professionally with a number of his scientific colleagues. He did not get tenure at Harvard, but secured a position at Cornell. His lifelong public advocacy, beginning with Mariner, would contrib­ute to his fame, fortune, and ridicule.

Along with other self-described “diehards,” Sagan was frustrated and in some ways desperate to reframe the life debate after Mariner 4. Exobiologists chafed at the writing off of life on Mars and Abelson’s negativism. They concluded that if life did not exist, then it was important to discover, “why not?” This ques­tion was scientifically important, monumentally so, they avowed. As scientists, they needed to get at the truth. The Mariner program had to continue, in their view, and produce better photographs over far more of the Mars surface, and eventually a lander had to go.23 The academic exobiologists were at the forefront of Mars advocacy in the wake of Mariner 4. Among agency insiders, Pickering continued to play the lead role, writing, lecturing, and seeking support.

The Mariner program continued. It was indeed a “program,” not a single mission, and seen as such inside and outside NASA. NASA and JPL—with JPL as locus of decision making most of the time—planned additional Mariner flights for later in the decade. Pickering saw Mariner 4 as a critical milestone in technological development of spacecraft. “We now know how to do it,” he stated.24

Viking Launches

In 1975 the various technology development problems affecting Viking gradu­ally gave way to solutions. Martin’s “Top 10 Problems” were narrowed and then resolved enough for NASA to schedule a launch for August. As August ap­proached, media interest expanded, and so did the angst of all associated with Viking.

From Fletcher on down, there was heightened anticipation of what could go wrong. Fletcher warned associates about how to frame the project in media interviews. He thought NASA might have overreached in emphasizing “life” as

the goal. His staff suggested that NASA speak of the launch as about “compara­tive planetology.”37 Hinners sought to shift the rhetoric to “find[ing] evidence of life,” and to get Sagan to “tone down his rhetoric.” “But I could not get him to change much, and you didn’t want to quell his passion in any event,” Hinners re­called. Sagan “was a tremendously effective advocate, and salesman,” he stated.38 Sagan, who, more than anyone, had framed Viking as a quest for life, worried that the lander would crash and Viking would not discover what was waiting to be found.39 Soffen worried about the biology laboratory. He lamented the deci­sion to drop one of the four experiments it carried. “There was no way to keep it,” he confided. But he worried: what if it had “been the one to detect life?”40

Martin was concerned about everything, but particularly the decision to kill the backup system. What if Viking failed? After all, the four Soviet spacecraft sent to Mars had failed in 1974 either to reach Mars or to perform once there. Would Viking suffer the same fate? As late as July 1975, one month before launch, Martin badgered Robert Kraemer, Hinners’s deputy for planetary mis­sions, about needing a third Viking. It had been killed by Petrone and Hinners, and Kraemer pointed out what Martin already knew—there was no money! Moreover, to go up in 1977 (the next window) would take another launch vehicle (a Titan-Centaur), and the only way to get one would be by “stealing” it from another mission that had been waiting in line. He promised that the spare parts and other hardware of the partially built Viking 3 would be kept for a possible succeeding window.41 Martin was not encouraged. He worried that the political window on Mars exploration might be closing: “I think we will have to find something exciting to have another mission to Mars,” he complained in a media interview.42

Shortly before launch on August 20,1975, a valve issue came up on the launch vehicle. Fletcher, Low, Naugle (now the senior NASA associate administrator), and Hinners all sat around a table in a teleconference with Martin, who was at Cape Canaveral, peering at drawings of the valve, trying to figure out how to fix the problem.43 That the top officials of the agency were so engaged indicated how important all viewed Viking. Fortunately, the problem was solved. Viking 1 went up. The four-ton spacecraft sped away from its Cape Canaveral launchpad “atop a Titan-Centaur rocket, a bright orange and yellow colored flame behind it. Burning solid rocket fuel that built up to 2.4 million pounds of thrust in sec­onds, the Titan-Centaur and its payload of instruments were 30 miles out over the Atlantic in two minutes and moving 5000 miles an hour.” After going briefly into a “parking orbit” 100 miles above Earth, the rocket engine lifted Viking out of orbit at a speed of over 25,000 miles an hour. “We’re finally on our way to Mars,” Martin beamed. “All systems are working fine,” he said. “It’s been sheer hell,” commented Kraemer. “There were times I thought we’d never make it.”44

On September 9, Viking 2 went up—successfully. NASA officials were elated. As the Vikings sped toward Mars, NASA planned political strategy. In December, Low instructed the Science Directorate to prepare a supplemental request for funds in the event of “spectacular results” emanating from Viking. He wanted it ready to go to the White House and Congress by July 1976.45

Delaying Mars Observer

The shuttle accident brought much of NASA to a halt—certainly the human spaceflight program. But to a severe degree various robotic programs were also affected, since many were dependent on the shuttle for launch. Fletcher stated that his highest priority was to “get the shuttle flying again.” It was not obvious when that would be, however. He now spoke of a “mixed fleet,” involving shuttle and expendable rockets. However, he had been father to the shuttle during his first tour as NASA Administrator, devoutly believed in its worth, and wanted to maintain its role as America’s prime launch system as much as possible.5

In August, Fletcher decided that the shuttle could not return to flight early enough for all its launch assignments, including the 1990 Mars Observer mis­sion. He set back the date for Observer’s launch to 1992. Those who had banked on Observer to revive the Mars program were shocked and angry. Sagan, Mur­ray, and Friedman knew that an expendable rocket could serve just as well for Mars Observer and that one could be made available by the Air Force. The Air Force, which had been restricted in using expendable rockets under President Carter’s policy to maximize use of the shuttle, had extricated itself from this policy. President Reagan changed the Carter policy and was making expend­able rockets usable for national security and commercial launches. Why not Mars Observer? As far as Planetary Society leaders could tell, Fletcher had not even considered the expendable rocket option when he made his Observer post­ponement decision. Moreover, they discovered he planned to move money that would now not be needed in the next two years for Mars Observer to other priorities.6

The Planetary Society decided to fight the Fletcher decision. “We raised a cry in the news media and elsewhere,” Murray recalled. At first, it appeared that the Society had persuaded the NASA Administrator to change his mind. In Sep­tember, Fletcher stated, “We have decided. . . to continue working on the Mars Observer on schedule to provide launch readiness for the 1990 opportunity.”7 It looked as though Mars Observer would go forward as planned, although it was not settled whether it would go on a shuttle or expendable rocket.

On January 2,1987, Fletcher informed Congress of another change in NASA’s plans. Instead of launching Mars Observer in 1990, NASA would delay launch to 1992. The reason he cited was the Challenger accident. With the shuttle down, there was a logjam in flights scheduled to use the shuttle. In spite of his earlier statement about a 1990 launch, he was now holding to the 1992 schedule. Something had to give, he said, and he had decided (again) that Mars Observer could be postponed two years.8

The new decision came as a second shock to the Mars community. In many ways, the affected scientists felt betrayed. One reason was that the Solar System Exploration Committee had carefully developed plans to reconstruct the plan­etary program and had made Mars Observer not only an inner-planet priority but a key to a sequence of missions demonstrating low-cost planetary explora­tion. In its 1986 report on an “augmented” program, SSEC had proposed that

Observer be followed by long-coveted rover and sample return missions. But it was more than a matter of scientific planning for Sagan and the Planetary So­ciety. For them, Mars stood as a beacon of NASA’s commitment to exploration in general after Challenger.

As Fletcher was postponing Mars Observer, he brought back Sally Ride, a member of the Rogers Commission, to chart NASA’s post-Challenger future. To the Mars advocates, Mars Observer, whatever its limits, was central to that future.9 As Friedman put it, Mars Observer had become “enormously symbolic” to the Mars community, as well as space enthusiasts in the general public. The reasons, Friedman declared, were threefold. First, “it was Mars and therefore an object that we believe should represent the focus and long-range goal of space exploration. Mars Observer was a step toward that goal. So, by putting a low priority on it, NASA was putting a low priority on the one goal that we thought was the most widely accepted and most important to the agency.” Second, he said, “As the first of the Observer-class missions, Mars Observer represents the minimum planetary mission, devised to reconstruct the [Mars] program.” Third, he argued, the Mars Observer represented “the first chance to cooperate with the Soviets in Mars exploration. How could the United States cooperate with the Soviets, which had announced an ambitious program, if the U. S. policy was to delay our only approved program?”10

Sagan, Murray, and Friedman decided to launch a multifront fight and asked the then-ioo, ooo-plus Planetary Society members to write letters to Fletcher and Congress protesting the decision. In addition, Murray took direct action by calling Dale Myers, Fletcher’s deputy administrator, whom he knew, to persuade him to change Fletcher’s direction. Murray found Myers not particularly inter­ested in speaking to him when he placed his call. The former JPL director had a “solution” to propose to Myers. “Why not use the Titan expendable launch vehicle rather than the shuttle?” Murray asked. Myers shouted back at him, “Where am I going to get the $150 million” to pay for the launch?11

Indeed, there was a problem about money. Using a Titan would be expensive. But so would a two-year delay for a shuttle. Fletcher, feeling the heat from the Mars community, discussed with Congress the possibility of using a Titan and getting the money to pay for it, but he ran into resistance from the House Appropriations Committee chairman responsible for NASA’s budget. The con­gressional authorization committees were supportive, but they did not have final word on funding.12 On March 13, NASA confirmed that its spending plan for the year did not include Mars Observer and that money already approved by Congress for the project would be reprogrammed in the next two years to higher priorities.

Sagan and his allies at the Planetary Society reacted sharply. They took their case to the media, Congress, and the general public. Sagan went to the Mars Underground’s third conference in Boulder and gave the keynote address, rous­ing the 400 attendees to the Mars cause. In speaking to the media, Sagan, on March 15, called NASA’s decision “a great mistake and an example of a consis­tent lack of vision that NASA has had since the middle 1970s.”13

NASA’s leaders sought to head off criticism, especially with Congress. Myers wrote Congressman Bill Nelson (D-FL), chairman of the House Subcommit­tee on Space Science and Applications, explaining the agency’s position—and that Challenger had caused a backlog of shuttle missions for the 1990 period and that NASA did not have the money to use an Air Force expendable Titan rocket.14 He also wrote Murray, saying the obstacles to launching in 1990 were “insurmountable.”15

But Sagan and his allies were not quieted. They condemned the decision and pointed out that delaying the launch would cost almost as much as using an expendable Titan. The real reason, the Planetary Society leaders said, was that not using a shuttle would undermine NASA’s claims about the shuttle’s necessity as a launch system. They specifically chastised Fletcher, who was “besieged by personal phone calls from members of Congress, some of whom were key to his important budget items like the Shuttle and Space Station.” More than 10,000 Planetary Society members sent off 25,000 letters to Congress.16 On April 27, the three Planetary Society leaders testified before Congress. NASA’s public affairs director called the press release preceding the testimony an “unconscionable attack on both Dr. Fletcher and the agency in general.” She recommended that NASA and JPL not cooperate with the Society in using JPL facilities for meet­ings involving possible joint U. S.-USSR activities the Society was promoting.17

She did not get her way. The next month, in May, the first International Conference on Solar System Exploration was held in Pasadena. The Soviet Union sent delegates who unveiled grand plans for exploring Mars, starting with the Phobos mission. The Soviets said they intended to sponsor a Mars rover and sample return project by the end of the century. David Morrison, head of the SSEC, spoke. He said that the United States had “fine plans. We have great inherent capability. But we have been very slow to turn those plans into actual programs.”18

On May 14, Murray paid a personal visit to Myers in hope of mending fences and getting him to help in reversing Fletcher’s Mars Observer decision. What he found was that Myers “was really steamed up.” He and Fletcher were furi­ous that the Planetary Society had created such a big public relations problem for them. Murray wanted to see whether NASA and the Society could work together and he could rebuild the personal relationship he had with Myers. “How can we help, Dale?” Murray asked, hoping he would use that opening to outline an area of future cooperation. “We’re 100,000 dues-paying members, a real Mars constituency.” Murray reminded Myers that Fletcher had recently brought astronaut Sally Ride to lead a task force studying long-term options for NASA’s future. Ride’s report was not public as yet, but there was ample reason to assume that her options would include Mars robotic and human missions.

“We may not choose the Mars options,” Myers replied in a manner Murray called “gruffly.” “If we do, we’ll contact you,” he declared. That was that! Mur­ray had found no common ground, and Myers signaled that Murray’s time was up. As Murray interpreted the meeting, Myers considered the Planetary Society just another pressure group, one giving the agency headaches rather than sup­port.19 The Planetary Society could not get NASA to budge on the decision to delay Observer.

The man responsible for directing science at NASA was now Lennard Fisk, 43, who had succeeded Edelson as associate administrator for space science and applications in April 1987. Fisk had been vice president for research and financial affairs at the University of New Hampshire. He was an astrophysicist who had a number of projects other than Mars on his agenda when he came to NASA. Moreover, he became increasingly interested in a new activity within NASA that would be called “Mission to Planet Earth” (MTPE).20 Started by Edelson, this effort was rapidly developing in NASA, and the earth sciences along with it. NASA had played the lead role in the mid-1980s for determining the causes of the ozone hole over Antarctica. Some of its scientists provided technical advice contributing to the Montreal Protocol on ozone-depleting chemicals in 1987.

The issue of climate change was rising on the national and international agenda, and Fisk, like Edelson, wanted to position the agency for leading in a growing and important mission. Moreover, the NASA Administrator, Fletcher, personally cared about NASA’s environmental role. In his earlier tenure as Administrator he had termed NASA “an environmental agency.” His strong Mormon beliefs, which had mattered in his Viking advocacy, also made him extremely attentive to the concept of stewardship of the planet.21

In short, Fisk had good reasons to push the new Earth priority for the Office of Space Science and Applications. He supported, but did not stress, the Mars program. Like Edelson, he let his subordinate, Briggs, largely direct Mars ac­tivity. In addition, he took seriously the SSEC emphasis on broad solar system exploration as opposed to Mars-centered exploration. The next new start in planetary science he wanted to sponsor, pursuant to recent SSEC recommenda­tions, was Saturn, with an expensive mission that would be called Cassini. For a while, Cassini was connected in planning with another project, the Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby (CRAF). These projects were aimed at the outer solar system.

But the most important reason Fisk did not give Mars exploration the prior­ity its advocates wanted was that he was spending a great deal of money from his program on missions that were well past Observer’s development stage and were literally sitting, waiting in storage, to be launched on a shuttle. There was little Fisk could do about Fletcher’s intent to use the shuttle for major science launches. That being the case, he recollected his challenge as follows:

Everything was stacked up. We were spending $5 million a month just to watch the Hubble Space Telescope. We had Galileo [Jupiter] at the Cape and shipped it back to JPL. We had Ulysses [a project to study the Sun] at the Cape. We came at it [decision making] this way: What’s the most cost/effective way to get rid of this backlog? It cost us $2 billion to stand down science in the post-Challenger period. We had to get Hubble off the ground. The most expensive science missions went first. Mars had to wait. Hubble especially had to launch. Our most expensive science mission. Tremendous hype about Hubble.22