Category Why Mars

The timing and substance of the president’s announcement could not be dis­connected from what happened with the MEP. If Spirit succeeded, it would be much easier to herald a new human program to the Moon and Mars. But there was reason to be wary. Other countries recently had joined the United States in the Mars quest. They were finding the Red Planet as daunting as the pioneering nations, the United States and Russia, had. The Japanese on December 9 had to declare a Mars mission they had sent a failure. They were unable to put their probe into its intended orbit. On Christmas Eve, the European Space Agency did achieve Mars orbit with its Mars Express, but the Beagle 2 lander/rover it carried failed the next day.30

Weiler’s comment about Mars being “a death planet” had justification. O’Keefe, Weiler, and Elachi were all present on Saturday night, January 5, 2004, at JPL’s mission control room as Spirit made its long-awaited attempt to land. Because of the distance between Mars and Earth, there was a gap of several minutes between what happened on Mars and signals of what happened were received on Earth. “I’m scared,” admitted Weiler. “An awful lot of things have to go right. . . it’s up to the Gods now.” Carrying its 384-pound rover NASA described as a PhD field geologist in capability, the spacecraft began its harrow­ing descent to Mars. It entered Mars’s atmosphere at 12,000 miles per hour and had six minutes to carry out a series of automated maneuvers that would lead to either a safe landing or a disaster. Weiler called this period of time “six minutes from Hell.”31

Spirit made it. When the signal arrived that the spacecraft had safely con­cluded its bounce-after-bounce landing, joy erupted at JPL mission control. Scientists, engineers, and NASA officials cheered. Naderi cried. He “ran down

the corridor to see Theisinger [the project manager].” He was emotional too. Everyone “hugged one another.”32 Sean O’Keefe opened a bottle of champagne. The celebration was one of immense relief. “There are probably several hun­dred people here for whom it’s the best day of their lives,” one scientist told a Washington Post reporter. At a news conference a little later, O’Keefe stated, “This is a big night for NASA.” “We’re back!” he exclaimed, “and we’re on Mars.”33 O’Keefe later told Elachi, “You saved the agency.”34

The significance of Spirit’s achievement for the White House was indicated by Bush’s science advisor, John Marburger, who was also among the notables at JPL. “This is going to give everybody a big boost,” he commented. “It gives a big boost to the American people. Obviously, this helps a lot to instill confidence in any policy step that you make.”35

In June, MSL went through a Critical Design Review (CDR), the most signifi­cant decision point since the 2006 PDR. It revealed that some of the problems that had surfaced at the PDR, especially those of the actuators, had not been solved. NASA would have to go back to more conventional actuators, and that would add money and time. Figueroa, who chaired the CDR, warned Stern he would need to put more money into MSL and should not make any unnecessary changes in design. But Stern was determined to speed MSR. By September,

Stern faced the reality that if he wanted to add a sample-collecting capability to MSL, he would have to subtract certain other capabilities. The problem was that costs kept going up. He had taken office promising to end what he called management by checkbook.

The issue came to a head over an amount that was relatively modest—$75 million in a project now costing $1.7 billion. The issue was that this was the most recent of a sequence of cost increases. More importantly, Stern saw a need to hold the line, or admit defeat in his get-tough management approach. Thus, he ordered the MSL project manager to omit two instruments, cap oth­ers, and alter certain design elements. Doing so, in his view, would avoid the overrun, while also providing scope for his sample return addition. Stern called the changes “low-impact mission scope reductions.” In discussing his decision September 19, he stated, “I’ve spent all the reserves for the Mars Exploration Program for next year. The next check I write results in cancelling a mission or mission extension.” He warned that he had even considered terminating MSL.78

The Planetary Society, led by Huntress, decried the reductions in capability in MSL. The Society sent letters to U. S. lawmakers urging them to block imple­mentation of the cutbacks until Congress could “evaluate them in the context of the overall NASA budget.” It charged, “The loss to science on MSL seems out of proportion. The goal of MSL is to conduct science, and to throw out so much of the mission science objectives for less than 4% of the mission cost, and for assurance costs that have not yet been realized, seems penny-wise and pound foolish.”79

The Stern decision caused particular dismay for those contractors directly affected. They sought to find ways to deal with the situation. Stern struck a hard bargain. In November, he announced the outcome of negotiations. The two primary devices to be deleted would be restored, he said. These were the Mars Descent Imager and the Laser-Induced Remote Sensing for Chemistry and Micro-Imaging Instrument.

Stern explained in a letter to the Mars science community that he agreed to restore the descent imager because its maker, the Malin Space Science Systems Company, “has agreed that there will be no additional costs to NASA.” As for the other laser instrument, he said the principal contractors had found ways to significantly reduce its costs to NASA. Those costs were down to $400,000, a figure that caused Stern to declare “victory” in his negotiations. “The outcome,” he said, “is even better than we had imagined possible in September.”80

Decision making for the Mars program under Stern increasingly revolved

about MSL. It was emerging as a flagship not only for the Mars program but for NASA generally. As its costs rose and debates swirled over what kind of equipment it should carry, the question of where it should land on Mars also simmered in the background.

NASA had a steering committee for the MSL site selection. This commit­tee in late October brought together a large assembly of leading Mars scien­tists to narrow the number of places MSL might land. The group met for two days in a Pasadena hotel. The group represented various disciplines, including astrobiology.

There were 51 possible sites discussed. As in the past, safety and scientific potential were critical values to balance. Each site was discussed at length, and NASA said additional sites could be nominated. The meeting became “boister­ous” as strong-willed individuals advocated their choices. Majority votes were taken. When the meeting concluded, the list stood at six. “A lot of people sub­verted their interests [in a particular site] to the science. This degree of com­munity participation is one reason the Mars program has been so successful,” stated David Des Marais, a geochemist at NASA-Ames.81

NASA said that with the help of the steering committee and other scientists, it would decide on a single site in nine months. It was still uncertain what would come after MSL, but preparations for this project moved ahead.

As 2008 began, Congress finally passed an omnibus budget bill to keep the government running. Its most important impact on NASA was that while con­tinuing to keep NASA spending relatively flat, the Democratic majority made modest changes in the science budget reflecting a desire to raise the priority of Earth science.82 For years, this NASA program had been constrained by the Bush administration’s relative disinterest in the climate change issue. The Democrats increased spending on the field. But without major enhancements of NASA funding overall, the stress on Mars spending worsened.

The Mars program suffered another significant blow in early 2008 when NASA had to postpone its next Scout mission, an orbital project to study Mars’s atmosphere, from 2011 to 2013. This decision, due to a conflict of interest dis­covered in the proposal competition, marked the first time in a decade that NASA would miss a Mars launch window.83

Fisk, as chair of the NAS SSB, declared that the way NASA was going gener­ally, and in science particularly, was not “sustainable.” As 2008 was an election year, he, Hubbard, Huntress, and many others outside the agency discussed

ways they could get a message to the next president that NASA was in trouble, as well as suggesting what might be done as remedy.84

In early February, Bush released his FY 2009 budget. Once again, Science magazine reported, the president put NASA “between a rock and a hard place.”85 With virtually everything squeezed within NASA’s $17.3 billion budget, the sci­ence program was held to a 1% increase, or $4.6 billion. Griffin knew that the budget was “painful” to scientists, but he had his gargantuan problems with the human spaceflight program and Bush’s failure to support it. “You’re only going to get so much,” he told the community. “Suck it up and live with it.”86

On July 6, NASA announced it had narrowed the number of sites where MSL might land to two. They were both craters: Gale and Eberswalde. In making this decision, NASA dropped two others in the “final four”: another crater named Holden and a likely flood channel called Mawrth Vallis. While all four provided evidence of ancient water activity, the two finalists were especially intriguing.

Eberswalde was believed to be an ancient river delta. Gale Crater contained a mountain in its center. If Gale became the final choice, MSL would climb part of the way up this mountain, studying different layers of rock as it went. NASA said it would choose the final site by the end of July. Grotzinger, MSL’s lead project scientist, declared at a press conference, “It’s like two different flavors of ice cream—do you like the chocolate or vanilla on Mars? So we go back and forth a lot.”55 Weiler told Grotzinger, “John, I want to you to go as if this is the last Mars mission for 50 years. Find the best place to go.”56 Grotzinger got the top MSL managers and scientists together in a proverbial “smoke-filled room.” They came down unanimously in favor of Gale and recommended this site to Weiler.57 Weiler made the choice official, and it was announced on July 22.

Political pressures from advocates and opponents ultimately affect NASA de­cisions. NASA is the institutional glue that holds Mars exploration together, sometimes well, sometimes not so well. The advocacy coalition keeps Mars on the NASA and national policy agenda. Opponents within the space sector and outside of it seek displacement of Mars with alternate priorities. Both sides work directly on NASA, and sometimes via end runs to the agency’s political masters or the general public. Leaders in NASA respond to events, results, and scien­tific, bureaucratic, and political pressures, as well as their own predilections. They choose among conflicting options and then work to build internal and external constituencies to effectuate their choices. The end result of the clash of interests can be decisions to establish a new program, to reorient an existing program, or to end a program. One equilibrium in the balance of interests gives way to another.

NASA decisions have to be sold to OMB, the Office of Science and Technol­ogy Policy, the president and his political advisors, and Congress. NASA policy at the space subsystem level has to fuse with national policy, largely through the annual budget and appropriations process. Money fuels big science. The process of official decision usually starts within NASA, as the agency sorts out its needs amidst contesting advocacy groups. Within NASA, the decision process requires the associate administrator for science and the Administrator to decide on priorities, the place of Mars among them, and how to build support for those preferences. They are executives with political roles. It is their task to lead. In the words of James Webb, who guided NASA and Apollo in the 1960s, the role of leadership is to integrate “a large number of forces, some countervailing, into a cohesive but essentially unstable whole and keeping it in motion in a desired direction.”8

A number of individuals in NASA have played these institutional leadership roles with respect to the robotic program over the years, from Mariner to MSL. First were Newell and Glennan. Both downplayed Mars in favor of the Moon, but they empowered Pickering, and the result was Mariner. Newell and Glen – nan’s successor, Webb, maintained Mariner. It was part of the contest between the United States and the Soviet Union. Moreover, Mariner got started at a time when NASA’s budget was soaring. There was plenty of support and money for multiple initiatives on several fronts.

In the late 1960s, Newell and Webb looked ahead to post-Apollo NASA. They both wanted to explore the solar system. Webb in particular hoped to use robotic Mars Voyager as a program precursory to human Mars exploration, but did not want to advertise that motivation. He desperately wanted to main­tain the Saturn rocket capability and the von Braun team. Newell went along with Webb and saw uses for the Saturn rocket, but many scientists (including a number at JPL) opposed the huge Saturn-driven Voyager. Congress killed the program before it could get started, because critics also saw it (correctly) as a covert precursor to human spaceflight to Mars, and they did not want to go that direction.

Webb moved Newell to another NASA position and told Naugle, his succes­sor, to reshape the Mars program, or it would die. Naugle worked feverishly. He and the NASA Administrator promoted Viking as a replacement. The Saturn rocket and its human-Mars connotation were removed. NASA sold Viking as post-Mariner, not post-Apollo. The search for life became the prime rationale for the robotic program. Naugle solidified scientific support, while Webb built a White House-congressional political base sufficient to get Viking under way. The Mariner political equilibrium ended with the Voyager debacle, and that of Viking gradually ensued.

Webb left, and Paine came on as Administrator. Naugle, a career official, stayed as associate administrator for science, providing continuity. Paine de­cided that NASA should pursue the most aggressive (and expensive) Viking op­tion Naugle proposed. He was oriented to a human Mars program and saw the precursory potential of Viking. Unfortunately, with Nixon’s cutbacks, there was no hope for a human Mars program. In fact, he later had to tell Naugle that Viking could be salvaged only by delaying its launch by two years.

Fletcher succeeded Paine as NASA Administrator. Like Webb and Paine, he saw Mars exploration as not only a science but a NASA priority. He fully backed Viking. More than Webb or Paine, he emphasized the rationale of Viking’s quest for exobiological life. He involved himself personally in the Viking project, first with Naugle, then with Naugle’s successor, Hinners. In 1976, however, the time came for decisions about what was called Viking 3. President Ford had become a potential target of those wishing to continue Viking, and he awaited a strong push from NASA for a follow-on in his last budget. That push did not come. The scientific consensus was that Viking did not find life. The result was far more ambiguous than a simple “no,” but that ambiguity was lost to most observers.

NASA’s decision had been to “go for broke,” to take an Apollo-like approach to Mars. Apollo’s goal had been clear—to beat the Soviet Union to the Moon. In an analogous way, the goal of Viking was to best the Soviet Union in finding life on Mars. Clarifying a goal, making it as simple as possible, can be a way of gaining support. But it is a high-risk strategy, if the goal is not achieved.

Viking’s failure to find life after so much concentrated effort, hype, and per­sonal sacrifice on the part of those involved tarnished the allure of Mars. It exhausted and diminished the advocacy coalition. Other non-Mars advocates pressed NASA for “their turn” at priority, specifically for Galileo and Hubble. A follow-on Viking project—seen mainly as a mobile Viking—would be a mis­sion costing $1 billion or more. It would have been so expensive as to preclude other worthy endeavors. NASA could afford only so many big science programs. NASA leaders decided not to press “the Case for Mars,” and almost by default Mars exploration moved to the back burner of NASA’s agenda.

And there it stayed for years. It took a long time for a new political consen­sus favorable to Mars to be established. Associate administrators for science and NASA Administrators came and went. They kept Mars exploration alive through “extended missions” studying Viking data, and eventually via Mars Observer, sold as a low-cost mission that would look not for life but for more general geophysical understanding. Life, as a goal, was scientifically unfashion­able. And without that special aura, Mars became, de facto, just another planet. Meanwhile, two successive associate administrators for science, Edelson and then Fisk, developed a new global environmental mission for NASA whose sig­nificance grew as climate change evolved as an issue. Cost-constrained decision makers chose not to push Mars, whose advocacy coalition had shrunk signifi­cantly, while they promoted other projects important in their own right.

The locus of strong advocacy for Mars was outside NASA in the 1980s. Ex­ternal Mars proponents, such as members of the Mars Underground and Carl Sagan, were critical of NASA. Seeking an end run around the agency, Sagan and the Planetary Society used macropolitical rationales, particularly Mars Together with the Soviet Union, to make the Red Planet more salient to the public and politicians. They linked space with international cooperation as a strategy to change NASA priorities. NASA leaders resisted generally when outside advo­cates sought to alter their priorities. This was particularly the case after the Challenger disaster, when Mars advocates tried to change the shuttle launch schedule in favor of Mars Observer.

Everything changed in respect to Mars when Goldin became Administrator in 1992 and he replaced Fisk with Huntress. Although vastly unlike in person­ality, Goldin, the political executive, and Huntress, the career official, struck an exceptionally creative alliance and made a huge difference for Mars. The Goldin-Huntress axis was not only extremely Mars oriented but also unusu­ally skilled. Goldin stands out for the passion he had for Mars and ability to work with political forces—Vice President Gore in particular—to further Mars interests. Huntress was crafty as an operator in bureaucracy and with his mer­curial boss. He was able to deal well with the science community. Together, Goldin and Huntress used the failure of Mars Observer to trigger a renewal of Mars priority and rebuild what was a weak program. They scheduled missions at every 26-month opportunity. Goldin made Mars the flagship of his faster, better, cheaper revolution, thereby enlisting support in the White House and Congress. From the White House perspective, Goldin’s efficiency campaign made him a “good soldier.”9 As he was responsive to the White House, it was responsive to him.

Goldin made deft use of the Mars meteorite to rekindle interest in the media and public for the search for life as a rationale. With Huntress on the inside and Sagan as an outside advisor, Goldin worked to revive exobiology, renamed “astrobiology,” as a scientific discipline. He sought to accelerate MSR. He linked robotic Mars and human spaceflight more firmly in hopes of enhancing the robotic program’s precursory role. When Huntress left and Weiler came on as associate administrator for science, Weiler picked up where Huntress had left off. An experienced and able manager, Weiler also worked in tandem with Goldin.

Mars was emphatically the science and personal priority for Goldin in the 1990s. When the twin Mars failures took place in 1999, Goldin and Weiler retained Mars as a flagship but ended the Mars Surveyor Program. Aided by Hubbard and his team, they made decisions that were more realistic techni­cally and financially. With political support in the White House, OMB played a constructive role in the program redesign, an ally rather than adversary. The “follow-the-water” MEP started a new era for NASA and the Red Planet. When Goldin left NASA, his legacy reflected the flaws of overreach, but it also boasted a Mars program that had been transformed profoundly for the better. Goldin led the advocacy coalition from NASA’s summit.

O’Keefe as NASA Administrator maintained the Mars program he inherited, and Spirit and Opportunity helped the agency (and nation) at a time of great psychic need in the post-Columbia period. When the second Bush made his Vi­sion for Space Exploration decision, O’Keefe sought to augment robotic Mars spending and even more strongly link the robotic program with its precursory role for human spaceflight. The dual purpose—life on, life to—was never more explicit, and significantly more funds for Mars were projected. A “Safe on Mars” funding line was planned. “Priority” for Mars as a budgetary strategy was in, “balance” out for O’Keefe. A backlash from advocates of other space science programs came quickly and intensely against what they saw as too extreme a Mars emphasis.

Griffin came on as Administrator, listened to non-Mars advocates, and “re­balanced” the science program away from Mars. He was most determined to launch NASA’s human return to the Moon—as prelude to Mars—but he lacked a presidential funding commitment required for Moon-Mars. With far too much on NASA’s plate, and the shuttle costing more than projected, he decided to cut science to help fund human spaceflight, and Mars was not excluded from the pain. The “Safe on Mars” funding element went away, along with much else that was not near-term.10 Griffin hoped his 2007 choice as associate administra­tor for science, Stern, would help him design a Mars exploration program that was scientifically sound, politically acceptable, and affordable. He agreed when Stern wished to again accelerate MSR. But the way Stern attempted to get to MSR proved extremely controversial. Whatever might have been said for the scientific MSR goal, the Mars program strategy proposed by Stern did not get the support of the scientific community it had to have to be viable. Then, Stern and Griffin clashed over MSL. When Stern directed a cut to the iconic Spirit and Opportunity rovers, without consulting Griffin, the NASA Administrator overruled him publicly, and Stern was forced to resign.

It was up to Weiler to repair the damage, as he returned to rechart the Mars program. He sought to restore the political equilibrium undergirding Mars ex­ploration which he found had been disrupted. He started by adroitly getting the NASA Administrator on his side. The first big decision he and Griffin made regarding the Red Planet was to delay MSL by two years. Behind the decision was Weiler’s understanding and finesse in working the NASA setting. In achiev­ing the same decision Stern had sought—delay—Weiler carefully gathered sup­port within NASA and JPL. This decision added to already substantial MSL costs, but made eventual success more likely. Griffin made it abundantly clear he regarded Mars exploration as a top priority for the Science Mission Direc­torate—and NASA. He decided that MSL would get the money it needed to succeed, even if there had to be cuts to other worthy programs as a consequence. But Spirit and Opportunity were not to be touched!

Leaders matter. They make difficult decisions that have large consequences. They engineer choices within the space policy sector and relate those choices to the broader national and international policy world. Many others can advocate, advise, lobby, and complain. But officials in the key positions of associate admin­istrator for science and NASA Administrator have formal authority to decide, and making choices is never easy when there is not enough money for all that needs to be done. The essence of science policy lies with decisions about prior­ity. Spirit and Opportunity would never have succeeded had not Goldin and Weiler found the money to make them happen. And Weiler had to do that more than once during the rovers’ development. Also, in government, how decisions are made or sold can be as important as the decisions themselves.

The Bush administration gave way to that of Obama, and Bolden became NASA leader. Weiler, who remained as associate administrator for science until 2011, planned for the next era of Mars exploration—a Mars Together program with Europe and possibly other nations. As before, the robotic program had a prime science goal—to find evidence of present or past life. The means for achieving this purpose remained MSR. This means is also itself an interim goal, a vital enabling one. There was virtual unanimity among JPL, the Mars sci­ence community, NASA decision makers, and Mars enthusiasts generally about MSR. The challenge, as always, was to find the money to realize this objective.

Weiler, the NASA decision maker, became an advocate to OMB and White House staff. He hoped that international cooperation would provide a helpful political rationale for its achievement, symbolizing that in austere times nations could collaborate on grand and worthwhile challenges, while sharing the risks and costs. He aimed at a new political equilibrium or consensus, based on a “Mars Together” rationale. He could not persuade NASA’s budgetary overseers, and he resigned at least in part as an act of protest.

Notwithstanding NASA’s withdrawal from the planned European partner­ship, the desire for joint missions remained. NASA Administrator Bolden and his new associate administrator for science, Grunsfeld, did not give up on col­laboration. Nor would their successors likely do so. There are realities about bold ambitions and an austere funding environment which shape what leaders do. What NASA needs is help in getting resources to match scientific vision. That can come through alliance with domestic groups as well as international partners. It can also come through exciting discovery. Long-term programs need periodic catalysts. Mars had one with the Mars meteorite in the mid-1990s. MSL’s Curiosity could produce a stimulus through exciting findings. Successes reinvigorate a lengthy program; failures bog it down. Discoveries or dramatic events can elevate Mars from sectoral policy to national policy. They can help attract political leaders, as the meteorite did Clinton and Gore. But discover­ies or events become catalysts for funding only when astute Mars advocates and their allies make good use of them, engage the media, win the public, and maneuver skillfully in the political/policy process. The larger the advocacy co­alition, and the better it is led, the more powerful the push for Mars.