Category Why Mars

On April 7, the first mission in the new program, Odyssey, was successfully launched. It began its long journey to Mars as the Bush budget details became known. In a speech he gave before the National Press Club a few days after the Odyssey launch, Hubbard alluded to the White House support for Mars exploration. He said the additional funds promised were assurance that future missions had resources they needed to succeed. He noted that the budget would make sure the 2005 mission, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, “has the full set of science instruments that we’ve been talking about,” and would allow NASA even to begin developing technologies for MSR.

He said NASA would in 2007 launch its first scout mission conceived by the scientific community and industry. In 2009, NASA planned to launch an­other sophisticated orbiter, possibly with international partners. This mission was present for the first time as a result of favorable budget trends, Hubbard declared. Indeed, he said that MSR might be possible in a 2011 launch.5

Garvin, meanwhile, wasted no time in taking advantage of what he saw as a window of opportunity for a Mars initiative. He was a man whose office answer­ing machine extolled, “Have a great Mars day!” Garvin matched Goldin in his zeal for the Red Planet. As soon as he was sure that OMB and the White House supported the Mars program, he moved to clarify scientific and engineering re­

quirements for the Mars Smart Lander. He did so by organizing a Science Defi­nition Team. NASA was not going to have two MSLs. But maybe the one MSL NASA could send to Mars would be even more capable than what Hubbard and his team had originally conceived. What was implicit in the thinking of Garvin and other Mars enthusiasts was how to move forward more rapidly toward MSR. In discussions with OMB and Mars scientists, Garvin found agreement that Mars Smart Lander was especially important in developing technologies for MSR. If MSR was an end, then each mission leading to it had to be justified as means. Each mission had to build on a predecessor and show real progress. That was the quid pro quo between NASA and OMB in garnering White House backing for its long-term program.

While Garvin maneuvered in Washington, as well as with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Mars science community, Hubbard held discussions with possible international partners, especially Russia. These did not lead very far.6 Tired but elated, Hubbard decided it was time for him to leave the nation’s capital. Satisfied that the new Mars program was off to the best start possible with a good funding prognosis, Hubbard on April 19 announced he was step­ping down as headquarters Mars director. He and his wife, he said, wanted to return to California and Ames. He said he had promised Goldin and Weiler a year to fix the Mars program, and that year was up. Weiler praised Hubbard effusively and said he had taken on “mission impossible” and converted it into “mission accomplished.” Orlando Figueroa, a veteran NASA manager, would succeed Hubbard.7

Figueroa inherited a Mars program moving quickly, with significant change under way where Mars Smart Lander was concerned. There was growing con­sensus among Mars advocates that Mars Smart Lander could and should be augmented. The original emphasis of Mars Smart Lander, as the name implied, was precision landing. It was seen initially as a technology pathfinder.8 In the first half of 2001, and later into the summer and fall, it became increasingly clear that the Bush White House was supportive of robotic Mars exploration. In this political context, the Mars Smart Lander gradually morphed into the Mars Sci­ence Laboratory. Garvin provided leadership within headquarters for the change of emphasis, but the shift reflected widespread support at JPL and in the Mars science community for augmenting the science laboratory—that is, rover—com­ponent of the mission. As the orientation of the device altered, so did its name.

What evolved was the sense that MSL should be substantially more capable in performing science than Pathfinder and the two rovers that would be launched

in 2003. One way MSL could be significantly better would be if it were nuclear powered. The 2003 Mars Exploration Rovers (MER)—known as Spirit and Op­portunity—would be solar powered. That limited their range and capacity to work at night. A nuclear-powered rover would not have that limit and could do so much more, so much longer, planners reasoned.

Garvin and his associates took their case to Weiler. They argued the merits of a nuclear-powered rover. Weiler had been a scientific leader of the Hubble proj­ect. He was a telescope man. The Mars advocates called MSL an “observatory on wheels.” Weiler saw the merits of nuclear technology. He agreed.9 And so did OMB and the Bush White House. Sean O’Keefe, the politically appointed deputy director of OMB, Isakowitz’s boss, had been secretary of the navy under the first Bush. He had seen the value of nuclear propulsion for ships. A nuclear proponent, he now also saw the value of nuclear propulsion for spacecraft.

Fisk and the SSB were able to elicit from Griffin and Congress approval to try to reach a consensus among space scientists which would provide guidance for policymakers in funding decisions.34 Thus, in March, an ad hoc group of two dozen senior scientists from various disciplines convened in a Washington, D. C., conference room to see if they could work together rather than as rivals in setting priorities. After hours of debate, the group found basic agreement on certain principles, such as the importance of smaller missions. What that meant for big missions, such as the MSL, was not clear.

The group did not identify specific trade-offs. The vice chairman of the SSB, George Paulikas, did not promise that the scientists could do that. Asked about how the scientists would spread pain among themselves, he told a reporter, “Stay tuned.”35 The ad hoc group would meet again to try to be more specific.

While NASA and the Mars scientific community fretted and argued about cuts to future opportunities, implementation of the existing Mars program con­tinued to go smoothly. On March 10, MRO successfully sailed into the correct orbit to take the next step in Mars exploration. Launched in April 2005, the $720 million spacecraft carried six state-of-the-art instruments, including ground – penetrating radar.

MRO’s goals were to provide new knowledge about surface features, recon­naissance for future landings, communications for future rovers and landers, and clues to life, past or present. In line with the scientific strategy, it would “follow the water.” It had flown 300 million miles by the time it swung into Mars orbit. Then it disappeared for a half hour, dropping out of radio contact. When it emerged, it signaled that all was well.

“Look at that!” yelled an engineer at JPL mission control. “Right on the money!” shouted another.36 McCuistion announced his delight with the way the mission was going. MRO would take over for Mars Global Surveyor, whose mission had extended far longer than expected. MRO, along with the European orbiter and two U. S. rovers, solidified the fact that spacefaring nations were cre­ating what JPL director Elachi called a “permanent [robotic] presence” around another planet.37

On March 29, McCuistion came to a meeting of the SSB to present a pos­sible Mars program that had been scaled back to fit into a $6oo-million-a-year expenditure stretching into the future. This was still the major program in the planetary sciences, he explained, but NASA simply could not do all that it had hoped to do. The agency was developing plans for the period extending from 2011 to 2016, and he wanted the board’s views as soon as possible. In 2011, a relatively small Scout mission would go up under the reoriented effort. In 2013, NASA proposed to send the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter, which had been killed earlier. The next launch window would come 26 months later, falling in 2016. NASA was considering a successor to MSL called the Astrobiology Field Laboratory. This mission was aimed at finding evidence of life. If that mission did not work out, perhaps a repeat of Spirit and Opportunity, but with more sophisticated rovers, might be an option, he said.

Actually returning samples to look for life was not on the agenda at all, unless NASA could get other spacefaring nations to help finance such a mission. Mc – Cuistion tried to look on the positive side—$600 million a year was still a lot of money for one planet. But he could not contain his frustration: “Are we a little fragile?” he asked. “Yeah, we are a little fragile. But we still have a program that’s viable for the next decade.”38

In early May, the SSB again convened a group of leading scientists to help it determine priorities to recommend to NASA. Seventy attended, meeting at the University of Maryland at College Park. Speaking to the group, Griffin admitted, “I made a mistake. I made commitments in advance that I wasn’t able to keep.”39 The scientists divided into four groups. One was devoted to the planetary sciences. The cut in science funding had fallen heavily on the plan­etary scientists. This was in part due to the nature of the field. Missions were separable, whereas astronomy consisted chiefly of a few large telescope projects, one of which—the James Webb Space Telescope—was suffering a huge over­run destined to grow. Also, astronomers were relatively cohesive on priorities, whereas planetary scientists seldom united.

As the largest subgroup among the planetary scientists, the Mars research­ers especially needed to cohere around their preferences. The Mars scientists, however, were unable to agree on much. One mission with which they grappled was a small Scout mission scheduled for 2011. Should it go as planned or be modified, deferred, or cancelled? When the Mars scientists began to discuss the 2011 mission, six members of the group had to recuse themselves because they had proposals pending on this mission. “We can’t very well make a decision to cancel the Scout mission after all the qualified people have left the room,” said the chair of the group, Sean Solomon, of the Carnegie Institution of Washing­ton. “We’re going to punt. Our hands are tied by legal restrictions.”40

Legal restrictions were not the only issue. Many of the planetary scientists were fierce competitors. When all was said and done, they could not get beyond general guidelines. The SSB called the existing NASA program “fundamentally unstable [and] seriously unbalanced.”41 The balance to which the SSB referred primarily involved the ratio of big and small science. But critics of this view at the College Park meeting noted that many “big science” missions provided a substantial number of subcontracts to individual investigators and their gradu­ate students. Also, in the Earth observation field, many satellites were character­ized as “moderate” in size. Where did such a concept fit in the overall scheme of expenditures?

The effort to involve a larger body of scientists in setting science policy at NASA was of limited help to agency officials as they struggled to define what NASA would do in the future. The next scheduled mission, to go up in 2007, was a Scout mission called Phoenix. A stationary lander, Phoenix made use of concepts that were intended for the ill-fated Mars Polar Lander. Sensors that had been devised for that failed mission could be put to use with Phoenix. Its very name came from the mythical bird that died in a fire, only to be reborn from the ashes. Phoenix would arise from the ashes of MPL.

As planning got under way, a heated debate erupted between the Obama White House and Congress. It was over the human spaceflight program but affected everything else at NASA, including Mars policy. In February 2010, Obama an­nounced his proposed budget for NASA for the new fiscal year. It provided additional funds but did not start the agency on the $3 billion increment for which the Augustine panel had called. Instead, it terminated Constellation and announced a new program to nurture a commercial industry to ferry crew to the International Space Station, given the looming retirement of the Space Shuttle. It did not give a destination for human spaceflight. Its emphasis was made on a new technology development initiative. There had been no preparation of Congress for the drastic change in policy. NASA, including its Administrator, had largely been left out of the White House decision process.

Congress reacted strongly, immediately, and negatively to the policy. Led by representatives of states with human spaceflight facilities, Congress rejected the Obama plan. In April, Obama sought to assuage Congress by calling for a trip to an asteroid in 2025 and to Mars in the mid-2030s. The Orion space capsule, cancelled along with the rest of Constellation, would be reprieved in the form of a crew-rescue vehicle. A decision on the heavy-lift rocket would be made before the end of his term, President Obama said. The president did not succeed in blunting the rancor. In this environment, little attention was given to robotic Mars policy.

In July 2010, NASA published a report on its current strategic plan for SMD. With respect to MEP, NASA declared that it would seek to launch “successive missions to Mars (roughly every 26 months) to evolve a scientifically integrated architecture of orbiters, landers, and rovers.” It said that the existing program organized around projects to “follow the water” was achieving its objectives and announced NASA’s new goal: “seeking signs of life.” NASA made it clear that it aimed ultimately at “collection and return of samples from Mars.” It said it planned to achieve this goal with ESA. NASA proclaimed that the transition from the agency’s present to its longer-term future would be led by “the next quantum leap in Mars exploration: the Mars Science Laboratory.”31

SMD knew precisely what it wanted to do. But NASA as a whole did not, caught as it was between the president and Congress. In October, Congress and the president agreed on a compromise. Part of Constellation came back with new names. Ares I was killed in favor of a commercial industry to be created to service ISS. Rather than waiting, NASA would move ahead as quickly as pos­sible on the Ares V heavy-lift rocket (now called Space Launch System [SLS]). The Orion space capsule would be developed, now named Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV). The asteroid and Mars destinations stayed. Bush’s Moon des­tination was gone.

This compromise did not end the debate, as struggles over funding continued for many months afterward. Also, in November, elections put the Republicans in charge of the House and narrowed the Democrats’ majority in the Senate. It was obvious that getting decisions made on NASA policy and budget generally would be extremely difficult.

In early February 2011, President Obama announced his budget for FY 2012. For NASA, there was a freeze—$18.7 billion, the same budget it received in 2010. For the current fiscal year (FY 2011), NASA awaited action by Congress. The power struggle between the Democratic-controlled White House and di­vided Congress had resulted in no budget from the Hill. NASA operated under a continuing resolution that held its budget static at the previous year’s spend­ing. The political and fiscal conflict hindered implementation of existing mis­sions and planning for the future.

The White House projection in the budget for NASA and especially the planetary program was ominous. It showed spending on planetary science increasing by $180 million the next year, to $1.54 billion, and then declining steadily to $1.25 billion by 2016.

One important aspect of the policy continuity arising from Obama’s reelection lay with discussions among NASA, OMB, and the Office of Science and Tech­nology Policy about the FY 2014 budget. While that budget, as well as any pos­sible statement about a longer-term Mars Next Decade program, awaited the president’s budget announcement in early 2013, there were positive negotiations focused on the near-term issue of a Mars launch in 2018 or 2020.

Grunsfeld, like Weiler, dealt with OMB. OSTP was also involved in nego­tiations from a policy perspective. Typically, OMB was far more powerful than OSTP unless the president made his perspective clear. In other words, budget usually drove policy. However, Obama had spoken of his desire to personally “protect” the Mars investment. Directly or indirectly, the Obama view meant that policy could drive budget, at least to some extent, at least for this moment.

On December 4, Grunsfeld came to a “town hall” meeting of the Ameri­can Geophysical Union fall conference in San Francisco. Excitedly, he an­nounced that the White House had approved a $1.5 billion Mars mission for 2020. Grunsfield said he had wanted to launch in 2018, but became convinced it would be better to wait for 2020 and go for another rover. The science “action is now on the surface” of Mars, he said. The White House had authorized the mission—and, presumably, the early announcement.

How that rover would be designed and what it would do remained to be determined. He said he was setting up a science definition team to help answer these questions. An MSR cache was possible.

Significantly, he praised OMB and OSTP for their assistance in making this new mission possible. Clearly, the successful landing of MSL Curiosity had made a difference in the decision-making process. Grunsfeld called Mars “a spe­cial place.” The scientific audience was said to be somewhat in a state of “shock.” No one had expected this announcement. Ordinarily, it would have come later, if at all, in connection with the FY 2014 budget statement. The White House was sending a message of support for NASA and the Mars community.36

This was a time of extreme budgetary and political turmoil. But there was hope and even some optimism for the future of the Mars program.