President Reagan and NASA’s Office of Exploration

During its deliberations, the Ride task force recommended that an organization be created to perform systematic planning for the nations civil space program. In July 1987, Administrator James Fletcher established the NASA Office of Explora­tion to coordinate the agency’s efforts to promote missions to the Moon and Mars. Fletcher appointed John Aaron, a longtime NASA official, as the first Assistant Administrator for the bureau. Among Aarons first assignments was to conduct a study, building on the Paine and Ride reports, looking at options for the long range human exploration of the solar system. This effort, which involved representatives from seven NASA field centers and five headquarters program offices, continued for more than a year.[80]

On 19 December 1988, the Office of Exploration submitted to Fletcher its first annual report, Beyond Earth’s Boundaries: Human Exploration of the Solar System in the 21st Century—which was the final product of the office’s year-long strate­gic study. The study team examined two different alternatives for future human exploration. First, the space agency could develop a series of expeditions that would travel from Earth to new destinations in the solar system. Second, the space agency could focus on an evolutionary expansion into the solar system that would concen­trate more on permanence and the exploitation of resources. The NASA-wide effort utilized a technique called exploration case-studies, whereby a series of technical and policy “what if” questions were asked to judge the viability of several mission options. Beyond Earth’s Boundaries examined four specific case studies:

• a round-trip human mission from Earth to the Martian moon Phobos, which would serve as a stepping stone to a landing on red planet

• a direct human mission to the surface of Mars

• establishment of a human scientific research station on the Moon

• a lunar outpost to Mars outpost plan, which emphasized the use of the Moon as a springboard for further exploration of the solar system

The study team concluded that an expedition to Phobos could be a valuable interim step to a human landing on the Martian surface, offsetting some of the uncertainties that the latter mission could encounter. They also found that utilizing the Moon as a springboard for expansion into the solar system had a number of advantages, such as learning to construct habitats, extract and process mineral resources, and operate and maintain exploratory machinery. It was also believed that using the Moon as a fuel depot would appreciably reduce the total Earth launch mass, greatly cutting overall programmatic costs. In the end, the report favored establishment of a scientific research station on the Moon as a logical stepping-stone to both a per­manent lunar outpost and a full-up Mars expedition. The study team did not sup­port a “crash” human exploration program, regardless of the alternative chosen by policy makers. Instead, it preferred that NASA conduct long-lead technology and life sciences research during the 1990s—including the completion of Space Station Freedom. It was contended that this would provide government officials with the requisite data to make a decision before the turn of the century regarding the best alternative for expansion into the solar system.[81]

During the period that the Office of Exploration was conducting its study, work was going on within the Reagan administration to generate a new national space policy. In 1982, the White House had produced a national space policy under the auspices of the National Security Council. That document stated the central role of the Space Shuttle in the national security and civil space sectors.[82] [83] In the interim, however, there had been important changes in the American space program— including the Challenger accident, a greater emphasis on commercial applications, and the National Commission on Space report. Throughout the latter half of 1987, a Senior Interagency Group (SIC) for Space conducted a comprehensive review that reflected those and other changes in the policy environment. On 11 February 1988, an unclassified summary of the Presidential Directive on National Space Policy was publicly released. The stated goals of the space policy were:

• to strengthen national security

• to obtain scientific, technological, and economic benefits

• to encourage continuing private-sector investment in space related activities

• to promote international cooperation; and, as a long-range goal

• to expand human presence and activity beyond Earth orbit into the solar system

This presidential directive was the first time since Kennedy’s May 1961 speech that human exploration beyond Earth orbit formally made it onto the government agenda. To implement this new policy, the document directed NASA to begin the systematic development of technologies necessary to enable a range of future human

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missions.

Despite the appearance that President Reagan had made a momentous commit­ment to sending humans beyond Earth orbit, many space policy experts question the strength of the pledge. American University’s Howard McCurdy argues that the policy directive was merely a “gesture designed to please NASA bureaucrats and space exploration advocates who were clamoring for an expedition to Mars.” George Washington University’s John Logsdon contends that for all intents and purposes the policy was meaningless because it committed the administration to no spe­cific new exploration program. Finally, the Congressional Research Service’s Marcia Smith makes the case that human exploration outside the Earth system was not actually part of the government agenda during the Reagan administration; it was simply part of the “space agenda.” Despite the weak commitment to the proposal, however, the presidential directive did generate further momentum for the adoption a Moon-Mars initiative by the next president.[84]