The Policy Stream: The Ad Hoc Working Group

In the six weeks following the creation of the Space Council, as the administra­tion was concentrating on other more pressing policy matters, no major actions were taken with regard to the future course of the space program. By the end of May, however, there was a flurry of activity to generate a policy initiative in prepara­tion for the Apollo 11 anniversary. On 25 May, Mark Albrecht called Admiral Truly to ask whether NASA could return to the Moon by the end of the century—in preparation for a Mars mission early in the next century. Albrecht was stunned by Truly’s response. “His first reaction was ‘don’t do it.’ NASA cannot handle this.” The NASA Administrator was unsure whether this request was simply Albrecht playing ‘what if’ games, or whether this was a serious proposition. As a result, he called Vice President Quayle, who confirmed that both he and President Bush wanted to know whether this was something NASA could accomplish. After consulting with Frank Martin, Director of NASA’s Office of Exploration, Truly concluded that there was [127] [128]

no way he could rebuff a presidential initiative. Albrecht recalled later “his initial impulse turned out to be quite revealing, because in the end, NASA couldn’t handle it.”[129] What is equally revealing, however, is the fact that nobody at the White House reconsidered the wisdom of announcing a new initiative given the agency’s reluc­tance.

After this interaction, the Space Council staff concluded that it needed to get a better sense of the correct technical approach to get back to the Moon on a per­manent basis and then on to Mars. To this end, Mark Albrecht set up a meeting for the end of the month with senior NASA leaders to discuss alternatives. On 31 May, Truly and Martin met to discuss a potential initiative. A few years later Martin recalled the discussion:

The nature of that conversation …was that going to the Moon [was] not the right answer. We have been to the Moon. If we are going to go to the Moon, we need to go back to stay. In the process of doing that, if you announce that you are going to go to the Moon and then go to Mars with humans, you had better be prepared to send robots along in the process.

Although he had signaled to Albrecht just days before that announcing any initia­tive at all was unwise, Admiral Truly was now supporting a much more aggressive (not to mention expensive) long-term exploration strategy. Later in the day, Truly, Martin, NASA Deputy Administrator J. R. Thompson, and former NASA Associate Deputy Administrator Philip Culbertson met with Albrecht to discuss proposals for a potential initiative. At this meeting, Truly told Albrecht that he “believed that the real program was Earth, Moon, and Mars as a total program strategy with both man and machines working together. It is that program that I think we need to proceed with.” Albrecht did not challenge the addition of Mars exploration to the initiative, even though his original inquiry had been limited to Moon exploration. By the end of the meeting, he had tasked NASA with preparing options and recommendations for a presidential decision to take advantage of the unique opportunity of July 20th and to achieve significant milestones by the end of the century.[130] Albrecht did not specifically ask NASA to consider the fiscal repercussions of a Moon-Mars initiative, although Admiral Truly made it clear this was not going to be cheap.[131]

With official direction from the White House, Admiral Truly moved quickly to establish a working group to pull together the alternatives for a Moon-Mars initia­tive. He immediately called NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) Director Aaron Cohen and asked him to gather a group of experts to compile program concepts. Truly asked Cohen to keep this activity confidential in order to keep the space agen­cy’s efforts a secret. From a technical and programmatic perspective, Dr. Cohen was an excellent choice to lead this policy alternative generation process. He had joined the space program in 1962, serving as program manager for Project Apollo’s Com­mand and Service Module and the Space Shuttle Orbiter Project. Given his rich background with the human exploration program, Cohen was the logical choice to lead this effort. Furthermore, he was very enthusiastic about the initiative and believed it was a good thing for the entire country. He believed from the start, how­ever, that considerable monetary resources would be required to successfully imple­ment the program—not to mention a long-term commitment from the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the American public.[132]

Cohen assembled a small team that included Frank Martin, John Aaron, Mark Craig, Charles Darwin, Mike Duke, and Darrell Branscome—this became known as the Ad Hoc Working Group (AHWG).[133] On 4 June, just six weeks before the president was to deliver his address, the AHWG assembled at Johnson Space Center. Mark Craig, Director of the Lunar and Mars Exploration Office at JSC, remem­bered that because “Admiral Truly wanted to keep this extremely secret, for obvious reasons… Aaron Cohen found a building in the back lot of JSC that… was secure. So we set up headquarters back there. It already had computers in it. It was ready to move in. It was locked. So we basically set that up as our center of operations.” The goal of the team was to pour over the available information from the National Commission on Space, Ride Report, and Office of Exploration. Within two weeks, the AHWG was to develop a set of briefing charts that scoped out, in terms of cost and schedule, what would be required to return humans to the Moon by the year 2000. Frank Martin recalled that there was no effort to make it cheap, although there was some discussion about the feasibility of the initiative in the current politi­cal environment. Admiral Truly actually expressed his opinion that it was more important to “Do it right. Make sure we can do this. Make sure we understand the scope and magnitude of this program.”[134] This necessarily meant that the AHWG would not provide alternatives with different budget profiles, although Mark Albre-

cht had implicitly asked for multiple options. Instead, it would provide the Space Council with what it believed to be the right answer—regardless of cost. Although this didn’t cause considerable friction at this early point in the process, this agency approach would eventually lead to an increasingly bitter relationship with Vice Pres­ident Quayle and the Space Council staff.

The AHWG split up its work to create a long-term exploration strategy—Mark Craig led the technical analysis, John Aaron led the cost analysis, Darrel Branscome led the future planning analysis, Charles Darwin led the space transportation analy­sis, and Mike Duke led the science analysis. The vast majority of the work was done under Mark Craig’s leadership, utilizing his staff within the Lunar and Mars Explo­ration Office. The AHWG met as a consulting body, working to shape the various inputs from these engineers into a briefing for the White House.[135] There was some concern within the agency regarding the planning monopoly that had emerged. Douglas O’Handley, the Deputy Director of the Office of Exploration and a veteran of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, remembered that the AHWG was a closed group composed almost exclusively of engineers from JSC. There was no effort to involve other NASA centers in this initial planning process. The envi­ronment within the agency during this period lacked the collegiality that had been experienced under the leadership of the Office of Exploration as agency-wide reports like “Beyond Earth Boundaries” were being drafted. O’Handley recalled that as the AHWG developed its plans, the JSC team clearly wanted as little JPL involvement as was possible. He became increasingly concerned as the planning moved forward because he felt “there was clearly a naivete about the impact of life sciences on the whole initiative. From my background, I was beginning to see holes in the fabric and things that JSC didn’t know much about falling to the side.”[136]

On 13 June, Mark Craig presented the AHWG program concept to Admiral Truly and Associate Administrator for Spaceflight Bill Lenoir at a secret meeting held in Washington, DC. The briefing, entitled “A Scenario for Human Explora­tion of the Moon and Mars,” proposed an approach that would start out with lunar activity and robotic missions—which would be precursors to Mars exploration. The AHWG approach required a sharp jump in the agency’s yearly appropriation, with stable annual investments for the life of the initiative. It was believed that after successfully establishing a lunar base and completing robotic precursor missions, a funding wedge would open providing the resources for Mars exploration.[137] The plan called for three phases of lunar development: emplacement, consolidation, and utilization. During the emplacement phase, extending from 2000 to 2004, a lunar station consisting of a base camp and science outpost would be assembled to house a crew of four on six-month tours of duty. It was expected that this initial capability could be accomplished with only six Shuttle-Cargo (Shuttle-C)[138] launches and a single crewed Shuttle launch. During the consolidation phase, extending from 2003 to 2006, a constructible habitat would be added to the lunar base—raising the crew size to eight and lengthening tours of duty to one year. During the utilization phase, extending from 2006 to 2017, a lunar oxygen production capability would increase crew size to 12 and lengthen tours of duty to three years—providing the capacity for significant scientific work and certification of Mars exploration hardware. As astro­nauts constructed and prepared the lunar station to be operational, NASA would begin robotic precursor missions to the red planet. These missions would conduct high-resolution imaging of the planetary surface, long-range surface roving, and return samples to scientists on Earth. The AHWG believed that crewed missions to Mars could begin in the 2015 timeframe, with a crew of four reaching the planet (after a Venus flyby) for a 100-day nominal stay in the Mars system—50 days on the surface. The intent was that successive missions would reach the Martian system faster, with longer surface stays up to two years for crews of five.[139]

The AHWG scenario was founded on a number of fundamental ideas regarding available technologies and infrastructure. First, the entire approach was based upon the assumption that Space Station Freedom (SSF) would be utilized as the hub for assembly work to construct lunar and Martian transfer vehicles. This required that a Shuttle-C be developed, capable of launching 68 metric-ton payloads into Earth orbit. Second, the strategy would eventually require reusable lunar transfer vehicles (LTV) and lunar excursion vehicles (LEV)—capable of conducting five missions without major maintenance before mandatory replacement. The LTV would utilize aero-braking technology for return to SSF, and a lunar fuel production capability would be initiated for LEV return to lunar orbit. Third, Mars exploration spacecraft would depart from Earth orbit after being assembled by astronauts stationed at SSF.

Fourth, production of liquid oxygen (LOX) on the lunar surface would be required to open a significant cost wedge for Mars exploration. Douglas O’Handley remem­bers that at this point the budget estimates for the entire program ranged from a low of $85 billion to a high of $365 billion. The $85 billion estimate included a lot of risk, while $365 billion incorporated significant redundancy to reduce risk. It was felt within the agency that “these costs, compared to the defense budget for one year, seemed reasonable for a 20 to 30 year endeavor.”[140] Although Bill Lenoir raised concerns regarding the necessary acceleration of space station construction to meet the objectives of the AHWG plan, the briefing was generally well received. No one expressed trepidation regarding the adoption of a program that would require a significant increase in the NASA budget, at a time when the federal government was in the midst of a serious fiscal crisis. Likewise, senior agency leaders did not question the complex and costly three-phase AHWG approach.

Two days later, the AHWG presented its proposal to Mark Albrecht. Mark Craig, who had never met Albrecht before, remembered being impressed with him. “The meeting…opened up with a monologue on why this was important and the problems that civilian space had had and was having, and that this was a way to fix them. I thought he was right on the money, having come from [the Space Station program, which] was suffering from a lack of definition of a strategic horizon.” The briefing highlighted the AHWG approach, which was: lunar base, robotic explora­tion of Mars, and human exploration of Mars. It also included links to Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE), which Albrecht requested be removed from the briefing because he feared it would muddle the Moon-Mars focus. Later in the day, Admiral Truly, Frank Martin, Craig, and J. R. Thompson traveled across town to brief Vice President Quayle in his office in the Old Executive Office Building.[141] Frank Martin recalled later that Admiral Truly introduced the briefing by stating that Mars was “the long-term goal. It wasn’t a program to go to Mars. It was a program to expand human presence [and] he talked about why it was important to do that.” After Tru – ly’s introduction, Martin presented the primary elements of the AHWG approach. He was forthright with regard to the estimated cost of the exploration program, which had risen to $400 billion. This revised budget number was partially driven by an Administration request that crew safety be placed at 99-9999%, which meant that the probability of an accident occurring that resulted in a loss of crew was once every million flights. This high level of safety led to additional cost.[142] The AHWG plan would require increasing the space agency’s budget by 10% annually until it

reached $25 to $30 billion—doubling the current appropriation.[143] Truly concluded the briefing by saying that NASA could not fulfill this mission without an increased budget that would provide the resources to hire essential personnel and construct new facilities. Frank Martin later remembered that:

[Quayle] was very interested. He was very friendly. He was wide-eyed and enthusiastic about it. He asked the kinds of questions you might expect to be asked from someone who is a non-technical type…the message I came away from that briefing at the White House [with] was the fact that for the first time in 20 years, somebody in the White House gave a damn about the Moon and Mars. That was what was very profound about it. He was willing to take the time and the effort to try to make something happen.

Overall, the NASA participants left the meeting with a very positive feeling that both Quayle and Albrecht would be willing to fight the necessary battles to make the exploration program work.[144]

The following day, Admiral Truly returned to the White House to meet with Chief of Staff John Sununu. Himself an engineer, Sununu moved through the brief­ing materials very quickly before signaling his support for the initiative. He told Truly that “investing in these kinds of things was good for the country and that he didn’t care who made the content of the program. It was the fact that they were doing it that was important.”[145] He said that he would leave the details to NASA, but that it wasn’t feasible for the space agency to get a further f 0% increase in the FY 1990 budget request. At the end of the meeting, Sununu made three requests. First, he wanted NASA to modify the program so that no money was required for the upcoming fiscal year. Second, he wanted the plan to be revised to present the President with options—not just lunar outpost, robotic Mars exploration, and Martian outpost. Many within NASA, most notably those outside JSC, thought that asking for additional alternatives “was absolutely the right thing to request.”[146] Finally, before the President made his speech, Sununu wanted the benefit of having others outside NASA review the proposed exploration program.[147]

Over the course of several weeks, Truly, Martin, Craig, and Darrell Branscome worked to refine the NASA proposal. They developed three different options for President Bush to consider:

• Lunar Outpost, then to Mars (NASA’s recommended approach)

– First crewed lunar landing in 2001 (crew of four, 30-day surface stay)

– Expansion to 8 crew capacity by 2005

– Expansion to 12 crew capacity by 2009 (1-year surface stay)

– First crewed Martian landing in 2016

• Direct to Mars

– First crewed Martian landing in 2008 (crew of four, 30-day surface stay)

– Expansion to 8 crew capacity by 2014

– Expansion to 12 crew capacity by 2018 (180-day surface stay)

• Robots Only

Due to the fact they could not expect any funding in FY 1990, the agency slipped the deadlines one year—so the Moon landing would not occur until 2001. Interest­ingly, based on NASA’s analysis, the Direct to Mars option did not entail a signifi­cant cost reduction. This option would still require the NASA budget to increase to nearly $30 billion annually, with a peak of over $35 billion during the late 1990s. As one chart in the final briefing indicated, this would represent a larger federal invest­ment (in real dollar terms) than Project Apollo and would raise the NASA share of the federal budget to 2.2%.[148] The agency did not provide any human exploration options that had significantly cheaper cost profiles.