Fletcher’s Hope

Senior NASA officials were intensely involved with Viking and its implementa­tion. Mindful of the huge cost escalation, they also discussed, behind the scenes, how Viking could help promote NASA, and vice versa. Sagan was especially critical of NASA’s public relations policies. He and Low had dinner one evening in September 1974 to ponder what to do about NASA’s need for more public support.29

Fletcher continued to think beyond Viking to possible follow-ons. Viking was one mission, one project. Should it not be the first step in a long-term program of Mars exploration? Only Viking was approved. Given lead times on development and windows of opportunity for Mars flights, NASA had to begin soon to advocate follow-ons to the White House and Congress. Issues of technology and funding were critical. What was possible? What could NASA afford? Should NASA send a mission in 1979—the next window—or wait? In November 1973, Fletcher had written the chairman of the Atomic Energy Com­mission (AEC), Dixie Lee Ray, that NASA might need the nuclear batteries AEC supplied (called RTGs) for future Viking flights. These could include roving vehicles. Nothing was firm of course, but he wanted to alert her of his thinking.30

Fletcher kept in close touch with Martin, and the Viking project manager proposed that while Viking 3 had been killed, the spare parts for the backup were still there and could be assembled as part of a post-Viking venture. Cortright, Langley’s director, also lobbied Fletcher, writing him in July to propose sending a lander-rover combination—a “Viking ’79 mission.”31 Hinners, however, told Fletcher and Low in November 1974 that a follow-on in the near future was not likely given his office’s budget and competing priorities. The National Academy of Sciences Space Science Board had done studies for NASA about post-Viking projects, he pointed out. The “benchmark” for Mars exploration had to be an MSR mission, the board asserted. This was the best way to get at the life issue. At the same time, the board preached “balance” in the planetary program in the future. Hinners said that the way spending was going and with other large missions waiting, he could not see how NASA could launch a sample return mis­sion before the 1990s. Missions prior to MSR, by implication, such as the rover, might also have to wait beyond a date his office had studied, 1984.32

This was not what Fletcher wanted to hear. The question of an MSR mission was of such significance, the NASA Administrator said, that he would not wish to foreclose it indirectly by budget decisions that locked NASA into a particular trajectory. He said he might even take the question to the president—that is, keeping the option alive by getting more ample funding.33 Low told Hinners not to take any “irreversible steps” precluding sending a rover. But he also directed him not “to spend any significant resources on it since it is very unlikely that this will be an early start.”34

Richard Goody, the chair of the SSB, captured the dominant mood of the scientific community in connection with Viking and what could come next. In comments to the media in December, he held that it was unlikely NASA would find life on Mars, but if it did, the whole future of Martian exploration would be affected. He declared, “You really can’t make any decisions [about follow-ons] until you see what Viking does.”35

So, Fletcher waited on advocating a Mars program beyond Viking. The good news, however, was that, as 1974 ended, NASA knew that it had a better chance to win the Mars race with the Soviets and possibly make history by finding life using robotic techniques with its stationary landers. In 1973, in an effort to beat the United States to Mars, the Soviet Union had sent two orbiters and two landers (four separate probes). If successful, the Soviets would land in 1974, well ahead of the United States. But all failed in one way or another. One orbiter flew past Mars. Another orbiter arrived and returned limited data before failing. A lander died within seconds of reaching the surface. Another lander separated early from its mother ship and missed the planet. The Soviets, bitterly disap­pointed, chose not to launch in 1975.36