Sagan Seeks an Upgrade

What the Mars program needed, the Planetary Society urged, was to translate Mars Observer into a robust set of continuing activities. And to help reach that goal, the program required a new and compelling rationale. Geophysical obser­vation, the stated purpose of Mars Observer, had little public appeal. Sagan, the society’s president, for whom the search for life was the prime rationale, under­stood that his views were not widely shared in the scientific community. “Life” was out as a motivator for most Mars researchers. But what other rationale would work to rekindle widespread enthusiasm for Mars and elevate robotic Mars exploration on the NASA and national agenda? It lay with the Soviet Union, the Society decided.

The Soviet Union had competed vigorously in the 1960s and early 1970s to explore Mars and to discover life first. It had lost in Mars exploration and abandoned the Red Planet. But just as the United States was now planning to go back to Mars, with a 1990 rendezvous, so also was the Soviet Union. The difference was that the Soviet Union was first targeting Phobos, one of the two Mars moons. Rivalry was a motivation for the United States. The Planetary So­ciety also saw opportunity for cooperation. Here was a possible novel rationale for Mars exploration: partnership. The strategy that Sagan and his associates evolved was “To Mars. . . Together.” Cooperation embraced both the robotic and human programs and gave space a political rationale, making it an instru­ment of foreign policy.

In 1984, the Planetary Society brought a number of scientists from the United States, Soviet Union, and Europe together in Graz, Austria, to discuss common interests in space exploration, with Mars as focus. It also commis­sioned a technical analysis of what it would take to go to Mars in human space­flight. This activity was taking place at a time when President Reagan was using heated rhetoric about the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” and promoting his “Star Wars” antimissile system. NASA was not in a position actively to market cooperative programs with the Soviet Union, but the Planetary Society, as a nongovernmental organization, was able to do so.

Sagan called space a unifying force in the world. The Society’s vice presi­dent, Bruce Murray, joined Sagan in this refrain. The former Jet Propulsion Laboratory director had returned from a stint in the private business sector to the Caltech faculty in 1984. He now saw Mars as did Sagan, as the flagship for reviving the entire planetary program.

What helped spur them was an ally in the Soviet Union—Roald Sagdeev. Born in 1932, Sagdeev had distinguished himself as both a physicist and techni­cal manager in Soviet government. Elected to the Soviet Academy of Sciences at 36, he was appointed to run the Institute of Space Research at 40. The robotic space program in the Soviet Union had divided responsibility, with the Babakin Center responsible for the spacecraft, another organization the launch vehicles, and the Institute of Space Research the scientific payloads. Sagdeev was a very influential man in USSR science and had “somehow managed to put a limited form of glasnost [openness] into practice years before [Mikhail] Gorbachev [the Soviet leader] came along.” The Planetary Society made him a member of its board of advisors, “a bold affiliation for a Soviet official” at that time.2

The Soviets were planning a return to Mars in 1988. The primary target was Mars’s moon Phobos. Phobos was the darkest body in the solar system known at that time. It was believed to possibly contain “fossil” chemicals dating back to the solar system’s beginning. The mission’s intent was to drop instruments on Phobos and take new observations of Mars.3 Since NASA’s Mars Observer would not launch until 1990, the United States could learn from cooperating with the Soviet Union. The Planetary Society began actively using the expres­sion “To Mars.. . Together,” touting the robotic program as prelude to human exploration.

Gorbachev, who came to power as head of the Soviet government in 1985, established himself as a reformer, one who wanted more openness and inter­national goodwill. The Planetary Society, meanwhile, was linking Mars with internationalism, taking advantage of Sagdeev’s influence and an emerging thaw in the Cold War. It sponsored a meeting in Washington in mid-1985, “Steps to Mars.” Various scientists, astronauts, and federal officials attended. The confer­ence dealt with detailed engineering and scientific matters and gave equal atten­tion to robotic and human roles. At the meeting, Sagan challenged the United States and the Soviet Union to rise to the emerging opportunity and connect in going to Mars. The first American woman in space, astronaut Sally Ride, spoke in support of the concept of a U. S.-Soviet human expedition. NASA Admin­istrator Beggs attended and indicated that it was becoming possible to think about new opportunities of this kind. President Reagan had meanwhile asked Tom Paine, the former NASA Administrator, to head a National Commission on Space (NCOS) to consider space exploration in the future. The vision of “To Mars. . . Together” gained momentum as a political rationale.4 On January 7, 1986, the New York Times endorsed the concept.

Then, on January 28, 73 seconds after takeoff, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. The explosion was seen on television by millions. All seven aboard were killed, including the first teacher in space. The immediate cause was later determined to be a seal that malfunctioned in one of the shuttle’s two solid rocket boosters. The underlying causes were management errors, including a false belief in the shuttle’s capacity to launch many missions over a brief period of time and failure of NASA to observe its own safety procedures. The fact that NASA included a teacher on the mission revealed the degree to which the agency had grown overly optimistic about shuttle risks as it shifted attention to developing a space station.

President Reagan gave NASA strong rhetorical support. However, he turned to an independent body to investigate the accident, which became known as the Rogers Commission after its chair, William Rogers, a former secretary of state. Unluckily for NASA, James Beggs, the Administrator, was on leave fighting a charge of illegal activity while in industry, before coming to head NASA. His deputy, William Graham, was new to the job and unprepared to defend the agency as the Rogers Commission conducted its inquiry and media launched a blistering attack on NASA. The charges against Beggs were found ultimately to be bogus, but Beggs had had to resign to fight them. In May, Reagan asked James Fletcher to return to lead NASA, moving Graham to the White House and out of the line of fire. Fletcher inherited a wounded agency. For Mars ad­vocates, Challenger was a huge setback.