Using Bush’s Moon-Mars Initiative

As President Bush took office in January 1989, he was well aware of NASA’s troubles, as well as ambitions. He wanted to aid the agency’s recovery from Challenger and chart a space policy that would make the United States clearly the unquestioned global leader in space. He also smarted over criticism from opponents that he was lacking in “vision.” He soon signaled that he intended to give a higher priority to space, reestablishing the National Space Council (NSC). This was a top-level interagency body concerned with both military and civil space affairs which had existed under Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. It had been abolished by Nixon. He put his vice president, Dan Quayle, in charge. They agreed they had to give stronger direction to NASA, an agency that seemed directionless. At the same time, the Cold War was con­tinuing to thaw, and Gorbachev kept talking about joint activity in space, the disappointment of Phobos notwithstanding.

In April, Bush chose Richard Truly to be NASA Administrator. Truly, age 52, was a retired admiral with substantial experience as a naval aviator and NASA astronaut. He had distinguished himself as a NASA associate administrator who guided the shuttle back to flight status in 1988. Truly’s overriding interest was the Space Shuttle. He wanted not only to replace Challenger, as Reagan had authorized, but to enlarge the fleet from four to five. He also wanted to use the shuttle to build the space station. He regarded these tasks as his prime job.

The initiative for what became the president’s Moon-Mars decision came not from Truly but from the NSC, which was looking for ways to rejuvenate NASA and help the president. On July 20, Bush went to the National Air and Space Museum and called for “a long-range, continuing commitment. First, for the coming decade, for the 1990s: Space Station Freedom, our critical next step in all our space endeavors. And next, for the new century: back to the Moon, back to the future. And this time, back to stay. And then a journey into tomorrow, a journey to another planet: a manned mission to Mars.”

The decision, which launched what Bush called his Space Exploration Initia­tive (SEI), did not get the reception Bush and NSC anticipated. It seemed to come out of the blue. Very little political spadework had been done to prepare Congress, the media, or the American people. The consequence was that the decision was met by puzzlement, indifference, and, in the case of some influ­ential Democrats in Congress, opposition. Given budget deficits and NASA’s problems with the shuttle and space station, even proponents of Mars explora­tion, whether human or robotic, failed to take it seriously. Many in NASA were skeptical.44 The skeptics included Fisk.45

The question of “how” to get to the Moon and then Mars was left to be worked out. NSC executive director Mark Albrecht asked NASA to address the “how” question and provide various options. NASA took the next three months on what was called the “90-Day Study.” The result, which became known in November, was a 30-year program costing between $400 and $500 billion. When that estimate leaked, it shocked policymakers and dampened whatever enthusiasm that had been mustered. Albrecht and Vice President Quayle were furious. They had wanted options, and NASA came up with only one—the most expensive possibility in their view.

Aaron Cohen, of the JSC, who chaired the study, had a different point of view. He did not recall being asked by Albrecht, in a conversation they had, to provide different options with radically different costs. He determined that NASA’s job was to devise an aggressive program that would do what the presi­dent wanted with costs that were realistic, as had been the case with Apollo.46

For advocates of Mars robotic programs, the 90-Day Study provided a large menu of projects, including several rover missions and two MSR missions. There would also be observers and communication satellites on Mars. The study proposed a rich network of robotic technology for Mars.47 Hence, the Moon-

Mars decision of Bush seemed to give quite a boost to the Mars robotic science program’s viability, even though few took the 90-Day Study seriously once they contemplated the costs. As far as Albrecht and Quayle were concerned, Truly had, directly or indirectly, sabotaged the president’s decision. The relationship between NSC and NASA Administrator started badly and deteriorated further as time went on.

Whatever critics thought of SEI, the fact of presidential interest in space and Mars was important, especially with the Office of Management and Budget. In fact, the director of OMB, Richard Darman, was personally supportive of the space program. In early February 1990, Bush announced the budget that he was submitting to Congress. In contrast to cuts he was imposing on various other agencies, Bush asked for substantial increases for NASA. NASA would go from $12.3 billion to $15.1 billion.48 The increase would provide enhanced funds for NASA, virtually across the board. Mars Observer was now linked, in planning at least, with the human Moon-Mars Program. It already was connected to U. S.-USSR robotic relations. At the end of March, Bush announced that he would be looking for ways the United States could cooperate with other nations, especially the Soviet Union, in SEI. The Soviet Union reacted positively.

A lot had happened since the original U. S.-Soviet efforts in space coopera­tion led by Sagan and Sagdeev. The Phobos mission had failed, casting doubt once again on Soviet capability to follow through on plans. Politically, the Soviet Empire was under siege. In November 1989, the Berlin Wall had been breached and the Cold War, to all intents and purposes, ended. Bush wanted to support Gorbachev, if only to prevent less reform-minded Soviet hard-liners from gain­ing power. Sagan was one space scientist who had steadfastly encouraged U. S.- USSR space cooperation, in spite of the Phobos debacle and Soviet political turmoil. However, many other U. S. scientists were wary of Soviet connections.49

They could see robotic Mars exploration rejuvenating, independent of So­viet collaboration. A National Academy of Sciences National Research Council (NRC) panel that had been evaluating the SEI plan under the 90-Day Study took it upon itself to warn publicly that the U. S.-USSR alliance could have negative results for the robotic science program. In particular, the NRC scientists looked ahead to MSR and admonished NASA and the United States to be careful in planning a joint mission of this complexity. A highly interdependent undertak­ing could make planetary science “a potential hostage to political events.”50

If scientists were critical of SEI and wary of Soviet connections to the U. S. robotic exploration program, many in Congress were downright hostile and increasingly opposed to SEI, especially on financial grounds. In hearings by the House appropriations subcommittee responsible for NASA’s budget, questions were asked aimed at distinguishing SEI money from Mars Observer and other ongoing space science projects. Congress wanted to move forward with Mars Observer—even though it was experiencing significant cost increases—but not human Mars ventures.51

Encouraged by possible increases in funding for space science, in spite of the SEI controversy, NASA officials and scientists were thinking more positively and creatively about post-Mars Observer options. Scott Hubbard, a scientist and division chief at Ames, spotted a request for proposals for precursory mis­sions to Mars issued by NASA’s Office of Exploration, responsible for SEI plan­ning. He developed concepts for a program called Mars Environmental Survey (MESUR). The mission would place 16 robotic stations on Mars that would take various kinds of physical measurements. The first of these stations might be called “Pathfinder,” Hubbard suggested.52

Hubbard went to Washington in April 1990 and met with Briggs and Jim Martin, the former Viking project director, serving as an advisor to NASA. “Martin gave me a hard time—tough questions,” Hubbard recalled. But “after­ward, he came up to me and said: ‘It might work!’”53 Some time later, Briggs noted his interest in the Hubbard project to his OSSA associate, Joseph Boyce. What if the station carried a rover vehicle? he asked. “A little car could drive out,” Briggs continued. For years, since Viking, NASA had wanted to send a rover to explore. But “we’ve got to get to Mars’ surface cheaply,” Briggs added.

Briggs then called a close friend at JPL and broached the general idea, as well as his thought that it would save money if the Mars probe used a “hard landing” technique, such as airbags, instead of a “soft lander” approach, as had Viking, with retro-rockets. The JPL contact said JPL probably would not go for a hard lander. When Briggs asked JPL more formally, he got a response that did not give him what he wanted, particularly in regard to landing. “This is crap,” he told Boyce. He then went back to Ames to study the overall idea.54 Soon, JPL and Ames both were exploring the MESUR concept. In late May Briggs surfaced MESUR publicly to see if it would attract wider support.55 Meanwhile, JPL got to work on rover concepts.

Donna Shirley, the manager at the center in charge of the research on rover concepts, recalled the period as one where scientists and engineers at JPL were “excited.” She herself saw rovers as “scouts” for later human missions. The Bush decision of 1989 had encouraged JPL to work with JSC in planning for Mars

Rover Sample Return, which she called a “perfect precursor to a human mis­sion.” Also, “The scent of money in the air permeated the atmosphere,” wrote Shirley.56

At the beginning of February 1991, Bush proposed a NASA budget of $15.7 billion, a figure that would have been over 13% higher than that which Congress appropriated the year before. Space science in particular would rise 21%, to $2.1 billion.57 NASA would surely need the money to take care of all the programs under way and anticipated. Fisk presided over a science program that had been rapidly expanding. It included a Mars Observer that was rising in budget, along with a line of telescopes complementing Hubble. The new program scheduled for the sharpest rise in the future was the Earth Observing System (EOS), a suite of environmental satellites aimed at deciphering global change. This was the hardware embodiment of NASA’s MTPE activity. It was the program many scientists believed Fisk to be pursuing most avidly.58

EOS had not been his initial priority for a new start. But once he realized that the Bush administration was anxious to show support for researching global cli­mate change, he pushed EOS “with vigor.”59 All of Fisk’s programs were sched­uled to ramp up in funding in the future. New Mars precursory missions were part of the projected mix, led by MESUR, but just how was not clear.

Congress balked at Bush’s NASA request. In 1990, Bush and Congress had agreed to reduce the federal deficit by cutting expenditures and raising taxes. Bush earlier had said “read my lips” about no new taxes, but he had been forced to change his mind. Now, in 1991, the results of that White House-Congress agreement began to hit NASA. By July, the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees considering space told NASA it could not get the money it ex­pected. The Senate in particular directed NASA to think in terms of a 3% to 5% raise a year, at best. To underline that point, it cut the request of Bush substantially and told NASA to prioritize. A Senate report said NASA should “not envision any new starts” unless it could explain how it could make them “sustainable” within the agency’s “limited funding profile.”60

One way to expand possibilities was international collaboration, and the So­viet Union indicated eagerness to collaborate on Mars. But the Soviet Union was tottering politically and had huge internal schisms. In July, Bush and Gor­bachev met at a summit and sought to move cooperation in space forward. But just two weeks later, Soviet hard-liners staged a coup d’etat and briefly held Gorbachev captive. Gorbachev survived the coup attempt, but his days as So­viet leader were numbered, as were those of the Soviet Union. In December 1991, the Soviet Union disintegrated, replaced by a confederacy of independent states. It would take a while for Russia and other states emerging from the for­mer Soviet Empire to reconstitute stable governments. Collaboration on Mars was now on hold.