Mars on the Brain

In the remainder of the summer 1992, Goldin divided his time between visits to Congress to lobby for the NASA budget, especially funds for the space sta­tion, and trips to Russia to discuss possible future collaborative efforts with Yuri Koptev, head of the newly created Russian Federal Space Agency (RSA). Goldin also gave speeches, in which he extolled exploration of the Moon and Mars. He knew he could not sell Bush’s Space Exploration Initiative but wanted to keep the idea of human exploration back to the Moon and especially to Mars in the public eye as best he could. He grew extremely close to Sagan as a key advisor. Sagan biographer William Poundstone has written that Sagan’s influence on space policy was at its height when Goldin was Administrator.13 The two men saw eye to eye on Mars as the key destination for NASA and were both passion­ate about the Red Planet.

Goldin reached well beyond Sagan, however, in seeking advice. One scientist he consulted was Michael Carr. Carr vividly remembers a call he received from Goldin shortly after Goldin had become NASA Administrator. He asked him

to come from California to Washington. “Teach me about Mars,” he requested. Carr noted, “I went. We talked a couple of hours. I told him what I know. It was clear he was smart.” As far as Carr could tell, Goldin absorbed everything. He found Goldin fascinating, charming, and volatile.14

On September 25, NASA launched Mars Observer. For the first time since Viking landed in 1976, America had a mission to Mars actually under way. There was enormous elation at the time of the launch. “America is going back to Mars!” Huntress enthused. Goldin used the opportunity to declare that Observer was just the beginning of NASA’s missions to Mars. The Russians joined in the celebration, stressing the long-term, step-by-step nature of Mars exploration, and pointing out that theirs would be the next nation to go to Mars, with a 1994 mission.15

In mid-October, Goldin announced a major reorganization affecting space science. The tensions between Goldin and Fisk had worsened over time. Goldin abruptly split OSSA into two major divisions: Space Science and Mission to Planet Earth. (He later added a third.) He summarily moved Fisk from a power­ful associate administrator role to a staff position with no budget, that of chief scientist. Fisk left NASA not long thereafter.

Goldin called Huntress, then in Europe, and told him, “I just fired Fisk. You’re the Associate Administrator. I’ll see you when you get back!” Huntress was now in charge of space science. Huntress was “appalled” and also “scared.”16 He was sorry to see Fisk go. He was also worried about dealing with his unpre­dictable boss. But he shared Goldin’s view about FBC and had a program ready to show these principles in action via Discovery. Even more importantly, he strongly agreed with Goldin about the importance of Mars, scientifically and politically, and had a project, Mars Pathfinder, that would showcase the Red Planet.

He decided he could work with Goldin. He would not let the NASA Admin­istrator intimidate him, as Goldin did others. Nor would he challenge Goldin directly. “If you know Dan,” he recalled, “You don’t tell Dan, no. That’s what Len [Fisk] did. You don’t last that long.”17 The 51-year-old Huntress was very different from Goldin in manner, but he considered himself a change agent, like Goldin. They agreed on a basic strategy for exploration.

Mars was the centerpiece. Goldin stated in retrospect, “I made it the focus of the planetary program. The beauty of Mars is you have a launch window every 26 months. We needed a product line. If you come up with commonality in [technology], you can contain cost.”18

As the year ended, Huntress wrote an article summing up the Goldin- Huntress strategy as it related to Mars. He proclaimed “the New Era in Mars Exploration.” The long hiatus following Viking was over, he stated. NASA was indeed going back to Mars. He noted that various principles would guide the new era: NASA would go at every opportunity, meaning every 26 months, when the planets were aligned. NASA would go “together” with other nations, if possible. NASA would lead a Mars Sample Return mission to investigate the question of life. MSR, he said, was “the holy grail of planetary science.” And, fi­nally, NASA would use the robotic program to help enable human spaceflight to Mars.19 The robotic Mars program now had a clear, succinct strategy. Whether NASA could get the new Mars strategy off to a strong start, much less sustain it, depended greatly on whether Goldin and Huntress would continue in their present, influential roles.

On January 20, 1993, Bill Clinton became president and Al Gore his vice president. In Gore, Clinton had a vice president with strong interests in science and space. Clinton abandoned Bush’s NSC and assigned the space portfolio to Gore. Clinton retained Goldin, who had impressed Gore because of his em­phasis on cost efficiency in space. Clinton and Gore were going to mount a “re­inventing government campaign,” and NASA under Goldin could be a potential example of what might be possible. However, space and Mars were not a high priority for Clinton, for whom the economy and deficit reduction were most important when he entered office. Clinton terminated Bush’s SEI in one of his first space policy moves when he became president.

As always, Mars policy was influenced by NASA priorities in human space­flight, the dominant spending category of the agency. The space station took most of Goldin’s time and brought NASA considerable White House atten­tion in Clinton’s first year. The Clinton Office of Management and Budget, led by Leon Panetta, recommended at the outset of the new administration that the space station be killed. Goldin sought presidential reprieve, which Clinton granted, provided that he drastically downsize the station and reduce its costs. From February to June, this redesign process and an independent review of that process proceeded at a furious pace.

As it did so, Yuri Koptev, director of the RSA, sought a merger of his coun­try’s space station program with that of the United States. In the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, the space program of Russia was in financial free fall, and Koptev sought help to salvage what he could. Goldin saw a space station merger as aiding NASA. He said it would save money and time because of the experience and expertise Russia would bring to the project. It would also make the space station more important to Clinton from a foreign policy perspective. Like his predecessor, the president was looking for ways to bolster Yeltsin and employ Russian scientists and engineers, so as to avoid proliferation of Russian missile (rocket) technology to U. S. enemies. Clinton wound up accepting a re­design option and forwarding the idea of a U. S.-Russian space station merger. Congress was slower to agree, as were the existing international partners. In June, the House of Representatives came within one vote of killing the space station. Nevertheless, by the end of the year, the space station program was saved and renamed—from Freedom to International Space Station (ISS). The president and congressional leadership met at the White House and agreed to stabilize the U. S. space station budget at $2.1 billion per year through comple­tion of assembly.

This decision kept NASA going with a measure of financial stability through­out the 1990s, in large part because it kept human spaceflight viable. As had been true of the shuttle, the space station was at once a blessing and a curse for robotic science programs. Goldin spent an enormous amount of time lobbying Congress and negotiating with Koptev on the space station.20 It was a constant headache. But ISS was a way to keep the president and vice president involved in space policy, as part of foreign policy. It was a symbol of post-Cold War U. S.-Russian cooperation for the White House. Goldin was thus important to Clinton and Gore, and that was important to his access to power generally.

In dealing with Koptev, Goldin also talked about Mars Together options for the robotic program but left it to Huntress to take the lead in this area with his Russian counterpart. He also recognized the work and contacts the Planetary Society had accomplished in its earlier Mars Together activity. Louis Friedman became involved in trying to make Mars Together work in an informal way, as an unpaid consultant, even going to Russia to facilitate negotiation.21 However, while there was progress, the viability of Mars Together depended on success in the robotic program on the parts of both the United States and Russia.