Designing Mars Sample Return

Wesley Huntress was now with the Carnegie Institution of Washington, a re­search organization. He remained a strong Mars advocate. Space Times, an aero­space trade journal, published in its May/June issue an article in which Huntress highlighted the importance of MSR. For him, as well as many space scientists, the search for life was indeed a prime motive for the space program. The Mars rock was provocative, but not persuasive enough evidence. Only a properly designed MSR would provide the evidence NASA needed. NASA believed that MSR would provide a “smoking gun” that would boost public support for space exploration.6

The Huntress article came at approximately the same time that Charles Elachi and Louis Friedman discussed their views about MSR in a magazine published by the Planetary Society. If Huntress explained “why” MSR was criti­cal to NASA, Elachi and Friedman commented on the “how” question. They elaborated on the technical strategy Elachi had developed at JPL by which MSR could be accomplished.7 There were various ideas about how to carry out MSR. There were obviously prodigious technical challenges, even if implemented in stages. As Kathy Sawyer wrote, for MSR to succeed, NASA would have to pro­duce a “robotic package that was:

a. Lightweight enough to be practical;

b. Smart enough to do the job (make a sophisticated selection of desirable rocks and soils, for example);

c. Able to land safely on the rugged Martian landscapes designed as most promising for biological clues;

d. Able to take off again; and

e. Able to deposit the treasure safely and cleanly back on Earth.”8

Then there was the issue of Earth contamination. The problem of contami­nating the life prospect on Mars was always there, but the MSR mission raised the potentially emotional issue of contaminating Earth with Martian organ­isms. The science fiction book and movie Andromeda Strain depicted death on Earth from extraterrestrial microbes and would no doubt be used by opponents of MSR. Articles appeared stressing the dangers. NASA had its top planetary protection official, John Rummel, involved in MSR planning. It also asked its scientific advisory bodies to study the problems of contamination intensively.9

Finally, there was the question of costs. Goldin moved NASA ahead on MSR, with costs being calculated and recalculated as the agency learned more of the technical challenges. While faster, better, cheaper principles would be used as much as possible, the expense could be considerable, with $2 billion being one figure mentioned. However, NASA also used a $750 million and even $500 million cost estimate.10 Exactly what would be the expense was left unclear as NASA charged ahead. The mood was akin to that preceding Viking, in that the “leapers” rather than the “gradualists” were in control. Goldin was in the Sagan camp, rather than that of Murray.

Goldin looked for ways to pay for MSR. He saw it in NASA-wide terms, an agency priority. MSR could be useful to human space planning, as well as the Science Directorate’s search for microbiological life. Human spaceflight man­agers wanted to know about Martian soil in terms of possible hazards and re­sources available for astronauts.11 Costs could therefore be shared within NASA. Also, Goldin sought international help. The long-standing herald of “Mars To­gether” was renewed and broadened. Italy, the European Space Agency, Russia, Japan, and France all expressed interest. In June, Goldin concluded an agree­ment with the French space agency under which the two nations would work together on MSR.12 Other nations might follow. There was consensus about the goal which spread across spacefaring nations.

Goldin believed that NASA had to adapt organizationally and in personnel to the new vision of search for life. He went out of his way to hire life scientists. In addition to Blumberg, his Nobel Prize winner for the Astrobiology Institute, he hired another life scientist, Kathie Olson, to be NASA chief scientist.13 And he spoke out frequently on the subject as opportunity arose: life—the search for microbiological life, as well as the eventual extension of human life beyond Earth. Goldin worked indefatigably to evangelize for space. Mars provided the chief focus of this effort. Robotic flights would come first, then humans, maybe in 20 years, he predicted. The media never quite knew when to take Goldin seri­ously. Goldin was an able salesman, and he was persuasive because he believed his own rhetoric. The media found him both perplexing and captivating. So did many in the Clinton administration and Congress.

In June, he spoke to a meeting of astrophysicists and accused them of rep­resenting the past, while biologists presaged the future in space science.14 He spoke to a group of physicists at Fermilab in Illinois, a Department of Energy facility. The physicists were still smarting over the cancellation by Congress of their flagship project, the superconducting super collider, in 1993. How could that have happened? The reason, Goldin admonished them, was that they had failed to connect their machine to a vision the public could grasp. NASA had done that with its search for life, and that was why NASA was rapidly moving forward with its Mars program.15