Keeping Spirit and Opportunity on Track

O’Keefe gave general support to the MEP and left it to Weiler to make major decisions. It was up to Figueroa, the new Mars director, to take those decisions and implement them effectively on a day-to-day basis. One issue that had to be resolved in connection with the 2003 MER was the tension between maximizing chances for successful landing for Spirit and Opportunity and also pursuing the most exciting science. In May, a major meeting took place among scientists and engineers at a hotel near JPL, where NASA and the research community nar­rowed down the number of possible sites for the 2003 rover missions.17 A final decision on where to land would be made at a later date.

A second large issue affecting the rover mission was budgetary. Inexorably, the budget for the rovers rose significantly to deal with a host of technical prob­lems that came up as development proceeded. Reluctantly, Weiler provided more resources. He did so more than once. By December 2002, the budget was pushing $800 million and Weiler was not happy. In fact, he was close to a deci­sion to kill one of the rovers. Steve Squyres, the principal scientist, was deeply worried about how Weiler would decide. He pled to Naderi and others at JPL.

They pled to Figueroa. Figueroa beseeched Weiler for yet one more chance to keep the project as conceived alive. “Convince me why we should not cancel one of these rovers,” Weiler demanded. Weiler trusted Figueroa and weighed his opinions of others involved. “In the end, administration comes down to people. We had to succeed. The whole world had its eyes on us,” said Weiler.18 Weiler and Figueroa worked out an arrangement whereby Figueroa could bor­row money to cover the extra costs against reserves intended for 2004 and 2005.19 MER survived as a two-rover project, but the decision had been a close one.

While concentrating on Spirit and Opportunity, Figueroa dealt with other aspects of the overall MEP. He initiated competition for a Scout mission sched­uled for 2007. The Scout concept, modeled on Discovery missions, was geared to smaller projects proposed by the academic community. They would be capped at $325 million, the approximate cost of Odyssey. These were the new program’s version of faster, better, cheaper—a term utterly out of favor in the era of O’Keefe.20

Exactly what would be the cost of MSL, still very much in a planning stage, was unknown. At NASA’s suggestion, the NRC was conducting a decadal survey of future NASA planetary missions. As it did its work in 2002, it endorsed MSR as a long-term goal, with MSL as a critical enabler. It put cost estimates on missions, with MSL listed as moderate at $650 million. The scientists involved in the survey did not have the benefit of independent cost expertise. Moreover, NASA was still determining what instruments should go on MSL and grappling with engineering questions. NASA could not understand how the NRC arrived at a $650 million figure. That might have been suitable for MSL when it stood for Mars Smart Lander. But MSL now stood for Mars Science Laboratory, and this was a much more ambitious mission. Garvin was at this point estimating costs for MSL at $1 billion.21

The cost was not an issue at this point. The design of MSL was still un­finished. The NASA budget, overall, seemed to be doing well, allowing for expansive thinking about MSL. At the beginning of 2003, NASA was preparing to announce an FY 2004 budget that was especially good for space science. The O’Keefe vision called for a science-driven NASA. The agency was scheduled for a 2% raise, putting it at $15.4 billion, but space science was set for a 19% raise, going from $2.9 billion to $4 billion. The five-year projection showed steady increases moving NASA to $17.3 billion overall in FY 2008. The biggest percentage winner would continue to be space science, which would jump to $5.6 billion by FY 2008. Mars exploration, as the dominant planetary program,

would gain accordingly. Weiler gave credit to O’Keefe and his clout with OMB and the White House. “Without [O’Keefe’s] support,” he said, “these increases never would have gotten through.”