The Spirit-Opportunity Decision

That decision by Griffin to “run for the cliff” meant that additional money had to be spent on MSL to add personnel and their time to make a 2009 launch possible. Exasperated, looking for savings in other projects wherever he could find them, Stern and his planetary director, James Green, sat down and went through a list of SMD expenditures. They started with Mars activities, since the MSL problem was within the Mars program. Green characterized the effort as a way to “sweep” through the budgets of various missions to collect unspent money in the current fiscal year which could be redeployed to speed MSL. Stern saw the exercise as making the innocent pay for the sins of the guilty, a practice Stern believed was unsavory. At the same time, he felt there were projects whose science return was less than others. In Stern’s view, that group of diminishing science return included extended missions for Spirit and Opportunity.96

At Stern’s direction, on March 19, Green sent a letter to JPL ordering it to hold $4 million in unspent money from the MER account. This was money NASA expected not to be used in the current fiscal year and that would carry over to the next fiscal year if unspent. The amount was trivial, but symbolic for Stern in the sense that “Mars should pay for Mars.”97 The letter explicitly stated that the purpose was “to provide additional funds for Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) in fiscal year 2008, while determining if MSL will be able to achieve the established 2009 launch date.”98 Immediately, the letter leaked to the media, causing a firestorm of protest. Squyres declared that the cut, small though it was, would put one rover into hibernation and the other into part-time operation. The congressman whose district included JPL came to Spirit-Opportunity’s defense. This was Adam Schiff (D-CA), who happened to serve on the House Appropriations Committee that funded NASA.99

Griffin heard about the cut from the media, and he reacted quickly and publicly: “Closing down either of the rovers is not on the table.”100 Stern be­lieved Griffin had given him “the keys to the program,” and Griffin had indeed granted him great leeway to make decisions. However, Griffin was not happy with the way Stern had handled decision making on MSL, and he had certainly not helped smooth Griffin’s relation with the scientific community. Most im­portantly, in this Spirit-Opportunity case, he had failed to inform Griffin of a decision with extreme public visibility and political sensitivity—even if out of all proportion to the money involved.

On March 25, Griffin and Stern met in the NASA Administrator’s office, and Griffin, who was known to be “direct,” let Stern know sharply of his displeasure. Stern tried unsuccessfully to defend himself. He also stated, “If you have lost confidence in me, I should go!” Stern then went back to his office. An hour later, Griffin summoned him to return. “I accept your resignation,” he said.101

The same day, NASA released an official statement: “This letter [to JPL] was not coordinated in the Administrator’s office, and is in the process of being rescinded. The Administrator has unequivocally stated that no rover will be turned off.”102 While Spirit-Opportunity was the immediate reason for his leav­ing, Stern attributed the underlying cause to pressure from JPL and the Mars science community. “The knives came out over MSL,” he said.103