Grunsfeld Moves Ahead

On February 27, Grunsfeld announced at a Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group meeting that he was creating a Mars Program Planning Group. His aim was to have a mission in 2018, one that would be affordable at $700 million. Grunsfeld called 2018 “a sweet spot,” a time when the Earth-Mars alignment was especially propitious. Squyres followed him at the meeting and made it clear that he would support such a mission only if it conformed to the NRC Decadal Survey and moved the program toward MSR. Grunsfeld said that he was ap­pointing Orlando Figueroa, former Mars czar and since retired, to head this planning team. Grunsfeld, touting the link with human spaceflight, hinted at the possibility of augmenting the robotic budget through this larger and better – financed directorate. Squyres expressed skepticism that that would happen.5

Figueroa, in a subsequent response to reporters, said that whatever NASA did would have to be responsive not only to scientists but also to NASA’s budgetary masters. Various outside-NASA scientists expressed concern about the associa­tion with human spaceflight, comments echoing similar worries within NASA.6 Science’s goals were not necessarily those of human spaceflight, they pointed out. Human spaceflight cared about safety and operational matters. However, veteran scientist Michael Carr pointed out that life was the link, “whether it’s potential Martian life, the effects of Martian dust on humans, or humans’ mi­crobial contamination of Mars.”7