Backlash

The Mars scientific community, led by the Planetary Society, American Geo­physical Union, and American Astronomical Society, reacted sharply to the budget cuts. They focused on Congress and the White House to try to restore the money taken from planetary science in general and Mars in particular. The Planetary Society called its campaign “Save Our Science.” It generated thou­sands of signatures on petitions and e-mails of protest. The Society’s leader, Bill Nye, personally went from California to Washington to speak to key congres­sional staffers and lawmakers.8 Congressman Schiff, representing the district including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was active lobbying his colleagues on the House appropriations subcommittee responsible for NASA’s budget.

On February 29, congressional hearings were held to consider the president’s budget request for NASA. The House appropriations subcommittee, on which Schiff served, was critical. Schiff was a Democrat, but a bipartisan alliance at­tacked the Mars cuts. Obama’s science advisor Holdren, testifying before the subcommittee, endured a fierce grilling. He explained that the White House and senior members of Congress (primarily Senate Democrats) had reached agreement on NASA priorities. These were the heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket and its companion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the Commercial Crew Program for independent access to the International Space Station by 2017. With a proposed NASA budget less than the current fiscal year, something had to give, he explained, and it was the plan­etary program, especially Mars. The lawmakers were not sympathetic.9

When Bolden came before the subcommittee, he was similarly lambasted.

Chairman Frank Wolf (R-VA) had a solution for the Mars problem: transfer money from an administration priority, commercial crew, to Mars. Wolf was an avid critic of commercial crew. Bolden resisted such an argument and empha­sized that NASA was still aiming for Mars, but in a different way.10

The White House was defensive and allowed two major Office of Manage­ment and Budget officials involved with NASA oversight to meet with NRC planetary scientists. The administration wanted to make it clear OMB was not against big science flagships, as was being alleged. Paul Shawcross, branch chief for science and space, and Joydip Kundu, who handled NASA’s science budget, told a joint meeting of the NRC’s Space Studies Board and its Aeronautical and Space Engineering Board that OMB had no bias against flagships. They did not draw the line at $1 billion. OMB looked, rather, at budget coherence.11 That reassurance did not particularly ameliorate scientists’ feelings.

The House subcommittee subsequently provided a modest increment in Mars funding, as did its Senate counterpart. The House panel also required the NRC to certify that the new Mars program would lead to MSR. Other­wise, it said, the money should go for a Europa mission (NRC’s second priority for a flagship mission). The congressional moves were part of a larger political struggle between Congress and the president in setting space priorities. But given the political dynamics of the time, there was no way of knowing when Congress would pass a budget and whether additional funds recommended for Mars would survive the larger legislative process.