MSL’s Stakes

While worrying about the future Mars program, NASA had to deal with the present challenge. The stakes were immense for MSL. NASA officials con­cerned with the upcoming MSL landing were increasingly restive. Jim Green, planetary chief at headquarters, admitted that MSL was keeping him awake at night. He was especially nervous about “the seven minutes of terror from the top of the [Mars] atmosphere to landing.”12 Grunsfeld responded to a media inquiry about what would happen to the Mars program if MSL failed. Grunsfeld said that there were “no guarantees,” but he thought that support would continue.13

NASA wanted to leverage MSL for support, if it were successful, and also to control for damage if it failed. Chris Carberry, the head of a pro-Mars interest group, Explore Mars, Inc., noted the pressure NASA was under, saying that “the stakes have never been higher for a Mars landing.” NASA was under intense “budgetary, political, and programmatic pressure,” he wrote in an op-ed in Space

News. “Every success and failure—no matter how minor—is being scrutinized to an extreme degree.” Worse, the landing was taking place “in the heart of the US presidential campaign season, which tends to magnify the impact—positive or negative—of any event.”14

He said messages had to be prepared in case the mission failed to emphasize the difficulty of what NASA was trying to do. NASA could not spread the mes­sages alone. It needed the help of many advocacy organizations in its support group. The advocacy coalition, in short, had to use MSL Curiosity as an op­portunity to build support for NASA programs, especially Mars, in the public and political world.

In July, as the landing date of early August approached, advocacy organiza­tions did indeed prepare. Many planned “celebrations,” assuming success. Car – berry said that his organization would coordinate a number of “got Curious” landing parties in the United States and abroad. Other organizations were also active, preparing for the event. The Planetary Society planned a “Planetfest” assemblage in Pasadena. Science museums and other organizations scheduled events.15

In Atlanta, Science Taxern, an organization that launched science talks for the public, planned five planetary science events leading up to the August land­ing. It scheduled a party beginning at midnight on the evening when NASA’s coverage of the landing commenced. “It’s science,” said the group’s director, Mark Merlin, “but it’s also a public celebration of scientific achievement.”16

NASA was also working to make the most of the event. The agency had to be careful. Under the law, agencies are not permitted to “market” themselves. But they could do “outreach.” “We don’t try to sell anything,” said Robert Jacobs, a NASA spokesperson. “Our job is to clean the windows to give the American public a better view of their space program.”17

What was NASA doing? For some time, it had been providing information to the media and others about the MSL and its landing. There was a website the public could use to learn more about the project as it developed. In the sum­mer of 2012, NASA’s outreach campaign moved into high gear. In June, NASA released “Seven Minutes of Terror,” a video that depicted the rover’s harrowing ride down to the Martian surface. The video began “with a computer-generated animation of a capsule falling toward the Red Planet, then used stark lighting, thumping music, fancy graphics and dramatic narration” to give the observer an acute sense of the event.18

In mid-July, NASA announced a collaboration with Microsoft, under which it had developed a new Xbox “outreach” game called Mars Rover Landing de­signed to give the public a sense of the challenge and adventures of landing in a precise location on the surface. The game was free.19

Later in the month, NASA released a video, “Grand Entrance,” narrated by William Shatner and Wil Wheaton from Star Trek, depicting the spacecraft’s entry, descent, and landing. “The goal is to educate the public about Curiosity and build awareness about the landing,” NASA said. It also announced that the Toshiba Vision screen in New York’s Times Square would provide live coverage of the rover’s landing.20

Alan Stern, former science director and now frequent critic of NASA, con­gratulated the agency for making the most of “modern” communication meth­ods. However, he warned that “too much” of this kind of public relations risked “trivializing and making a sideshow of a very expensive and ultimately a very serious endeavor.” “It’s a fine line,” he noted, implying that NASA had better not cross it.21

NASA knew that all this ballyhoo could backfire if MSL failed. NASA had to emphasize how difficult was the feat to be attempted. Nye pointed out in an article published July 30 that Europe had tried to land on Mars and failed, while the Soviet Union/Russia had tried 21 times over the decades and failed every time. NASA had recently succeeded, but his message emphasized the difficulty entailed. Nye’s other message was that it took a special skill set to succeed and that talent could be lost if the nation did not provide NASA the support the agency needed.22

On August 2, as the time for MSL’s arrival at Mars drew nearer, the agency initiated a daily round of media events at JPL.23 On the evening of August 5, MSL approached the Red Planet. In Chicago, the Adler Planetarium held a late-night pajama party so families could follow the landing live. Thousands gathered at the Planetfest in Pasadena. All over the country in institutions and in their homes, people waited to watch. In New York City, crowds gathered in Times Square to view a giant screen that usually only showed ads. NASA began to live-stream the event, and the traffic congested. Up to 23 million people watched one way or another as NASA made pictures available.24 The time for the real-life “seven minutes of terror” was now.