A Hopeful Decision

One important aspect of the policy continuity arising from Obama’s reelection lay with discussions among NASA, OMB, and the Office of Science and Tech­nology Policy about the FY 2014 budget. While that budget, as well as any pos­sible statement about a longer-term Mars Next Decade program, awaited the president’s budget announcement in early 2013, there were positive negotiations focused on the near-term issue of a Mars launch in 2018 or 2020.

Grunsfeld, like Weiler, dealt with OMB. OSTP was also involved in nego­tiations from a policy perspective. Typically, OMB was far more powerful than OSTP unless the president made his perspective clear. In other words, budget usually drove policy. However, Obama had spoken of his desire to personally “protect” the Mars investment. Directly or indirectly, the Obama view meant that policy could drive budget, at least to some extent, at least for this moment.

On December 4, Grunsfeld came to a “town hall” meeting of the Ameri­can Geophysical Union fall conference in San Francisco. Excitedly, he an­nounced that the White House had approved a $1.5 billion Mars mission for 2020. Grunsfield said he had wanted to launch in 2018, but became convinced it would be better to wait for 2020 and go for another rover. The science “action is now on the surface” of Mars, he said. The White House had authorized the mission—and, presumably, the early announcement.

How that rover would be designed and what it would do remained to be determined. He said he was setting up a science definition team to help answer these questions. An MSR cache was possible.

Significantly, he praised OMB and OSTP for their assistance in making this new mission possible. Clearly, the successful landing of MSL Curiosity had made a difference in the decision-making process. Grunsfeld called Mars “a spe­cial place.” The scientific audience was said to be somewhat in a state of “shock.” No one had expected this announcement. Ordinarily, it would have come later, if at all, in connection with the FY 2014 budget statement. The White House was sending a message of support for NASA and the Mars community.36

This was a time of extreme budgetary and political turmoil. But there was hope and even some optimism for the future of the Mars program.