Surrounded by IDIOTS Re: SPACE: National Leadership: BUDGET

The Shuttle can save Hubble, Help us get to MARS, do critical work in LEO, and according to Former SPM Bob Thompson was terminated for " no reason" and nobody in the space writers bunch, or the national media, none of the Congressional leaders utter a word of protest.
I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. They make statements like "never to fly again". Krauthammer got it right.









The 747 carrying the space shuttle Discovery flies above the Lincoln Memorial last Tuesday morning, in this view from the grounds of the Washington Monument. (credit: J. Foust)
A shuttle’s transfer in an agency’s era of transition

by Jeff Foust
Monday, April 23, 2012
Comments (6) 


When the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum opened its Udvar-Hazy Center by Dulles Airport in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC, in December 2003, one of its centerpiece exhibits was the shuttle orbiter Enterprise (see “A new hangar for the nation’s attic”, The Space Review, December 15, 2003). Even then, though, museum officials believed that would be only a temporary home for that vehicle, which carried out a series of glide tests but never flew in space. Some day in the indefinite future, they said, after the shuttles were retired, they hoped to replace Enterprise with one that had flown in space—preferably Discovery, the oldest of the three remaining orbiters.

At a distance, it might have looked like the reunion of long-lost twins, a pair of white winged vehicles with black underbodies and accents. On closer inspection, though, the differences between the two became clear.
A month after the museum’s opening, the indefinite future got a little more definite with the unveiling of President George W. Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration, which called for retiring the shuttle fleet upon the completion of the International Space Station in 2010. That announcement effectively started a countdown—albeit one with its fair share of holds, as the final shuttle missions stretched into mid-2011—for last week’s events, as NASA ferried Discovery from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Dulles, and formally handed the orbiter over to the museum. While nothing about those events was particularly surprising, the event did reopen some old wounds about the shuttle’s retirement and America’s future in space.


Enterprise (left) and Discovery sit almost nose to nose after Thursday’s ceremony. (credit: J. Foust)
A nose-to-nose encounter
The transfer of Discovery to the National Air and Space Museum was a relatively straightforward process, but one full of ceremony and unique visuals. The 747 aircraft ferrying Discovery took off from the Kennedy Space Center around sunrise Tuesday and, making passes over the beaches of the Space Coast and the space center itself, headed north towards Washington.

Once in the Washington area, the plane made several passes of the airport and Udvar-Hazy Center (see “Pictures at an exhibition”, The Space Review, this issue) as well as flying over Washington itself. Tourists and locals alike flocked to the National Mall and building rooftops to catch a glimpse of the 747 and Discovery as it made several low passes over the city before heading back out to land at Dulles.

Forty-eight hours after Discovery arrived at Dulles, the Udvar-Hazy Center formally hosted a ceremony to accept the orbiter into its collection. On one side of the taxiway behind the museum was Enterprise, which has been towed out of the museum earlier in the morning. On the other was Discovery, which, as the ceremony started, was towed into view, escorted by a coterie of former astronauts who flew on the orbiter.

Placing the two orbiters nose to nose offered a study in contrasts. At a distance, it might have looked like the reunion of long-lost twins, a pair of white winged vehicles with black underbodies and accents. On closer inspection, though, the differences between the two became clear. The reaction control system thrusters on the nose of Enterprise were simply gray circles and ellipses; on Discovery, they were the real thing. Enterprise had the old gray “worm” NASA logo on the rear corner of its cargo bay door, while Discovery had the blue “meatball” logo that NASA re-adopted two decades ago on the side of its fuselage.

The biggest difference, though, was its general appearance. Enterprise was a bright shade of white, gleaming in the sunshine as early morning clouds burned off. Discovery, though, was duller, its tiles and thermal blankets discolored by the orbiter’s 39 trips into space. “I know we describe it as white, but you’ll notice it’s charred a little bit,” said NASA administrator Charles Bolden—himself a former commander of Discovery—in his remarks at the ceremony. “Try going through 3,000 degrees and see if you don’t get a little charred.” The contrast made Enterprise look something like a replica compared to the grizzled spaceflight veteran parked next to it. One aspired to fly; the other flew in space for a year.

The rest of the formal event featured speeches by Bolden, various Smithsonian officials, and even former astronaut and senator John Glenn, who returned to space on Discovery’s STS-95 mission in 1998. After the speeches, Bolden, National Air and Space Museum director Jack Dailey, and Wayne Clough, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, formally signed the papers that transferred the orbiter from NASA to the Smithsonian.

“There’s no need crying over what happened in the past, let’s get on with the future,” Glenn said of the decision to retire the shuttles.
While the proceedings were relatively unremarkable (beyond the pair of shuttle orbiters that provided the event’s backdrop) there was a little emotion at the ceremony as well. After introducing the former Discovery commanders and other astronauts on the stage, Dailey said, “This one of the greatest gatherings of astronauts, probably, in the history of NASA,” he said, then paused. “This is harder than I thought.” A moment later, he seemed to struggle with his words while praising the space agency and its astronauts. “It’s just—you’re experiencing something that… you’re not going to see again.”

“I was reading the carefully prepared notes that I had, and then I started thinking about what was going on today,” Dailey explained to reporters after the event. “There was more talent up on that stage than probably gathered anywhere else in this country.”


NASA administrator Charles Bolden signs the documents formally transferring Discovery to the Smithsonian as (from left) former Senator John Glenn, Secretary of the Smithsonian Wayne Clough, and National Air and Space Museum Director Jack Dailey look on. (credit: J. Foust)
“Let’s get on with the future”
The arrival of Discovery in Washington also allowed others to reflect on the past and future of NASA during an era of transition for the space agency. For some, that meant lamenting what they considered to be a premature end for the shuttle program, while others wondered if NASA had any future at all.

Glenn, who has long been critical of the retirement of the shuttle, expressed his regrets in his speech. “The unfortunate decision made eight and a half years ago to terminate the shuttle fleet, in my view, prematurely grounded Discovery and delayed our research, but those decisions have been made, and we recover and move on with new programs,” he said.

In comments to reporters after the event, Glenn said he had reconciled himself to the decision to retire the shuttle now. “I would have preferred that the shuttle be continued until we had its replacement all tested and in place,” he said. “But that decision has been made and it’s behind us. There’s no need crying over what happened in the past, let’s get on with the future.”

This transfer does come at a sensitive time for NASA. The agency is trying to make the case that it has a bright future ahead with its suite of robotic and human spaceflight activities, while combating the perception that the retirement of the shuttle is tantamount to the end of human spaceflight, if not the space agency itself.

“The shuttle was being carried—its pallbearer, a 747—because it cannot fly, nor will it ever again. It was being sent for interment… just as surely embalmed as Lenin in Red Square,” Krauthammer wrote.
The Discovery ceremony did trigger some criticism in the media about the agency’s future. In an editorial, the Washington Times saw particular symbolism in the flight of the shuttle over Washington. “The flyby was a metaphor for the entire space effort, a brief moment of excitement when Americans looked to the skies. It soon faded on the horizon and was gone,” it stated. “The agency has become a pale parody of its former self.”

In an op-ed for The Hill, Congressman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), the former chairman, and current vice-chairman, of the House Science Committee attached a somber mood to the shuttle’s arrival. “After the excitement of the day’s events died down, we are reminded that the Discovery flyover was more a funeral procession than a celebration,” he wrote. He complained that “poor planning” resulted in the shuttles being “relegated to museums”, but was optimistic about the future. “America’s role in space exploration is far from dead. In fact, it’s possible its best years are yet to come.”

No such optimism was present in a widely syndicated piece byWashington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, who also likened Discovery’s arrival to a funeral ceremony, but in stronger language. “The shuttle was being carried—its pallbearer, a 747—because it cannot fly, nor will it ever again. It was being sent for interment… just as surely embalmed as Lenin in Red Square,” he wrote. He likened the shuttle’s retirement without a successor—he was skeptical of NASA’s plans to develop the Space Launch System and Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, as well as commercial crew systems—as a symbol of “willed American decline.”

Krauthammer’s criticism generated a rebuke from the administration in the form of a blog post on the White House web site by Bolden and Office of Science and Technology director John Holdren. “Nothing could be further from the truth” than what Krauthammer wrote, they argued. “The United States remains far and away the world leader in space technology and exploration.” They backed up that assertion by describing those activities, from research on the International Space Station to plans for human exploration beyond Earth orbit.

But do ceremonies like last week’s transfer of Discovery, and upcoming similar events in New York, Los Angeles, and the Kennedy Space Center, make it more difficult for NASA to get out the message that it’s not going out of business? Bolden, in response to a question on that after Thursday’s ceremony, disagreed. “In order to move on to another phase of life, you’ve got to get the other part done, and celebrate it, and move on,” he said. “This was the beginning of the new era: bringing Discovery here, and having people celebrate the incredible thirty-year history of the shuttle program.”

At the end of the day Thursday, Discovery was rolled into place in the hangar at the Udvar-Hazy Center, taking the spot that Enterprise had occupied less than twelve hours earlier. It will remain there effectively forever. “I don’t think we’ll ever move Discovery out unless the building itself is damaged or something,” said museum curator Valerie Neal. “If we do our job, Discovery will be here a thousand years from now, creating wonder,” said Clough.

“If we do our job, Discovery will be here a thousand years from now, creating wonder,” said Clough.
Both NASA and the museum hope that Discovery will be creating wonder now as well, providing a lesson about spaceflight’s past and inspiration for its future. “Today, we turn Discovery over to the Smithsonian, with great expectation that, as we have always done, NASA will continue to inspire the young people of today and tomorrow to dream of space,” Bolden said.

In an interview prior to the ceremony, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations William Gerstenmaier was asked what visitors to the museum a decade from now will think of the shuttle’s retirement when standing in front of Discovery. “Hopefully, they won’t even ask that question,” he responded. “If we do our job, they’ll know what we’re doing in space, they’ll know where we’re pushing those boundaries, and that question won’t even come to their minds.”

One of the more remarkable grassroots space advocacy efforts of the last decade was the public response to NASA’s plans in 2004 to cancel the final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. The overwhelmingly negative reaction to that decision transcended the usual narrow communities of space activists into the general public, overshadowing the debate about the future of NASA’s human spaceflight plans—the Vision for Space Exploration—that was taking place at the same time. Those lobbying efforts paid off: in 2006 NASA reversed its earlier decision, electing to carrying out the servicing mission, which the STS-125 shuttle crew carried out successfully in May 2009.

The film features interviews with some of the scientists and engineers involved with Hubble and journalists who covered it, but it also includes a broad cross-section of the public as well, talking about Hubble and what it means to them.
That public outcry over a “death sentence” for Hubble is the subject of Saving Hubble, a documentary directed by David Gaynes currently being screened at a handful of events, including at the 219th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Austin, Texas, earlier this month. This film is hardly the first documentary about the Hubble, but unlike some previous ones, like Hubble 3D (see“Review: Hubble 3D”, The Space Review, March 22, 2010), the focus is less about the telescope itself or its scientific discoveries than its impact on the public. “The film shows what Hubble says about us,” Gaynes said at the AAS meeting screening.

Saving Hubble does provide some history about the telescope, charting the highs and lows, such as the reaction to its optical aberration discovered shortly after launch to the successful repairs of the telescope and the imagery it’s produced. The bulk of the film, though, is about the decision by then-NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe to cancel the final Hubble servicing mission, and the reaction by both astronomers and the public. The film features interviews with some of the scientists and engineers involved with Hubble and journalists who covered it, but it also includes a broad cross-section of the public as well, talking about Hubble and what it means to them. Gaynes casts a wide net here, from a gregarious taxicab driver in Nashville to high school athletes and cheerleaders in Kansas to even the commercial spaceflight pioneers working at Mojave Air and Space Port in California. (There’s an unexpected cameo in the film by NewSpace company XCOR Aerospace, talking about how companies like it are making space more accessible to the public; the scenes were apparently filmed several years ago since the company was showing off a model of its Xerus suborbital spaceplane concept, which has since been superseded by the Lynx.)

Saving Hubble has a villain and, not surprisingly, it’s O’Keefe, who is portrayed as a “beancounter” unwilling to accept the risks of sending a shuttle to Hubble with no prospect of rescue should it be unable to safely return to Earth. O’Keefe appears in the film in a series of clips from speeches and press conferences from his tenure as NASA administrator, but the documentary doesn’t give O’Keefe a later opportunity to explain his decision. Gaynes explained after the AAS screening that he did speak with O’Keefe while working on the film, talking to O’Keefe by phone during his time as chancellor of LSU, but decided not to film an interview with him for the documentary. “I’m not sure what we would have gotten from it that wasn’t captured in the material that was already presented,” Gaynes said. He admitted that O’Keefe’s portrayal was not “100% positive” but that it was fair.

Gaynes said that the movie will be available on DVD later this year, but his focus for now is arranging a series of screenings called the “Hubble Roadshow”, which will combine the film with lectures by astronomers as well as star parties. “We want the film to create actionable events around the country where the film can be paired with amateur astronomy, talks and discussions with professional scientists, all in an effort to foster a greater interest in science among the public and a connection between the public and the professional community,” he explained. If efforts like that are successful, the resulting greater public interest in science in general and astronomy in particular could become the greatest legacy of the Hubble Space Telescope.


Last year’s planetary science decadal study identified as its top priority for “flagship” missions a Mars rover that could collect samples for later return to Earth, like the MAX-C concept illustrated above. Proposed budget cuts could delay such a mission indefinitely. (credit: NASA)




 

Review: Saving Hubble

by Jeff Foust
Monday, January 23, 2012
Comments (10) 

Saving Hubble
Directed by David Gaynes
2010, 70 minutes

One of the more remarkable grassroots space advocacy efforts of the last decade was the public response to NASA’s plans in 2004 to cancel the final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. The overwhelmingly negative reaction to that decision transcended the usual narrow communities of space activists into the general public, overshadowing the debate about the future of NASA’s human spaceflight plans—the Vision for Space Exploration—that was taking place at the same time. Those lobbying efforts paid off: in 2006 NASA reversed its earlier decision, electing to carrying out the servicing mission, which the STS-125 shuttle crew carried out successfully in May 2009.

The film features interviews with some of the scientists and engineers involved with Hubble and journalists who covered it, but it also includes a broad cross-section of the public as well, talking about Hubble and what it means to them.
That public outcry over a “death sentence” for Hubble is the subject of Saving Hubble, a documentary directed by David Gaynes currently being screened at a handful of events, including at the 219th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Austin, Texas, earlier this month. This film is hardly the first documentary about the Hubble, but unlike some previous ones, like Hubble 3D (see“Review: Hubble 3D”, The Space Review, March 22, 2010), the focus is less about the telescope itself or its scientific discoveries than its impact on the public. “The film shows what Hubble says about us,” Gaynes said at the AAS meeting screening.

Saving Hubble does provide some history about the telescope, charting the highs and lows, such as the reaction to its optical aberration discovered shortly after launch to the successful repairs of the telescope and the imagery it’s produced. The bulk of the film, though, is about the decision by then-NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe to cancel the final Hubble servicing mission, and the reaction by both astronomers and the public. The film features interviews with some of the scientists and engineers involved with Hubble and journalists who covered it, but it also includes a broad cross-section of the public as well, talking about Hubble and what it means to them. Gaynes casts a wide net here, from a gregarious taxicab driver in Nashville to high school athletes and cheerleaders in Kansas to even the commercial spaceflight pioneers working at Mojave Air and Space Port in California. (There’s an unexpected cameo in the film by NewSpace company XCOR Aerospace, talking about how companies like it are making space more accessible to the public; the scenes were apparently filmed several years ago since the company was showing off a model of its Xerus suborbital spaceplane concept, which has since been superseded by the Lynx.)

Saving Hubble has a villain and, not surprisingly, it’s O’Keefe, who is portrayed as a “beancounter” unwilling to accept the risks of sending a shuttle to Hubble with no prospect of rescue should it be unable to safely return to Earth. O’Keefe appears in the film in a series of clips from speeches and press conferences from his tenure as NASA administrator, but the documentary doesn’t give O’Keefe a later opportunity to explain his decision. Gaynes explained after the AAS screening that he did speak with O’Keefe while working on the film, talking to O’Keefe by phone during his time as chancellor of LSU, but decided not to film an interview with him for the documentary. “I’m not sure what we would have gotten from it that wasn’t captured in the material that was already presented,” Gaynes said. He admitted that O’Keefe’s portrayal was not “100% positive” but that it was fair.

Gaynes said that the movie will be available on DVD later this year, but his focus for now is arranging a series of screenings called the “Hubble Roadshow”, which will combine the film with lectures by astronomers as well as star parties. “We want the film to create actionable events around the country where the film can be paired with amateur astronomy, talks and discussions with professional scientists, all in an effort to foster a greater interest in science among the public and a connection between the public and the professional community,” he explained. If efforts like that are successful, the resulting greater public interest in science in general and astronomy in particular could become the greatest legacy of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site and theSpace Politics and NewSpace Journal weblogs. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone, and do not represent the official positions of any organization or company, including the Futron Corporation, the author’s employer.

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-1
DerekL· 21 weeks ago
"Gaynes explained after the AAS screening that he did speak with O’Keefe while working on the film, talking to O’Keefe by phone during his time as chancellor of LSU, but decided not to film an interview with him for the documentary." 

Translation: "I had what I wanted for the role I had cast him in, and couldn't be bothered."
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Stanley Dornfeld· 21 weeks ago
With news reporters posting nothing but negative stories and maybe one positive note now and then, which would be discredited somehow, I find the Hubble and other astronomical adventures to be about the only thing we can glean tangible hope from. 

The whole world needs these explorations. So far my favorite single adventure was the "Beach Ball" landing on Mars, including the Rovers. That was truly a WOW! It was very far away and untouched by man after its launch. Another WOW! 

Of course, if it hadn't been for Russia and Sputnik in1957, I wonder where would we be? 

I'm truly looking forward for the James Webb Scope! 

Best regards to all, 

Stanley Dornfeld
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0
guest· 21 weeks ago
Thank Zeus O'Keefe's tenure with NASA was brief. It was clear he didn't really care about space. Go Newt!
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@TangentSpeak· 21 weeks ago
Instead of getting rid of Hubble, develop a remotely controlled tug to go out from the ISS, go to space junk and kick that to earth's atmosphere, or retrieve satellites for repair inside ISS garage. (Name them after dead astronauts and cosmonauts.) It would be interesting if they were solar powered and using coils working against the earth's magnetic field for "propulsion"
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Ameriman· 21 weeks ago
Lessons in Govt vs Private Sector economics... 

The original cost estimate for Hubble was $400 million... which would include research/development costs... 

So, presume that a replacement, newer/improved Hubble, building with the established technology/components could be constructed for, say, $500 million a copy...... 

Yet, taxpayers paid $1.5 billion (per shuttle price) to launch it, then $7.5 billion more in Shuttle costs to 'repair/service' .... $9 billion in Space Shuttle costs for a $400-500 billion telescope? 

Compare the economies to a SpaceX Falcon Heavy... which can lift the weight of 5 Hubbles to orbit for less than $100 million..
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+2
Dwayne Day· 21 weeks ago
If I remember correctly, when O'Keefe canceled the servicing mission he claimed that NASA had conducted an internal risk analysis that indicated that the mission was too risky. This was apparently based on the fact that the mission could not use the ISS as a "lifeboat" if it suffered similar damage as Columbia during ascent. However, O'Keefe never released that risk assessment, and after awhile it became clear that a formal analysis probably never existed and that the decision had been made by him after listening to the evidence. 

Upon canceling the mission, O'Keefe also announced a robotic servicing mission that seemed extremely dubious. It was going to be the most complex robotic mission ever, but had a short development time consistent with a much simpler mission. Later, several independent reviews threw cold water on this robotic servicing mission and it was canceled. 

These parts of the story--the internal decision making at NASA and who made the decisions based upon what data--have never been explored in detail. A resourceful historian could FOIA emails and other documents about these decisions and figure out how all of this happened.
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+1
oldeng· 21 weeks ago
The final Hubble servicing mission cost somewhere in the $700M-$1B range--well worth the time, effort and dollars expended. 
I hope we all (especially the overlords in Congress) can get worked up to support a 3-4 year extension of the Kepler mission at somewhere in the $50M range--peanuts compared to that Hubble mission. Kepler is at least as scientifically important as the little Mars rovers that have had their program extended to date by at least 7 years.
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Alex· 21 weeks ago
One thing has always baffled me... 

Hubble, at launch, cost some $1.5 billion to construct. Duplicating Hubble after the initial flaw was detected might have cost another $1 billion (less money needed since development was done). A Space Shuttle mission costs $450 million dollars a launch, according to NASA's website. The mass of the Hubble Space Telescope is a bit over 11 metric tons, so an Atlas V could have lifted it (were it configured for launch on an ELV). It probably would have been cheaper if it were not designed for repair on orbit. 

So, all things considered...wouldn't it have been cheaper to just build Hubble to fly on an expendable launch vehicle and then fly up a second telescope (flaw corrected, of course) when the initial problems started, than to fix Hubble with the Shuttle?
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+5
Dwayne Day· 21 weeks ago
There is a long story behind this, but the quick answer is that at the time Hubble was initiated, and the servicing missions planned, shuttle was supposed to be the cheapest option around. Also, there was no Atlas V in existence in the early 1990s. A re-launch of a new instrument would have required a Titan IV, which was not cheap. 

There is a complex story as to why Hubble was designed to be serviced and not simply replaced and it had something to do with cost, but also something to do with how the astronomy community selects and funds missions. The astronomy community itself generally does not think that a mass produced Hubble would have been a better, or even viable, option.
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oldeng· 20 weeks ago
It's not generally known that NASA built two sets of Hubble optics--Perkin Elmer's (the flawed set that's on Hubble now) and a backup set built by Kodak (which was manufactured error-free and, of course, never flown). Perkin-Elmer and Kodak both proposed that NASA test both mirror sets with the same test equipment. NASA decided not to do this because of cost and schedule concerns. As a consequence, the flaw in the Perkin Elmer reflective null corrector test unit which led to the screw-up in the main mirror was not discovered before Hubble was launched. 
Too bad. I hope the folks on the James Webb memorial telescope don't make the same (or similar) mistake.
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Fighting for Mars

by Jeff Foust
Monday, March 26, 2012
Comments (18) 

Earlier this month, Disney released the movie John Carter. Based on the famous Edgar Rice Burroughs tales, it’s the story of a Civil War veteran mysteriously transported to Mars (er, Barsoom) and thrust into a conflict among warring factions there. It’s also turned out to be a bomb for Disney: with an estimated cost of $250 million, the film has grossed less than $65 million in the US since its release (by comparison,The Hunger Games, released just on Friday, has already grossed $155 million) and Disney is expecting to take a $200-million loss on the film. The public, it seems, is more interested in a story set on a dystopian future Earth than an old fantasy about Mars.

So why did planetary get cut so much? “I wish I had a good succinct answer,” said NASA’s Grunsfeld.
Planetary scientists, meanwhile, hope the public’s interest in the real Mars—and the rest of the solar system—is a little stronger. For months, there were rumors that NASA’s planetary program would face cuts in the fiscal year 2013 budget proposal, as evidenced by the agency’s inability to formally commit to participating in the joint ExoMars program (see “An uncertain future for solar system exploration”, The Space Review, November 14, 2011). Those fears were realized when the White House released its budget proposal last month: NASA formally terminated its participation in ExoMars, while the agency proposed cutting its planetary science budget by 20 percent. Planetary scientists and their advocates are now trying to understand why they were cut while trying to mobilize efforts to win back that funding in Congress: stakes arguably higher than the box office performance of a single film.

Why cut Mars?
One question the planetary sciences community has been struggling with is why the NASA’s planetary program, which has racked up an impressive series of successes in recent years, has been targeted for cuts. The program, funded at $1.5 billion in FY2012, would get just under $1.2 billion in the FY2013 proposal. By comparison, other major accounts in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate—Earth sciences, astrophysics, heliophysics, and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)—have their 2013 funds either basically unchanged or increased slightly from 2012.

So why did planetary get cut so much? “I wish I had a good succinct answer,” said John Grunsfeld, NASA’s new associate administrator for science. He spoke last Monday before an audience of planetary scientists who packed a Houston-area hotel ballroom for a presentation on the agency’s planetary programs and budget during the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference (LPSC); others watched a live webcast of the proceedings. They were, understandably, hungry for details on the budget proposal and its implications for their research.

Grunsfeld, a former astronaut best known for flying on three Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions, explained that the administration made the budget decisions before he returned to the agency in early January, so he didn’t know all the details. He did say that the cuts were not meant to be punitive for the cost overruns and delays with the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission or JWST. Instead, he said, that with MSL now on its way (it will land on Mars in early August), the administration decided “planetary would have, I think the words I’ve heard are, a ‘paced development.’”

Speaking before members of the House Appropriations Committee during a hearing on the NASA budget proposal two days later in Washington, NASA administrator Charles Bolden gave a similar explanation. “I understand that the budget pressures require you to make cuts to your science programs,” Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), chairman of the appropriations subcommittee whose jurisdiction includes NASA, asked Bolden immediately after the administrator finished his opening statement, “but I don’t understand why those cuts are overwhelmingly in planetary science.”

“The area that seemed to be actually in the best shape was our Mars exploration, contrary to popular belief,” responded Bolden, who then went on to discuss the various missions already at Mars, as well as MSL and the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN) orbiter, slated for launch in late 2013. The implication from his comments was that the agency perceived planetary to be in better condition to absorb cuts than other NASA science programs.

Bolden defended the decision to withdraw from ExoMars, which was to feature a US-launched European orbiter in 2016, followed by a jointly-developed Mars lander and rover mission in 2018 that would cache samples to be recovered and returned to Earth on later missions. He said that he could not justify participating in such a venture when there was no guarantee NASA would be able to uphold its end of the partnership over the long term, especially since ExoMars was itself not a full-fledged sample return mission. “People think that, by stepping away from ExoMars, we are stepping away from Mars sample return. There was no Mars sample return in the two missions being planned for ExoMars,” he said, later acknowledging that the 2018 rover would be the first step in likely a three-phase effort to collect and return samples.

“Mr. Administrator, I can’t in good conscience support a budget that says that America’s days of leadership in space science are limited,” Rep. Schiff said.
Later in the hearing, Bolden admitted that he originally thought ExoMars was, in fact, a sample return mission, and once he realized it wasn’t his support for the program faded. “You and others fully understood that ExoMars was not a sample return. I was not that smart. I thought ExoMars was a sample return because that’s what the decadal survey said,” Bolden told Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) during an intense exchange between the two. Bolden was referring to the planetary sciences decadal survey final report, released a year ago, which placed as its top priority for large “flagship” missions a Mars rover to cache samples for later return to Earth (see “Tough decisions ahead for planetary exploration”, The Space Review, April 4, 2011).

“It was a successive understanding of our posture fiscally, and a successive understanding on my part of our technical capability,” Bolden said later, “that told me that I could not, and as I told [ESA Director-General] Jean-Jacques Dordain, that I can not in good conscience allow them to continue to think that the United States is going to be there for them on a sample return mission in 2028 that we cannot support, we cannot afford.” Bolden took responsibility for the decision when asked several times whether the decision to terminate ExoMars came from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) at the White House.

Schiff argued that, with human space exploration in a lull until at least later this decade and JWST not planned for launch until 2018, “the Mars program is the key driver of public support for the space program.” Bolden’s explanation did not satisfy him. “Mr. Administrator, I can’t in good conscience support a budget that says that America’s days of leadership in space science are limited,” he said.

Another subcommittee member who is an advocate of planetary exploration, Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), also expressed his dissatisfaction with the budget proposal. “The budget that the president has put forward is clearly putting the best days of planetary exploration behind us,” he said. “It’s visionless. It’s just really—I just grieve for my country, I grieve for NASA.”

Both Bolden and Grunsfeld, in their separate forums, emphasized the efforts underway to “reformulate” the Mars exploration program, work being done in cooperation with the agency’s human spaceflight directorate and its chief scientist and chief technologist. “We do have a Mars program line that would allow us to perhaps do some kind of a mission in 2018,” Grunsfeld said at the LPSC event. A team led by Orlando Figueroa, former head of NASA’s Mars exploration program, is starting work on that effort, including how future robotic missions can gain synergies with the agency’s long-term plans to send humans to the vicinity of Mars as soon as the mid-2030s. That planning effort, which Grunsfeld said will soon have its own website and also host town hall meetings, will wrap up by late summer.



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