Why Mars: NASA and the Politics of Space Exploration

Chapter Eleven. Implementing amidst Conflict

chapter eleven Implementing amidst Conflict Implementation of the Mars Exploration Program, elevated to a more favored basis, and projected to grow substantially by O’Keefe, ran into an unfavorable environment soon after he left. On March 11, 2005, the White House announced that Michael Griffin would be replacing O’Keefe. Age 56, Griffin was a lifelong space enthusiast who had started his career at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and later headed the ill-fated Moon-Mars initiative of George H. W. Bush. He had an engineering PhD and several other degrees and was viewed as arguably the most qualified man in the country to implement Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration, from a technical standpoint. Griffin had coauthored a technical book, Space Vehicle Design, and had also written about the policy need for NASA to go beyond the shuttle and space station and get back to its true mission: exploration. He came to NASA from Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, where he headed its Space Division. While his orientation was human spaceflight, he was also an advocate of robotic exploration and had, as a young engineer, worked on robotic missions to Mars at JPL.1 One of his reasons for leaving JPL and NASA was the erosion of robotic Mars activity after Viking. Although very different in style—Griffin was shy and taciturn whereas Goldin was outgoing and manic—he shared Goldin’s passion for space. Like Goldin, he returned to NASA to fulfill a life’s dream. A big difference, however, was that Goldin favored the robotic Mars pro- Implementing amidst Conflict 189 gram and looked for savings in human spaceflight, particularly the shuttle. For Griffin, human spaceflight took precedence in his mind, even if science had to suffer as a result. Griffin wanted to focus on getting the shuttle back to flight, completing the International Space Station, and especially implementing Bush’s Moon, Mars, and beyond human spaceflight vision. This required an emphasis on building an expensive new rocket and other equipment relevant to the Moon. He looked to his Science Mission director to run the robotic science program , including Mars. The science directors who served under Griffin during his tenure had their own problems with implementing the “follow-the-water” strategy and particularly technical and cost issues with Mars Science Laboratory development. As much as he might have wanted to concentrate on the human program—and felt he had to do so because of national policy decisions—Griffin found that contentious decisions regarding science and Mars kept coming to his desk. A man who savored rationality and disliked politics, he found himself embroiled in the politics of space science. Pressuring Griffin As he prepared for his Senate confirmation hearings, Griffin was lobbied by scientists who disagreed intensely with the priorities he inherited from O’Keefe. A total of 17 scientists signed a “manifesto” they delivered to Griffin, and some of them personally spoke to him. “The balance between the two modes of exploration , human and robotic, is now threatened,” the manifesto declared. It was not just the balance between human and robotic exploration that worried these scientists. They were concerned also about the balance between Mars and nonMars robotic science. They called the concept of “exploration” O’Keefe used too narrow. “Should other forms of space exploration be cancelled or curtailed to make this new, but limited, exploration vision possible? We think and hope not,” said the paper. Among the 17 signers of the petition was Fisk, who was converting the chairmanship of the National Academy of Sciences Space Studies Board into a position for leadership in opposition to the O’Keefe priorities. Al Diaz, who had the NASA job Fisk once possessed, called the Moon-Mars science orientation a result of “strategic” decision making. Fisk called that kind of thinking bad strategy and warned, “There is a firestorm coming.”2 Griffin tried to put the concerned scientific community at ease at his confirmation hearings on April 12: “We as a nation can clearly afford well-executed, vigorous programs in both robotic and human space exploration as well as aeronautics,” he stated. However, Griffin 190 Why Mars was also clear about his priorities, which were to return the still-grounded shuttle to flight, finish the space station, and begin building the technical systems (called...