Schiff fighting for Mars exploration, robotic and human

Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), whose current district includes JPL and Pasadena, has been a strong advocate for NASA’s planetary science program and, specifically, Mars exploration. On Saturday, he reiterated his desire to see to reverse cuts to those programs while also pushing for better goals for the nation’s space program.

“We have too long drifted without a strategic vision for space that can survive changes of administration as well as congressional appropriations cycles,” Schiff told attendees of the International Mars Society Convention in Pasadena. “Now, as we prepare to celebrate Curiosity’s arrival on Mars, we face the urgent need to set new goals and reinvigorate the space program.”

Schiff said he believes a logical long-term goal for NASA’s exploration efforts is Mars. He said he thinks the Mars Program Planning Group, commissioned by NASA earlier this year to review NASA’s Mars strategy, will recommend a path that calls for a human landing on Mars by the 2030s, a decade before a sample return mission. He called on attendees to petition their congressional representatives “for an increase in NASA’s budget as well as a national commitment to lead an effort to put humans on Mars by a date certain. Without persistence and clarity, we will continue to drift.”

Taking a more tactical approach, Schiff asked convention attendees to continue efforts to restore NASA’s planetary science budget, which have met with some success in the reduced cuts in the appropriations bills working through the House and Senate. “We still have a long way to go, and it is my hope that as we go to conference—if we go to conference—we can increase those numbers further,” he said. He warned, though, that the recent deal for a six-month continuing resolution could include some across-the-board budget cuts. “The impact on Mars will depend on how NASA allocates funds in its operating plans,” which in turn depends on guidance it receives from OMB.

“The immediate future is murky, and we need your help,” he said, suggesting that NASA was surprised by the reaction to the planned cuts since their announcement in February. “The only thing that has rescued us from the severity of what the administration proposed was the fact that planetary scientists like you have been making their voices heard and loudly,” he said. (Most of the audience of the Mars Society conference are better classified as enthusiasts and activists than as scientists, though.) “And I think frankly it has astounded the administration that you have spoken with such boldness and clarity.”

Schiff said he believes Mars was targeted for cuts because the administration thought there would be, at best, a muted reaction and little opposition. “They have been astounded by the fury of the pushback, and that is the only thing that has saved us so far.”

Is Mars sample return the right way forward?

While Mars Science Laboratory is one of the most ambitious Mars missions mounted to date, it pales in comparison to the long-term goals of planetary scientists: a mission to collect samples from Mars and send them back to Earth. Such a mission was identified as a top priority in the most recent planetary sciences decadal survey by its selection as the top “flagship” mission of a rover to cache samples for later collection and return to Earth.

“From a scientific perspective, sample return is extremely important,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s planetary sciences division, during a panel session on the future of Mars exploration Friday night at the 15th Annual International Mars Society Convention in Pasadena. Such samples, he added, may also be essential to ensuring the safety of future human explorers. “We believe firmly we must bring back samples from Mars before we humans go there.”

Not everyone agrees with that emphasis on Mars sample return. Mars Society founder Robert Zubrin—who is not reticent to take on controversial subjects—suggested that this focus on sample return is misguided. “I believe the program have become overfocused on sample return,” he said. An advocate for human Mars missions, Zubrin said he did support an “aggressive” program of robotic exploration, but not including sample return, skeptical that the Martian environment contained pathogens that could threaten future explorers.

Another concern of Zubrin’s was the cost and complexity of such an endeavor. MSL is already a “high-risk” mission, with so much riding on its success, he said. “I think that extrapolating the robotic program to sample return is taking it beyond when it beneficially trades off against human exploration.”

Zubrin’s preference for robotic exploration is sending a series of smaller rovers, like the Mars Exploration Rovers (aka Spirit and Opportunity), flying one or more missions every 26-month launch window. Such missions, he claimed, could be far less expensive, on the order of $200 to 400 million each.

On that point Zubrin had the support of another panelist, NASA Ames Research Center director Pete Worden. “I think we need to invest a little bit in how to do really low cost missions to Mars,” he said. How low? “I don’t think they should cost $200 million. I think they should cost $10 million.”

Much of the rest of the hour-long panel discussion focused on another aspect of sample return: concerns about potential “back-contamination” of the Earth’s biosphere by Martian samples. While Zubrin isn’t a fan of robotic sample return, he’s concerned about the “obsession” with back-contamination. He notes that plenty of Mars samples have already reached Earth in the form of meteorites, with no known ill effects. “Why is the sample that NASA brings from Mars so much more dangerous than the trillion samples that nature has brought from Mars?”

That, Worden and other panelists suggested, may be a matter of dealing with public perceptions. “But until you are pretty sure what it is you’re bringing back and where you’re bringing it back and what survives and what doesn’t survive, you need to be careful,” Worden said. “It is not going to be our call. It’s not going to be the space community’s call.”

Mars replanning group to deliver report this month

A group established by NASA earlier this year to develop options for future exploration of the Red Planet will deliver its final report to NASA by month’s end, the head of NASA’s overall Mars exploration program said Thursday.

Doug McCuistion, director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, said at a press conference at JPL that the Mars Program Planning Group would deliver a final report to NASA in “viewgraph” form this month, after which it will be released to the public. “We are putting together a schedule for when we go public with report. It will be a public report,” he said. That release will also be coordinated with briefings of people at the White House, on Capitol Hill, and in the Mars science community, he said.

The group, established earlier this year by NASA in response to a decision by the Obama Administration to terminate NASA participation in ESA’s ExoMars program, has been evaluating options for missions in the 2018 and 2020 launch opportunities. One challenge has been the constrained budgets in the current projections by the administration. “The budget in ’18 is thin,” McCuistion said. “It probably can’t support a rover or a lander. However, a rover is the next logical step after MSL,” a reference to the Mars Science Laboratory mission arriving at Mars Sunday night. On the other hand, he said an orbiter could help maintain the communications infrastructure around Mars needed to provide detailed telemetry for future lander/rover missions during their critical entry, descent, and landing phases.

A presentation by the group to the NASA Advisory Council last month offers some additional insights into what the group is considering. “Current Rover options not credible for 2018 within budget constraints,” the presentation notes (page 7). On the next slide, it shows a pathway of mission options, with a recommendation to pursue one titled “Seeking Signs of Ancient Life”, which does call for some kind of sample return mission. The presentation includes several concepts for future rover mission, derived from both MSL and the earlier Mars Exploration Rovers (better known as Spirit and Opportunity) to cache samples and perform other science in advance of future sample return missions.

Once NASA gets the group’s report, McCuistion said, it will make decisions about future missions. “When we are public with that will depend on how it takes us to come up with that as well as the discussion internally, within the agency and within the Executive Office of the President, since it will all fit into 2014 budget process.”