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Bush's Budget Plan Bolsters Mars Exploration
Tuesday March 06 10:15 AM EST By Leonard David Senior Space Writer, SPACE.com
BOULDER, COLORADO -- Last week’s release of President Bush’s budget blueprint for fiscal year 2001 calls for new monies to make NASA’s Mars exploration program "more robust". How that term translates within NASA’s $14.5 billion proposed budget will be made known early next month when a detailed space agency budget is issued.
As now hazily sketched out, President Bush’s budget for the space agency bolsters future robotic surveys of the Red Planet. But to what extent a boost in Mars monies swamps out other space science efforts is not known.
The head of NASA’s Office of Space Science, Edward Weiler, said that by increasing Mars funding, "a lot more science is guaranteed to be back on Earth a lot earlier." Specifically, extra funding increases the likelihood of getting a sample return from Mars early next decade, he said shortly after release of the budget.
NASA insiders also point to new funds earmarked for robotic Mars landers that are also more robust in terms of hazard avoidance. Robot landers with built-in smarts that can power into hard-to-get-to, but scientifically rewarding spots on Mars, is a top-level priority.
Too much Mars?
"It’s clearly good news," said Bruce Jakosky, an astrobiologist here at the University of Colorado. NASA’s Mars program was accurately being described as timid, he said, so the emphasis on making Red Planet exploration more aggressive is receiving a thumbs-up from scientists.
"I'm hoping that it will bring sample return back ‘on the table,’ rather than being so far downstream as to be, essentially, unscheduled," he said.
Jakosky did wave a cautionary flag, however.
"I'm concerned about program balance. Mars currently takes something like 20 percent of NASA’s entire Office of Space Science budget. I am not convinced that this is appropriate. With the Pluto mission clearly at risk, and Mars funding increasing, we're in danger of focusing too much on Mars," Jakosky told SPACE.com.
Great expectations: stew over in situ science
Ronald Greeley, planetary geologist at Arizona State University in Tempe, said that added Mars funds can help develop robotic landers able to touch down in rough Martian terrain. A targeted 2007 Mars lander mission, for example, is critical to future Mars sample return missions.
Mars landers imbued with hazard avoidance intelligence can tote cutting-edge equipment down to the surface, to carry out on-the-spot, or "in situ" science, Greeley said in a phone interview. State-of-the-art instruments can be used in the robotic in situ analysis of Martian rocks, soil, atmosphere and organic matter, he said.
"But there are a number of us concerned that there is a greater expectation than is realistic in what can be done in situ," Greeley said. Too many scientists are banking on instruments that may not be flight-ready for Mars, specifically on the Mars ‘07 lander, he said.
"We need to know better what is realistic to be done on a 2007 lander," Greeley said. While there are "dream instruments" that would be ideal to fly to Mars, the technological readiness of those devices for flight needs to be fully assessed, he said.
Greeley, who chairs NASA’s Mars Exploration Payload Analysis Group (MEPAG), said that working groups will wrestle with this issue in a May workshop on instrumental precision in robotic studies of the Martian surface.
Return to flight
Undergoing final checkouts for an April 7 liftoff at Cape Canaveral, Florida is NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey. Once in orbit around the Red Planet, the spacecraft is equipped to conduct a two-year mapping mission.
The soon-to-be-lofted probe is tasked to find out what Mars is made of, detect water and spot shallow buried ice, as well as study the radiation environment surrounding the planet. That radiation data should prove useful to help assess potential health risks to future human explorers.
"It’s our ‘return to flight’ for the Mars program," said Mars Program Director at NASA Headquarters, referring to the U.S. Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander failures in late 1999.
Those back-to-back failures sparked a major review of NASA’s Mars effort. A myriad of lessons learned and some 140 recommendations came out of high-level reviews, Hubbard said in a phone interview last week.
"I think the team is paying very close attention to all the details. That’s what you have to do in this business, because one strike and you’re out," Hubbard said.
Hubbard said that other Mars projects are picking up speed. Both the twin-rover mission for 2003 and a Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for 2005 are moving ahead briskly, he said.
The fast-paced nature of readying two Mars rovers for 2003 underwent a recent review at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. High marks were given to the project team as to the technical status of the project.
"I think there’s no surprise. The 2003 mission has three issues. Schedule, schedule and schedule," Hubbard said.
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-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), March 06, 2001