- When NASA scientist Stephen Saunders uttered these three
words Wednesday, less than 24 hours after the Mars Odyssey spacecraft had
become the Red Planet's newest satellite, there were no lines to read
between.
The meaning was clear: NASA is back on track.
-
- The words also implied that the space agency's troubled
Jet Propulsion Laboratory is on the road to recovery. And "faster,
better, cheaper," the decade-old mantra that has driven many of NASA's
recent success -- as well as forced some dismal failures -- does
work.
-
- But what does the success mean for the future of the
Mars program, or for the possibility of putting people on Mars?
-
- The answers lie partly in what it would have meant to
fail.
-
- "My bedtime reading for the last six months has
been failure reports from previous missions," said Odyssey Mission
Manager David A. Spencer five days before the maneuver. Matt Landano,
project
manager for Odyssey, said: " We have trained, we have reviewed, we
have tested. After that, we have reviewed, we have trained, and we have
tested over again."
-
- These lines were easy to read between. Failure was not
an option, but the prospect loomed like a noose.
-
-
- 'Feeling a Little Heady'
-
- Now the man who had asked the Odyssey team to lay it
on the line, outgoing NASA chief Dan Goldin, is "feeling a little
heady" after witnessing, in his final days, one of NASA's finest
hours.
-
- Tuesday's achievement is not the last word on the new
way of doing things at NASA -- smaller missions and more of them -- but
it serves as powerful redemption for a concept that had contributed to
untimely screw-ups: the back-to-back Mars mission botches in 1999.
-
- With NASA confronting probable budget cuts along with
many federal agencies, it was time to prove some mettle.
-
- And it was not a bad time to inspire a nation dealing
with war abroad, terrorism at home, and a muddled sense of daily purpose.
If soothing the national psyche could be considered a mission goal, then
the Odyssey team stepped up to the plate Tuesday night like the experienced
but aging New York Yankees, and slammed one over the wall.
-
-
- Parting Shot for Goldin
-
- For Goldin, who last week announced he would depart Nov.
17, putting another probe at Mars adds a glowing final chapter to a
biography
that will focus on the monumental change he augured and the price that
came with it, measured in lost spacecraft.
-
- Goldin pioneered faster, better, cheaper. He lived by
it. And he nearly died by it, politically speaking.
-
- In the end, what is his record?
-
- Going back to the launch of Mars Global Surveyor in 1996,
the first Mars mission that was fully built and launched under Goldin's
watch, three of five Mars robots have arrived intact, including
Odyssey.
-
- Not bad, compared to history.
-
- Twelve of JPL's first 20 missions through 1967 failed
at launch, crashed, malfunctioned, or missed their target altogether. And
those spacecraft, all robots, were just aiming for the Moon. The record
to Mars is no better. In total, 18 of 31 Mars missions launched by the
United States and other countries have failed.
-
- One might expect the ratio to improve over time.
-
- But JPL managers have said the conversion to faster,
better, cheaper created an overswinging pendulum of new procedures and
cost cuts, all of which had to be overcome. They see the 1999 losses as
learning opportunities that help ensure future successes.
-
-
- Red, White and Blue
Triumph
-
- Odyssey may mark the pendulum's return to equilibrium,
coming in the same year as two wildly successful NASA missions that
performed
unexpected tasks and produced valuable science on the cheap.
-
- In February the NEAR spacecraft, operated by Johns
Hopkins
University, landed on asteroid Eros and provided valuable surface data.
This was a spacecraft with no legs. In September the wounded Deep Space
1 probe captured the best comet images ever in an amazing flyby it was
not fully designed for.
-
- Odyssey, on the other hand, would have had no excuses
for not hitting its mark.
-
- Goldin, visibly overjoyed, was gracious at a late-night
press conference Tuesday. He wrapped the Odyssey moment in red, white and
blue language and handed it to the people who have paid his salary for
nearly 10 years.
-
- "Putting the Odyssey spacecraft into orbit is an
achievement that each and every American should take pride in," Goldin
said. "In America, we're not afraid of trying hard things and failing,
because we know we're going to keep on coming back until we are
successful."
-
- A 285-million-mile home run for America. And a ray of
hope that the country can win other battles.
-
-
- What If?
-
- But Goldin's comments had plenty of lines between them,
too. After all, Odyssey simply did what it was supposed to do. Had
circumstances
at NASA been otherwise, the achievement would hardly have warranted such
pride or praise.
-
- But in the present environment, it is impossible to
overestimate
the importance of Odyssey to Goldin and his agency or what it would have
meant if the craft had zoomed past the Red Planet and been lost.
-
- "Everybody has said since the 1999 failures that
this one has to work," said Bob Berry, Odyssey program manager for
Lockheed Martin, which built the spacecraft as well as the two probes that
were lost in 1999.
-
- Steven Squyres, a Cornell University professor who also
worked on Odyssey, said, "There,s no question that if, heaven forbid,
Odyssey was lost, that there would be an impact on the program. What that
would be, my crystal ball is not that good."
-
- You don't have to be a rocket science to take a
guess.
-
- Future Mars missions would have been put quickly on
Washington's
budget table, if not the chopping block. For Congress and the President,
there is no shortage of important things on which to spend dwindling funds
these days.
-
- Instead, Odyssey's success, at least so far, breathes
fresh air into NASA, especially into its Mars program, a set of missions
planned for periodic launches into the next decade. Significantly, funding
still needs to be solidified for these missions.
-
- "This is fabulous news for the rover program,"
said Squyres, speaking about a pair of robotic rovers planned for launch
in 2003. If the $300 million Odyssey mission had failed, the $700 million
rover program could have been jeopardized, according to a statement issued
by Cornell.
-
-
- Humans to Mars?
-
- Of course we're talking only about robots. Important
exploratory tools, yes. But many space enthusiasts won't rest until humans
visit our nearest planetary neighbor. Some go so far as to say that the
future of the space program depends on it.
-
- Does Odyssey advance the cause? Scientifically, it
should.
-
- But the politics of putting humans on Mars is another
question. NASA officials speak obliquely about the prospect. They say the
Mars program is designed to prepare for the possibility, but they have
yet to articulate firm plans.
-
- The approach is akin to a perennial apartment dweller
who trudges off to Home Depot every weekend to stock up on 2x4s, tools
and Sunset how-to books. One day, all the preparation is expected to yield
the logic for a set of blueprints.
-
- Goldin addressed the humans-to-Mars issue this week.
But even as his NASA career nears an end, he spoke in whispers, not
shouts.
-
- "I feel that we are now taking the steps to go to
Mars with people," Goldin said Wednesday in a conversation with the
crew aboard the International Space Station. He reiterated the importance
of the station's research into the health effects of long-term spaceflight.
This combined with the robotic reconnaissance of the Red Planet, he said,
would pave the way to safely send human crews to Mars.
-
-
- Not Ready Yet
-
- No one could expect Goldin to saddle his as-yet-unnamed
successor with a rallying call to put humans on Mars by a certain
date.
-
- And it's easy to find scientists -- even geologists who
are pining to set foot on Mars -- who say we're simply not ready. Not
enough
is known about the Martian water supply or lack thereof. Nor do we know
where is the best place to look for life on Mars, the driving force behind
the entire Mars exploration budget. At a cost of some $50 billion or more,
the first crewed mission to Mars needs to know where to set down.
-
- Equally important, scientists say, potentially deadly
radiation on Mars has not been well measured. The data is needed to
properly
design space suits and habitats.
-
- Ironically, Odyssey's radiation-measuring instrument
is in questionable health. Engineers are optimistic they'll get it running
again, but just two weeks ago they were still unsure what the problem
was.
-
- The Odyssey mission is slated to last 2.5 years and could
be extended. By then, the probe may have accumulated strong evidence for
near-surface ice or watering holes. The radiation environment may be well
understood. And Goldin's successor either will or will not have laid out
firm plans for a piloted trip to the Red Planet.
-
- Given the failure rate for spacecraft trying to reach
Mars, however, patience could prove prudent. Especially from the viewpoint
of the brave first crew that tries to get there, whoever they are and
whenever
they are asked to go.
-
-
- MainPage
http://www.rense.com
-
-
-
- This
Site Served by TheHostPros
|