Morale Sags Among Scientists : U.S. Space Failures Force JPL Into Holding Pattern

Southern California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the nation’s leading design and control center for planetary exploration, has been left in limbo by what JPL director Lew Allen calls the “shambles” of the U.S. space program.

Morale is sagging as an elite corps of space scientists waits impatiently for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to chart its course for the future, and the lab faces a real challenge in keeping the people who have contributed so much to America’s unmanned space program over the past 30 years, according to Allen and other JPL scientists.

The explosion of the space shuttle Challenger last January and the decision by NASA last week to abandon use of the Centaur, a liquid-fueled upper-stage rocket that was to have been used on several upcoming space expeditions, have turned what was to have been a dream decade into a nightmare.

“It is unfortunate that the decade of the ‘80s turned out to be a dry hole,” Allen told JPL scientists at a symposium on Halley’s comet this week. “Things have gone very sour indeed.

“It is certainly disappointing that a space science program that had such promise should be in shambles,” he added.

Many of the lab’s 5,000 workers will continue developing instruments and programs for NASA and other federal agencies, so there is no immediate threat of layoffs or a shortage of work, Allen said. However, the bold planetary adventures that have been the hallmark of the lab have gone into a holding pattern, and no one is sure when they will come out.

That leaves a lot of high-tech engineers and scientists facing the prospect of having devoted a large chunk of their careers to projects that may not pay off for many years.

The Galileo probe to Jupiter, which was initially to have been launched four years ago, is facing such a long delay that it will cost millions of dollars to replace parts deteriorated by age, while the spacecraft rests in a warehouse at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

In addition, the next major mission by JPL, an ambitious program to fly alongside a comet for two or three years to collect long-term data, will probably be delayed for so long that NASA will have to substitute a less desirable comet as the primary target.

Some Will Retire

These are programs that many scientists have worked on for years, and now some undoubtedly will retire and others will seek other employment before the missions are completed.

“The problem which we have to face is how (to) maintain this cadre of very skilled people,” Allen said in an interview.

He fears that an uncertain and possibly unproductive period may lead some of his top people to move on to universities and aerospace companies.

“We can’t . . . end up with these people sitting around,” he said.

One highly placed administrator at the lab put it on a personal basis, saying, “I’ve never been so depressed in my life.”

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, nestled in the hills near Pasadena, has been responsible for many of the space program’s triumphs over the years, most notably through planetary probes that have visited every planet in the solar system, with the exception of Neptune and Pluto.

The lab, which employs more than 3,000 scientists and engineers, also has developed a wide range of scientific instruments for the space program, including a radar camera for the shuttle that “sees” through clouds, other cameras that map the surface of the Earth from space and instruments to measure activity on the sun. The lab is managed for NASA by Caltech.

Leaner Times

Between the Apollo moon program and the space shuttle, JPL was the heart of the U.S. space program in an era that relied entirely on unmanned exploration. However, the lab fell on leaner times earlier this decade, with a shifting emphasis to manned flight, and this year, it was hit with a series of disasters--none of its own making--beginning with the explosion of the Challenger. That was followed quickly by the loss of an Air Force Titan and a NASA Atlas rocket, raising further questions about the state of the U.S. space program.

Those questions have lead to a serious reevaluation of the program, and that process has compelled NASA to delay a lot of decisions, according to several scientists.

The final blow in a long series of problems hit JPL last week, with the cancellation of the Centaur program, leaving many of its projects with someplace to go but no way to get there.

Hallway chatter among scientists at the lab reveals deep resentment at the turn of events. Many talked candidly only on the understanding that their names not be used in this story.

“We are being killed by problems that we had absolutely no control over,” one scientist said.

Growing Concern

There is also growing concern over NASA’s priorities, especially the move away from unmanned exploration of the solar system.

“Planetary science doesn’t cost very much,” one scientist grumbled. “But NASA is more interested in being a trucking company,” he added in a reference to the space shuttle’s satellite-hauling capability.

Nothing at the lab illustrates the frustration more than the indefinite postponement of the launch of the Galileo spacecraft on its mission to Jupiter. Galileo, which is to send a probe into Jupiter’s atmosphere as it orbits the planet, was to have been launched from the shuttle last month. After the Jan. 28 Challenger explosion, NASA postponed the launch date to December, 1989, on the assumption that the shuttle will resume operations next year.

Even that plan is in great jeopardy, however. Galileo was to use a powerful Centaur rocket, fueled by highly volatile liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, to propel itself beyond the shuttle’s orbit, and even before the Challenger accident, some officials within NASA were concerned about carrying such explosive material in the cargo bay of a manned vehicle. Last week NASA decided against using the Centaur for any launches from the shuttle.

“We had expected that,” one source at JPL said. “But when the decision finally came down, it was like hitting us between the eyes. It’s so damned depressing.”

The decision sent the lab’s engineers back to the drawing boards, and a few days ago they thought they had an answer. Galileo could be launched from the shuttle and sent on to Jupiter with two solid rockets.

Tuesday, however, the lab was told that if the solid rockets were added to Galileo, it would weigh too much for the shuttle to land in an emergency and thus that plan was scraped.

“Just as soon as we think we’ve got an answer, someone slams the door on us,” one official said.

Other options are now being examined, Allen said, including the development of alternative upper-stage rockets for launches from the shuttle and the possibility of launching Galileo on an unmanned Titan rocket. However, no Titans are currently available for such a mission, and a decision to use the Titan would probably push the launch date back even further.

Meanwhile, Galileo grows older.

“The problem with Galileo is you’ve got a spacecraft that is going to reach its destination 20 years after it was designed,” one scientist bemoaned. “The technology is ancient.”

If the launch is delayed past 1990, which now appears likely, it will be necessary to refuel the radioactive plutonium generator used to produce the electricity that would run the craft’s instruments. That, Allen said, would cost millions of dollars. Some estimates place that figure at near $100 million.

Also, there is still the question of whether the space agency and Congress, more cautious in the wake of the Challenger explosion, would balk at launching a rocket with potentially deadly radioactive materials aboard. The generator is shielded to withstand the kind of explosion that destroyed the Challenger, but new concerns could arise as the launch draws closer.

Ironically, the greatest threat to the radioactive cargo ended with the decision to abandon the Centaur. An explosion of the powerful rocket in the shuttle’s cargo bay could have ripped the generator apart, spreading radiation over a wide area.

“That was the failure mode which caused the greatest concern,” Allen said. That, at least, is no longer a threat.

In any event, it now appears likely that Galileo will not reach Jupiter until the latter part of the next decade.

For some, that delay is more than just a disappointment.

“I’m not going to make it to the launching,” said Al Wolfe, 62, deputy project manager.

Wolfe, who has been on the project for a decade, will retire before the spacecraft can be launched.

Rewards for Others

That represents a substantial portion of his career, and like others at JPL, he will have to leave the rewards to others.

“That’s never easy,” he said.

The “disarray,” as Allen calls the space program’s current predicament, is also affecting programs that have not even begun. Because of the uncertainty over launch schedules, NASA is reluctant to begin work that some scientists believe is already far overdue.

JPL had expected approval this year for its next venture, an ambitious effort to send a spacecraft to an asteroid and then on to a comet to complete the work started by five foreign spacecraft that flew past Halley’s comet last March.

The project is called the Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby Mission (CRAF). In order for the spacecraft to reach its primary target, comet Tempel 2, NASA must approve funding for the project in fiscal 1988.

“If we don’t get a 1988 start, we will have to go to another comet,” project scientist Marcia Neugebauer told fellow JPL scientists this week.

However, other comets that could be targeted for the mission are far less attractive scientifically than Tempel 2, because they are smaller or less active.

When he addressed the same group of scientists, Allen, expressed doubts that the program would be approved.

“The next mission (by the lab) should be a comet rendezvous mission,” Allen told the scientists. “But I would be less than candid if I said I expected to see it started in 1988.”

If a comet other than Tempel 2 is selected, the spacecraft would not reach its target before October, 1998, and perhaps not before the 21st Century.

That leaves JPL with a single major mission in the rest of this decade. Voyager 2, the intrepid robot that is on its way to Neptune, after a successful visit to Uranus, is the whole ballgame.

Earlier this year Voyager sent back spectacular photographs of Uranus and its moons and rings and enough data to keep scientists busy until the craft encounters Neptune.

On the very last day of that mission, the Challenger exploded and the sky fell on the U.S. space program.