Joint Mission to Mars a Trip We Ought to Take

Should we go to Mars with Gorbachev? The Soviet leader suggested last week that Soviet-U.S. cooperation in an unmanned mission to Mars would be a good idea. Would it?

Sure. If President Reagan backs the idea during his summit visit to Moscow starting Sunday, it could be the spark that gets the U.S. space effort out of the doldrums, where it has been since the Challenger disaster killed seven astronauts in January, 1986.

A summit decision, first of all, has power. A handshake by the two leaders would ensure that the mission to Mars got under way, and would make it possible to raise the $10 billion to $12 billion it would cost, says Moustafa Chahine, chief scientist of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

The idea of such a mission is not new, Chahine points out. It has been advocated for a long time by scientists in the United States and the Soviet Union--and by space travel supporters including 127,000 members worldwide of the Planetary Society of Pasadena. Now they have Gorbachev on their side. If they get Reagan, too, the effort will go forward.

So what? So plenty. Sending a mechanical probe to Mars could lead early in the next century to a manned flight, such as that proposed by astronaut Sally Ride before she left the space program. And, at the very least, it would lift the vision of our space effort, which is now at a crossroads.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has submitted a budget request to Congress for restarting the space shuttle program--the first launch since Challenger is now scheduled for mid-August--and for the beginning of an effort to put a manned space station in orbit in the mid-1990s.

Willingness to Pay

The issue as it will be presented and debated is a tough one: NASA will be asking for more money in a time of budget restraint but in a time, also, in which there is concern for the U.S. loss of position in space exploration. For example, from 36 unmanned missions to neighboring planets in the 1960s, the U.S. effort fell to 11 such missions in the 1970s and only one in the 1980s. America has the goods--such as the Hubble Space Telescope that could allow astronomers to see to the edge of the universe. But with no launches since Challenger, that telescope sits in storage costing $3 million a year, while other nations including Japan, China and the European countries as well as the Soviet Union push on with their space programs.

U.S. Has Resources

So there is a desire to reassert leadership, and the only question is whether there is a willingness to pay for leadership. The Congressional Budget Office, in a new study titled “NASA in the 1990s and Beyond” reminds Congress that NASA budgets will grow from $9 billion last year to $14.4 billion in 1993. And if more ambitious programs are wanted--such as sending astronauts to Mars--the prospect would be for NASA’s budget to triple by the turn of the century.

The really difficult choice facing Congress, says the Budget Office, is whether to increase dramatically the commitment of the United States to preeminence in space exploration or to adapt the U.S. space program to a limited budget and forgo any thought of leadership.

To which consideration, Gorbachev’s suggestion of sending unmanned orbiters and rover vehicles to Mars comes as an inspiration, says Chahine, who has been with JPL since 1960. “Support for space is always support for advanced technology and human drama,” he says, meaning that presidential backing and a vision of great works to come could well inspire Congress to back a strong space program--especially as the cost of the unmanned Mars probe would be shared by the Soviet Union and perhaps many other nations as well.

Space leadership is more than a public relations issue. If you’re the leader, other nations come to you to help develop new technology, your science and industry is spurred. For example, computerized image enhancement techniques--developed to bring out the details in pictures taken by space satellites--have led to advances in CAT scanners and magnetic resonance imaging in U.S. medicine.

Moreover, maintains Chahine, the United States is the only country with the resources to lead the world in space exploration. “Yes, I know we’ve been partially eclipsed by Russian successes, because they are flying and we are not,” says the 52-year-old Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, “but the U.S. is still the nation that has done the fundamental scientific work, that leads in computer technology.”

OK, is it a question then of sharing secrets; would the Russians learn our technology? Probably they would, but then we would benefit by learning theirs and--let’s not kid ourselves--the country that has kept men in orbit for more than a year, and has a space station now orbiting, knows a lot about space that the United States does not.

So amid all the big talk about missile treaties and European security at the Moscow summit, look for a Reagan-Gorbachev handshake on Mars. There’s a lot riding on it.