Panel Opposes U.S.-Soviet Mars Mission

Joint missions to Mars by the United States and the Soviet Union are too risky now, a National Research Council panel said Monday, recommending instead that the two nations follow “a graceful path” of coordinated but independent exploration.

The panel’s report appeared to chill the idea frequently expressed by many experts that Mars would be explored jointly by the Soviets and Americans, doing together what would be too expensive for either nation to do alone.

“The United States and U.S.S.R. have no prior experience with the degree of cooperation necessary to carry out a technical project of this complexity or magnitude,” the committee said.

The panel said it was concerned “about relying on the consistency of the relationship over a period of a decade or more into the future.”

The United States and the Soviets have cooperated in space in the past, most notably in 1975 when three Apollo astronauts joined their spacecraft with a Soviet Soyuz and exchanged bear hugs in orbit with two cosmonauts.

The committee was commissioned by NASA to look into undertaking missions with international partners to use robots to gather rocks and soil from Mars and bring them to Earth for analysis. The committee concentrated its study on efforts by the United States and the Soviet Union because “they are the only nations presently in a position to take on the lead role in a major Mars program.”

The Soviets have said they intend to explore Mars with robotic rovers, space probes orbiting overhead and by returned samples. A scenario often mentioned is that one nation would build a lander and a sample-return vehicle while the other would develop a roving vehicle for collecting samples and analyzing them.

Detailed Mars investigations, before any manned landing, would include robotic missions at four to six selected sites over a number of years. The committee said its recommended cautious approach “would allow a graceful path to increasingly close levels of cooperation.”

A mission highly dependent on cooperative efforts would be a “potential hostage to political events that might disrupt communications and interaction between the two nations,” said the committee.

The National Research Council conducts studies for the government’s National Academy of Sciences.