Scaled-Down NASA Brings Project Costs Back to Earth : Science: Researchers battle for fewer funds as space agency seeks faster, less expensive missions.
Even the solar system is feeling the recession.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration held its first open audition this week, casting for future robotic solar system explorations--a onetime extravaganza that has been boiled down to a very low-budget project.
The call is for missions that are cheap and fast, costing less than $150 million and allowing just three years from approval to launch. To compete fiercely for just $1 million in study money, 73 teams of researchers from across the nation and around the world have converged on this south Orange County town, at a modern research institute a few blocks from the famous old mission.
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, each team leader had 10 minutes to show a panel of experts what he or she can do for a fraction of the cost and time it took to build the Magellan orbiter traveling around Venus, the Galileo craft headed for Jupiter or the Mars Observer. Thursday and Friday, the panel sifted through the proposals, preparing to issue a report on each sometime next week. NASA is expected to distribute the first seed money next year.
With the federal government facing severe financial constraints, the age of the U.S. space science spectacular is clearly over. “We won’t be doing science that is as broad,” said Carl B. Pilcher, a NASA official in charge of developing solar system science missions. “We will be doing science that is as good.”
Others are less sanguine. With fewer instruments aboard each spacecraft, “you’re limiting the science by giving up the interdisciplinary feedback,” said Paul Weissman, an astronomer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Sometimes if you know about one thing, you can learn about others. Everyone works together.”
Some participants have been heartened by the cleverness on display during the three days of presentations. Scientists speak now of studying the solar system by using spare craft built as backups for other projects; by raising matching funds from the Russians, Europeans and Japanese; by accomplishing just one narrow portion of a broad-based mission that was canceled for lack of money.
On a relative shoestring, researchers think they can bring to Earth samples of comets, asteroids and the Martian moon Phobos. They believe they have found ways to examine Mercury, Mars, Venus and Pluto. They want to send robots to roam the moon.
The change, however, is not coming easily. Caltech astronomer Arden Albee, who is project scientist for the $900-million Mars Observer, seemed almost embarrassed by the $120 million he now seeks to trap particles from a comet and return them to laboratories on the ground for analysis. “This is basically a hobby,” he said.
Panel members noted the resistance. They chastised one researcher for “needless window dressing” and asked another “why . . . you need to use the shuttle. I’d like a $60-million reason for that, please.”
“You have to deal with scientific greed. There are still a lot of greedy people,” said William Hayden Smith, a Washington University astronomer who made three proposals that he described as “cheap and dirty.”
But even Smith, 52, admits that he has fond memories of a time “back in the ‘60s, when money was flowing. You would have guys literally walking into your office asking you if you wanted money.”
At this week’s sessions at the San Juan Capistrano Research Institute, the wreckage of those days was apparent. At least one unemployed aerospace executive attended, scouting for work. And a flock of scientists who had been preparing the Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby brought in smaller studies for consideration. They have little else to do. The comet project was going to be part of a large-scale mission to Saturn but NASA canceled it this year.
“This is sort of like the CRAF reunion,” said Weissman, pointing out fellow alumni.
Already, NASA has designated two missions to kick off the cheaper-faster era, formally known as the Discovery program.
The first, to be managed by JPL, is the Pathfinder mission for the Mars Environmental Survey, scheduled for launch in 1996. The craft is supposed to demonstrate flight and landing systems for a later network of instruments that will be sent to the Martian surface. A small roving robot may be included.
The second, managed by the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, is the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, which will send a spacecraft in 1998 to either the 4660 Nereus or 3361 Orpheus asteroids.
Starting in 1994, the space agency hopes to spend $85 million a year on Discovery missions, launching projects every year or two. Over the last decade, by contrast, NASA has launched just three planetary science missions, Pilcher said.
The more frequent projects have several advantages, Pilcher said. The ailing aerospace industry will have a steadier flow of work. So will scientists. Graduate students can also be involved with a mission, completing it in time to use their research for a doctoral dissertation.
One negative side effect, however, was readily apparent in the two-story brick headquarters of the research institute this week. With less money and fewer people on each team, the atmosphere was not entirely collegial.
In the room where presenters took questions from the panel, nerves frayed among the audience of competitors. One balding man with a trim mustache sat in the back row chewing his nails. Two bespectacled researchers whispered to one another as details unfolded for a project similar to the one they hope to do.
Outside, in a wide hallway, another group was less restrained. Applicants crowded a couch, armchairs and plastic seats facing a monitor that showed the proceedings. They popped chocolate mint patties in their mouths and hooted at their rivals.
A comet specialist on-screen spoke of the “sharp scientific focus” of his plan, and Smith laughed. “This looks too big,” he said. “This is greed.”
Another astronomer asked a member of his team to answer a query from the panel. “I’m not an expert,” he said. Giggles erupted from the armchairs. “You should know!” someone shouted.
There was talk of gamesmanship--”you almost have to have a camera (aboard any spacecraft) to show the public you were there,” said Weissman--and a spirited evaluation of the various acronyms. Joseph Veverka, of Cornell University, scored well with his Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) and his Mainbelt Asteroid Exploration/Rendezvous (MASTER).
Then there was Albee’s joint U.S.-Japan mission, the Sample of Comet Coma Earth Return, so named because the Japanese project manager is an ardent SOCCER fan.
But the unofficial prize went to Hunter Waite Jr. of Southwest Research Institute for his homage to the Greek goddess of love. He wants funding for “A Planetary/Heliospheric Reconnaissance Of Dynamics: Ionosphere, Thermosphere and Exosphere (APHRODITE).”
