Humans to Mars

NASA SP-2000-4521

NASA History DivisionOffice of Policy and PlansNASA HeadquartersWashington, DC 20546

February 2001

Humans to Mars

Fifty Years of Mission Planning,1950—2000

David S. F. Portree

Monographs in Aerospace History #21

NASA SP-2001-4521

Humans to Mars

Fifty Years of Mission Planning,1950—2000

David S. F. Portree

Humans to MarsFifty Years of Mission Planning, 1950–2000

by David S. F. Portree

NASA History DivisionOffice of Policy and PlansNASA HeadquartersWashington, DC 20546

Monographs in Aerospace History SeriesNumber 21February 2001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataPor t ree, David S. F.Humans to Mars: fifty years of mission planning, 1950–2000/by David S. F. Por t ree.p. cm.–(Monographs in aerospace h istory; no. 21) (NASA publica t ion SP)Includes bibliographica l references and index.1. Space fligh t to Mars–Planning. 2. United Sta tes. Nat iona l Aeronaut ics and Space Administ ra t ion .I. Tit le. II. Ser ies. III. NASA SP ; no. 4521.

TL799.M3 P67 2000629.45’53–dc21 00—062218

iiiHumans to Mars: Fifty Years of Mission Planning, 1950–2000

ContentsForeword ............................................................................................................................................................v

Preface ..............................................................................................................................................................vii

Chapter 1: On the Grand Scale ............................................................................................................................1

Chapter 2: Earliest NASA Concepts ......................................................................................................................5

Chapter 3: EMPIRE and After ............................................................................................................................11

Chapter 4: A Hostile Environment ......................................................................................................................23

Chapter 5: Apogee ............................................................................................................................................33

Chapter 6: Viking and the Resources of Mars ....................................................................................................53

Chapter 7: The Case for Mars ............................................................................................................................57

Chapter 8: Challengers ......................................................................................................................................67

Chapter 9: Space Exploration Initiative ..............................................................................................................77

Chapter 10: Design Reference Mission ..............................................................................................................89

Acronyms ........................................................................................................................................................101

Endnotes..........................................................................................................................................................103

Bibliography ....................................................................................................................................................127

About the Author ..............................................................................................................................................141

Index................................................................................................................................................................143

NASA History Monographs ..............................................................................................................................151

The planet Mars has long held a specia l fascinat ionand even mythic sta tus for humans. While not the clos-est planet to Ear th , scient ists have considered it to bethe planet tha t most closely resembles Ear th and thusis the other planet in our solar system most likely toconta in life. Since before the space age began, peoplehave wondered about the “red planet” and dreamed ofexplor ing it .

In the twent ieth century, robot ic spacecraft and thenhuman space flight became a rea lity. Those who want-ed to explore Mars in person felt tha t th is might fina l-ly become a rea lity as well. The Apollo program, whichput twelve Americans on the surface of the Moon, cer-ta in ly encouraged the dreamers and planners whowanted to send ast ronauts to Mars. Indeed, many peo-ple in and out of the Nat ional Aeronaut ics and SpaceAdminist ra t ion (NASA) have felt tha t human explo-ra t ion of Mars is the next logica l step in human spaceflight after the Moon.

Clea r ly, however, many obst acles have r ema ined.Human t ravel to and from Mars probably would takemany months a t best . Thus the biomedical and psycho-logica l implica t ions of such long-dura t ion missions aredaunt ing. The logist ics of get t ing enough food, water,and other supplies to Mars are a lso challenging a t best .What would ast ronauts do once they got to Mars? Howlong would they stay on the planet ’s surface and howwould they survive there before returning to Ear th?The financia l cost of sending humans to Mars wouldalmost surely be measured in billions of dollars. Asidefrom technica l and financia l issues, there remains thepolit ica l quest ion of why we should send humans toMars a t a ll.

David Portree takes on these quest ions in this mono-graph. By examining the evolut ion of 50 mission studiesover the past 50 years, he gives us a sense of the manyoptions that Mars human space flight planners in theUnited States have explored. Portree covers a wide

variety of ideas for human explorat ion of Mars, rangingfrom Wernher von Braun’s of the 1950s to the SpaceExplorat ion Init ia t ive of 1989. These concepts, culledfrom a much larger pool of studies, range from hugelyambit ious flot illa -style expedit ions to much leanerplans. This monograph provides histor ians, space policypract it ioners, and other readers with a very valuableoverview of how much planning has a lready been done.If humans do go to Mars any t ime in the near future, itis quite conceivable that their mission profile willresemble one of the plans descr ibed here.

A number of people helped to produce th is monograph.In the NASA History Office, M. Louise Alstork editedand proofread the manuscr ipt , while Stephen J. Garberand Nadine J. Andreassen a lso assisted with edit ingand product ion. The Pr in t ing and Design Office devel-oped the layout and handled the pr in t ing. ShawnFlowers and Lisa J irousek handled the design and edit -ing, respect ively, while Stan ley Ar t is and WarrenOwens saw th is work through the publica t ion process.

This is the twenty-first in a ser ies of specia l studiesprepared by the NASA History Office. The Monographsin Aerospace History ser ies is designed to provide awide var iety of aerospace h istory invest iga t ions. Thesepublica t ions are in tended to be t ight ly focused in termsof subject , rela t ively shor t in length , and reproduced inan inexpensive format to a llow t imely and broad dis-seminat ion to researchers. Thus they hopefully serve asuseful star t ing points for others to do more in-depthresearch on var ious topics. Suggest ions for addit ionalpublica t ions in the Monographs in Aerospace Historyser ies are welcome.

Roger D. LauniusChief Histor ianNat ional Aeronaut ics and Space Administ ra t ionsOctober 25, 2000

vHumans to Mars: Fifty Years of Mission Planning, 1950–2000

Foreword

vii

The story of the dreams and the unbuilt space-ships for flights to Mars should be recorded sothat in the fu ture people can examine pastideas of space t ravel just as we can examine theunconsummated ideas of Leonardo da Vinci byreading his notebooks. Years from now peoplesh ou ld be a ble t o decide for t h em selveswhether they want to go to Mars or if they pre-fer to stay ear thbound. But let us not dest roythe dream, simply because we do not wish topursue it ourselves. (Edward Ezell, 1979)1

In the past ha lf century, visionary engineers have madeincreasingly rea list ic plans for launching ast ronauts toMars to explore the planet . This monograph t races theevolut ion of these plans, taking in to account such fac-tors as on-going technologica l advancement and ourimproving knowledge of the red planet .

More than 1,000 piloted Mars mission studies were con-ducted inside and outside NASA between about 1950and 2000. Many were the product of NASA and indus-t ry study teams, while others were the work of commit-ted individuals or pr ivate organizat ions. Due to spacelimitat ions, only 50 mission studies (one per year, or lessthan 5 percent of the tota l) are descr ibed in this mono-graph. The studies included are believed to be represen-ta t ive of most of the technologies and techniques associ-ated with piloted Mars explorat ion.2

In addit ion to t racing the evolut ion of mission concepts,th is monograph examines piloted Mars mission plan-ning from a policy standpoint . Mars plans are affectedby their societa l context and by the policies tha t growfrom that context . When the human species eventuallydecides to send a piloted mission to Mars, the polit ica lenvironment in which it develops will have a t least asmuch impact on it s shape as technology, human factors,and the Mart ian and in terplanetary environments.Hence, it stands to benefit the space technologist tostudy the ways in which policy has shaped (and thwar t -

ed) past Mars plans. This idea may seem obvious tosome readers, yet the h istory of piloted Mars missionplanning shows tha t th is t ru ism has often been ignoredor imperfect ly understood, usually to the det r iment ofMars explora t ion.

This h istory should be seen as a tool for buildingtoward a fu ture tha t includes piloted Mars explora t ion,not merely as a chronicle of events forgot ten and plansunrealized. The author hopes to update and expand itin 15 or 20 years so tha t it tells a story culminat ing inthe first piloted Mars mission. Perhaps a universitystudent reading th is monograph today will become amember of the first Mars mission crew tomorrow.

The author gra tefully acknowledges the assistance pro-vided by the following: Rober t Ash, Donald Beat t ie,Ivan Bekey, J ohn Char les, Benton Clark, Aaron Cohen,J ohn Connolly, Mark Craig, Dwayne Day, MichaelDuke, Louis Fr iedman, Kent J oosten , Paul Keaton,Geoffrey Landis, J ohn Logsdon, Humboldt Mandell,Wendell Mendell, George Morgenthaler, Annie Pla toff,Marvin Por t ree, Gordon Woodcock, and Rober t Zubr in .Thanks a lso to the Explora t ion Faithful a t NASA’sJ ohnson Space Center for their insights and encour-agement these past severa l years. Finally, thanks toRoger D. Launius, NASA Senior Histor ian, for solicit ingthis work and providing overall guidance.

David S. F. Por t reeHouston, Texas, September 2000

A Note on Measurement

In this monograph, measurements are given in the unitsused in the original study. Tons are U.S. tons (short tons)unless specified as metric tons. Measurements not associ-ated with a specific study are given in the metric system.

Humans to Mars: Fifty Years of Mission Planning, 1950–2000

Preface

Will man ever go to Mars? I am sure he will—but it will be a cen tury or more before he’sready. In tha t t ime scien t ist s and engineerswill lea rn more about the physica l and menta lr igors of in terplaneta ry fligh t—and about theunknown dangers of life on another planet .Some of that information may become availablewithin the next 25 years or so, through the erec-t ion of a space sta t ion above the Earth . . . andthrough the subsequent explora t ion of the[M]oon. (Wernher von Braun, 1954)1

Von Braun in the Desert

At the beginning of serious Mars expedit ion planning inthe United Sta tes st ands German rocket pioneerWernher von Braun. From 1945 to 1950, von Braun wasinterned at White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexicowith about 60 other German rocket engineers spir itedout of Nazi Germany by the U.S. Army at the end of theSecond World War. Under Hit ler, they had developed thefirst large liquid-propellant rocket , the V-2 missile, at theNazi rocket base of Peenemünde; in the United States,they shared their missilery experience by preparing andlaunching captured V-2s under Army supervision.

In 1947 and 1948, to r elieve boredom, von Braunwrote a novel abou t an expedit ion to Mars. Freder ickOrdway and Mit chell Sha rpe wrote in t heir h istoryThe Rocket Team tha t von Braun’s novel “provedbeyond doubt t ha t it s au thor was an imagina t ive sci-en t ist bu t an execrable manufactu rer of plot and dia -log.”2 Perhaps under st andably, t he novel never sawpr in t . In 1952, however, it s appendix, a collect ion ofm a t h em a t ica l pr oofs su ppor t in g it s spa cecr a ftdesigns and mission plan , was published in WestGermany a s Das Marsprojekt . The Un iver sit y ofIllinois P ress published the English -language edit ionas The Mars Project a yea r la t er.3 By then von Braunand many of h is German colleagues were civilianem ployees of t h e Ar m y Ba llist ic Missile Agen cy(ABMA) a t Redstone Arsena l in Hun t sville, Alabama .

Von Braun descr ibed a Mars expedit ion “on the grandscale,” with ten 4,000-ton ships and 70 crewmembers.4

He assumed no Ear th-orbit ing space sta t ion assemblyba se. H is spa cecr a ft wer e a ssem bled fr om pa r t slaunched by three-stage winged fer ry rockets. Ninehundred fifty fer ry flights would be required to assem-ble the Mars “flot illa” in Ear th orbit . Von Braun est i-

mated tha t each fer ry rocket would need 5,583 tons ofnit r ic acid and a lcohol propellants to place about 40tons of cargo in to orbit , so a tota l of 5,320,000 tons ofpropellants would be required to launch a ll ten Marsships. To provide a sense of sca le he pointed out tha t“about 10 per cent of an equivalent quant ity of h ighoctane avia t ion gasoline was burned dur ing the sixmonths’ opera t ion of the Ber lin Air lift” in 1948-49.5 VonBraun est imated tota l propellant cost for launching theexpedit ion in to Ear th orbit a t $500 million .

Seven vessels in von Braun’s plan were assemblages ofgirders and spheres without st reamlining designed forthe round-t r ip Mars voyage. Incapable of landing, theyfeatured infla table fabr ic propellant tanks and person-nel spheres. Three one-way ships would each have awinged landing glider in place of a personnel sphere. Atthe appointed t ime, the flot illa ’s rocket engines wouldignite to put the ships on a minimum-energy Ear th-to-Mars t ra jectory. As Ear th shrank behind, the Mars shipcrews would discard empty Ear th-depar ture propellanttanks and set t le in for an eight -month weight less coast .

The members of the fir st Mars expedit ion would be thefir st humans to see the planet up close. No robot icexplorers would precede them; von Braun did nota n t icipa t e t h e t ech n ologica l a dva n cem en t s t h a tenabled au tomated explorers.

From Mars orbit they would turn telescopes towardMars’ equator to select a site for a surface explora t ionbase camp. The first Mars landing site, however, wouldbe determined a t the t ime the expedit ion left Ear th .One landing glider would deorbit and glide to a slidingtouchdown on skids on one of the polar ice caps. VonBraun chose the polar caps because he believed them tobe the only places on Mars where the crew could be cer-ta in of finding a smooth landing site. In von Braun’splan , the first people on Mars would abandon theirglider on the ice cap and conduct a heroic 4,000-mileover land t rek to the chosen base camp site on Mars’equator. There they would build a landing st r ip for thepair of wheeled gliders wait ing in orbit . This Marslanding approach is unique to von Braun’s work.

The wheeled gliders would touch down bear ing the bal-ance of the surface explora t ion par ty, leaving a skeletoncrew in orbit to tend the seven remaining ships. As soonas the glider wheels stopped, the explorers wouldunbolt their delta wings and hoist their V-2-shapedfuselages upr ight to stand on their ta il fins, ready for

1Humans to Mars: Fifty Years of Mission Planning, 1950–2000

Chapter 1: On the Grand Scale

blast off back to the ships in Mars orbit in case of emer-gency. They would then set up an infla table habita t ,their base of opera t ions for a 400-day survey of Mars’deser ts. They would gather samples of na t ive flora andfauna and explore the myster ious linea r “cana ls”glimpsed through Ear th-based telescopes since the la tenineteenth century. The journey back to Ear th orbitwould mirror the flight to Mars. Tota l expedit ion dura-t ion would be about three years.

In a lmost every Mars expedit ion plan from von Braunto the presen t , propellan t has been poten t ia lly thesin gle h ea vies t expedit ion elem en t . Von Br a u na t t em pt ed t o m in im ize t ot a l Ma r s expedit ionweigh t—and thus the number of expensive rocket srequ ired to launch the expedit ion from Ear th ’s su r -face—by reducing as much as possible the amount ofpropellan t needed to boost the expedit ion from Ear thto Mars and back aga in . His mission profile—a min i-mum-energy Mars t r ansfer, followed by a long st aydur ing which the planet s moved in to posit ion for amin imum-energy t r ansfer back to Ear th—was thech ief means he used to r educe requ ired propellan t .Th is approach , ca lled a con junct ion-class mission , willbe descr ibed in more deta il in chapter 3. Extensiveuse of in fla t able fabr ic st ructu res a lso helped reducespacecra ft weigh t , though von Braun invoked thempr imar ily because they cou ld be folded to fit with inthe ca rgo bay of h is hypothet ica l fer ry rocket .

Use of mult iple Mars sh ips and landers min imizedr isk to crew. If one sh ip fa iled, it s crew could t ransferto the other sh ips a t the pr ice of increased crowding.Von Braun’s expedit ion plan boosted science returnthrough la rge crews (including professiona l scien t ist s),a small fleet of t ractors for wide-ranging sur face t rav-erses, and ample scien t ific gear. His th inking wasshaped by la rge Antarct ic expedit ions of h is day, suchas Opera t ion High J ump (1946-47), which included4000 men, 13 sh ips, and 23 a ircra ft .6 In the days beforesa tellit es, Antarct ic explorers were la rgely cu t off fromthe wor ld, so exper t s and technicians had to be onhand to contend with any situa t ion tha t might a r ise.Von Braun an t icipa ted tha t Mars explorers would facea simila r situa t ion .

In keeping with h is assumpt ion tha t lit t le automat ionwould be available for precursor probes, von Braun’spiloted ships were largely manually controlled, makinglarge, naval-style crews mandatory. Lack of automated

systems a lso dicta ted tha t some crewmembers remainin Mars orbit to tend the Ear th-return ships.

It is interest ing to compare von Braun’s vision with theApollo lunar expedit ions, when just two astronautslanded on Earth’s Moon. An army of personnel, includingscientists, formed part of each Apollo expedit ion, butremained behind on Earth. This separat ion was madepossible by communication advances von Braun did notanticipate. In 1952 von Braun stated that televisiontransmission between Earth and a lunar expedit ionwould be impract ica l.7 Sixteen yea r s la t er, NeilArmstrong’s first footsteps on the dusty, cratered Sea ofTranquillity were televised live to 500 million people.

Collier’s

Von Braun’s slender book of proofs was not widely dis-tr ibuted. His vision, however, won over the editors of thecolorful Collier’s weekly magazine, who commissionedhim to write a series of space explorat ion art icles. TheCollier’s editor for the project , Cornelius Ryan, alsosolicited inputs from astronomer Fred Whipple, physicistJ oseph Kaplan , physiologist Heinz Haber, UnitedNations lawyer Oscar Schachter, science writer WillyLey, and others. Technical and astronomical art byChesley Bonestell, Rolf Klep, and Fred Freeman broughtvon Braun’s technical descript ions to life. Collier’s, nowdefunct , had a circulat ion of three million, making it oneof America’s most popular magazines. Through theCollier’s art icles, charismatic von Braun became identi-fied with space flight in the minds of Americans—thequintessential white-coated rocket scientist .

Collier’s published eight ar t icles laying out a logicalspace program blueprint . The first , published on 22March 1952, descr ibed von Braun’s winged ferry rocketsand a spinning, wheel-shaped ar t ificia l-gravity spacestat ion in Earth orbit .8 Collier’s readers reached theMoon in October 19529 and explored Mars in the 30April 1954 issue.10 Each step in von Braun’s programbuilt infrastructure and experience for the next .

Von Braun’s Collier’s Mars plan was ident ical to thatdescr ibed in The Mars Project , except that the ten-shipMars flot illa would be assembled near an Earth-orbit -ing space sta t ion. Again, von Braun assumed no robot icprecursors. This t ime, however, telescopes located on thespace sta t ion, high above Earth’s obscuring atmosphere,

2 Monographs in Aerospace History


would be used to refine knowledge of Mars and selectcandidate landing sites before the expedit ion left Earth.

Mars plans tend to focus on spacecraft , not ast ronauts.In the Collier ’s Mars ar t icle, however, von Braunexplored the psychologica l problems of the Mars voy-age. “At the end of a few months,” he wrote, “someone islikely to go berserk. Lit t le manner isms—the way aman cracks h is knuckles, blows his nose, the way hegr ins, ta lks or gestures—create tension and hat redwhich could lead to murder . . . [i]f somebody doescrack, you can’t ca ll off the expedit ion and return toEar th . You’ll have to take h im with you.” He a lso pro-posed censor ing radio communicat ion to prevent thecrew from hear ing dispir it ing news about their home-towns.11

The Collier’s ar t icles were expanded into a ser ies of fourclassic books. The first four chapters of the 1956 bookThe Explorat ion of Mars12 covered the history of Marsobservat ion and the then-current sta te of knowledge.Wrote von Braun and his collaborator Willy Ley: “Thisis the picture of Mars a t mid-century: A small planet ofwhich three-quarters is cold deser t , with the rest cov-ered with a sor t of plant life that our biological knowl-edge cannot encompass . . .”13 For von Braun, life onMars was a given. In fact , von Braun’s Mars was not toodifferent from the New Mexico deser t where he pennedDas Marsprojekt .

Von Braun and Ley then descr ibed the Mars expedit ion.They conceded that it was “ent irely possible . . . thatwithin a decade or so successful tests with some sort ofnuclear rocket propulsion system might be accom-plished”; however, for the present , it was “excit ing aswell as instruct ive” to show that humans could reachMars using available (1950s) technology.14

Their Mars expedit ion was a cut -pr ice version of the1952 Das Marsprojekt /1954 Collier ’s expedit ion , withjust 12 crewmembers in two ships. Four hundredlaunches would put the par ts, propellants, and suppliesneeded for the expedit ion in to Ear th orbit a t the ra te oftwo launches per day over seven months.

A single-passenger sh ip would complete the round-t r ip voyage. The cra ft would have an in fla t able per -sonnel sphere 26 feet across, with a con t rol room ondeck one and living quar ter s on decks two and th ree.The one-way ca rgo sh ip would ca r ry the expedit ion’s

single 177-ton landing glider in place of a per sonnelsphere. The sh ips together would weigh 3,740 tonsbefore depa r t ing Ear th orbit ; the passenger sh ipwould weigh on ly 38.4 tons when it r etu rned to Ear thorbit a lone a t the end of the expedit ion .

Upon r each ing Mars, t he cr ew wou ld tu rn power fu lt elescopes t oward proposed equa tor ia l landing sit esselect ed u s in g t elescopes on t h e spa ce s t a t ion .Equa tor ia l sit es were prefer r ed, von Braun and Leywrote, because t hey wou ld be warmest . Cit ing themany kinds of su r face fea tu res nea rby—includingt wo of t h e m yst er iou s ca n a ls—t h ey pr oposed a spr ime landing sit e candida t e Marga r it ifer Sinus, ada rk r egion visible in Ea r th -based t elescopes.15 Theglider wou ld descend to Mars with n ine cr ewmem-ber s on boa rd (leaving th ree in orbit t o mind the pas-senger sh ip’s syst ems) and land on skids a t abou t 120miles per hou r.

After the glider stopped, the in t repid explorer s wouldwalk ou t on to the wing, leap 18 feet to the ground (theequ iva len t of a six-foot drop in Ear th gravity), andimmedia tely prepa re the sh ip for emergency liftoff—th is despit e having just spen t eigh t months in weigh t -lessness. They would remove the wings and use theexpedit ion’s two ca terpilla r t r actor s to hoist the bu l-let -shaped fuselage upr igh t . They would then in fla t e a20-foot hemispher ica l pressur ized “ten t” to serve a sexpedit ion headquar ter s.

After a year of Mars surface explora t ion, they would liftoff, rejoin their compatr iots in orbit , and blast forEar th . The last drops of propellants would place theship in a 56,000-mile-high Ear th orbit . A relief sh ipwould ascend from the space sta t ion to collect the crew;they would abandon the Mars ship as a monument tothe ear ly days of planetary explora t ion.

Mars Beckons

Every 26 months, the orbits of Ear th and Mars br ingthe two planets rela t ively close together. At such t imesMars becomes a br ight red-orange “star” in Ear th’sskies. Because Mars appears opposite the Sun in thesky when it is closest to Ear th , ast ronomers ca ll suchevents opposit ions.



Mars has an ellipt ica l orbit , so it s distance from Ear that opposit ion var ies. The best opposit ions, when Ear this closest to Mars while the planet is closest to the Sun,occur roughly every 15 years. Dur ing the best opposi-t ions, Mars’ disk appears about twice as la rge in tele-scopes as dur ing the poorest opposit ions, when Mars isfar thest from the Sun.

In the 1950s, a ll knowledge of Mars’ condit ions camefrom telescopic observat ions made dur ing the bestopposit ions. Since the invent ion of the telescope in theear ly seventeenth century, ast ronomers eager ly await -ed the best opposit ions to a t tempt to pry new secretsfrom Mars. For example, the canals were first seen dur-ing the excellent 1877 opposit ion . When the first pr in t -ing of The Explora t ion of Mars arr ived on bookstore

shelves, ast ronomers were eager ly await ing the closeopposit ion of September 1956.

The year 1956 marked the last “best” Mars opposit ionupon which ast ronomers would ent irely depend fordata , because humanity’s rela t ionship with Mars wasabout to change. A year after tha t Mars opposit ion , on4 October 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1in to Ear th orbit . Von Braun’s U.S. Army rocket teamlaunched the Amer ican response, Explorer 1, on 31J anuary 1958. By 1971, when aga in Mars shone asbr igh t ly in Ear th ’s skies a s in 1956, spacecra ft r econ-na issance had revolu t ion ized how we lea rn abou t thesola r system. As we will see in the coming chapter s,the 1956 and 1971 “best” opposit ions nea t ly bracketedthe ea r ly heyday of NASA Mars explora t ion plann ing.



Now it is t ime to take longer st r ides—time fora grea t new American enterpr ise—time for th isnat ion to take a clear ly leading role in spaceachievement . . . I believe tha t th is na t ionshould commit it self to achieving the goal,before th is decade is out , of landing a man onthe [M]oon and returning him safely to Ear th .No single space project in th is per iod will bemore impressive to mankind, or more impor-tant for the long-range explora t ion of space . . .it will not be one man going to the [M]oon—itwill be an ent ire na t ion. For a ll of us must workto put h im there. (J ohn F. Kennedy, 1961)1

NASA’s First Mars Study

As ear ly as November 1957—a month a fter Sputn ik 1beca m e E a r t h ’s fir s t a r t ificia l m oon —a bou t 20researchers a t Lewis Research Center, a Nat iona lAdvisory Commit tee on Aeronaut ics (NACA) labora to-r y in Clevela n d, Oh io, com m en ced r esea r ch in t onuclear-thermal and elect r ic rocket propulsion forin terplaneta ry fligh t .2 (Lewis was renamed GlennResea r ch Cen t er a t Lewis F ield in 1999.) Su chadvanced propulsion systems required less propellan tthan chemica l rockets, thus promising dramat ic space-cra ft weight savings. This meant fewer cost ly launchesfrom Ear th’s sur face and less Ear th-orbita l assembly.

Soon after the Lewis researchers began their work,Congress and the Eisenhower administ ra t ion began towork toward the crea t ion of a U.S. nat ional spacea gen cy in r espon se t o Soviet spa ce ch a llen ges.President Dwight Eisenhower wanted a civilian agencyto ensure tha t headline-grabbing space shots would notin ter fere with the ser ious business of test ing missilesa n d la u n ch in g r econ n a issa n ce sa t ellit es. Sen a t orClin ton Anderson (Democrat -New Mexico) led a fact ionthat wanted the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) torun the space program, cit ing as just ifica t ion it snuclear-thermal rocket exper iments. Others suppor tedexpansion of NACA, the federa l aeronaut ics researchorgan iza t ion founded in 1915. On 29 J u ly 1958,Eisenhower signed in to law legisla t ion crea t ing theNa t ion a l Aer on a u t ics a n d Spa ce Adm in ist r a t ion(NASA) fr om NACA a n d va r iou s Depa r t m en t ofDefense space organiza t ions.3

When NASA opened it s doors on 1 October 1958, Lewisbecame a NASA Center. The Lewis researchers sought

to just ify and expand their advanced propulsion work.In Apr il 1959—two years before any human venturedinto Ear th orbit—they test ified to Congress about theirwork and solicited funding for a Mars expedit ion studyin Fisca l Year (FY) 1960. Congress granted the request ,making the Lewis study the first Mars expedit ionstudy conducted under NASA auspices.4

The Lewis researchers sought to develop weight est i-mates for Mars ships using their advanced propulsionsystems. For their nuclear-thermal rocket analysis, theLewis researchers assumed a Mars mission profile tha twould, by the end of 1960s, come to be vir tua lly thestandard NASA model:

Th e m ission begin s wit h t h e veh icle syst emin a n or bit a bou t t h e E a r t h . Depending on theweigh t r equ ired for the mission , it can bein fer red tha t the system has been delivered asa un it to orbit—or tha t it has been assembledin the orbit from it s ma jor const ituen t s . . . t heveh icle con ta in ing a crew of seven men isaccelera ted by a h igh-th rust nuclea r rocketengine on to the t r ansfer t r a jectory to Mars.Upon a r r iva l a t Mars, the veh icle is decelera t -ed to establish an orbit abou t the planet . . . aMars Landing Veh icle con ta in ing two mendescends to the Mar t ian su r face . . . . After aper iod of explora t ion these men t ake off fromMars using chemica l-rocket power and effect arendezvous with the orbit pa r ty. The . . . veh i-cle then accelera tes on to the retu rn t r a jectory;and, upon reach ing Ear th , an Ear th LandingVehicle sepa ra tes and . . . decelera tes to r etu rnthe en t ir e crew to the su r face.5

For ana lysis purposes, the Lewis researchers ta rgetedthe 1971 launch oppor tun ity, when Mars’ close prox-imity to Ear th min imized the amount of energy (andthus propellan t ) needed to reach it . They caut ioned,however, tha t “[t ]h is is not meant to imply tha t actua lt r ips a re contempla ted for th is per iod.”6 They opted fora 420-day round t r ip with a 40-day stay a t Mars, andfound tha t the opt imum launch da te was 19 May 1971.

As migh t be expect ed, fa st Mars t r ips genera llyrequ ir e more propellan t (t ypica lly liqu id hydrogen inthe ca se of a nuclea r rocket ) t han slow t r ips. Themore propellan t r equ ir ed, the grea t er t he spacecra ft ’sweigh t a t Ea r th -orbit depa r tu re. Thus, longer mis-sions appea r preferable if weigh t min imiza t ion is t he


Chapter 2: Earliest NASA Concepts

dominan t considera t ion in a Mars mission plan . TheLewis t eam noted, however, t ha t cr ew r isk factor shad to be considered in ca lcu la t ing spacecra ft weigh t .These were ha rd t o judge because much abou t condi-t ions in in t erplanet a ry space and on Mars r ema inedu n k n own . In pa r t icu la r, t h ey ca u t ion ed t h a t“[c]u r r en t knowledge of r adia t ion haza rds is st ill notcomplet ely sa t isfactory.”7

Explorer 1 and Explorer 3 (launched 26 March 1958)detected the Van Allen Radia t ion Belts surroundingEar th . Their discovery was the first glimpse of anunsuspected reef, rock, or shoal menacing navigators inthe new ocean of space. It ra ised the profile of ionizingradia t ion as a possible threa t to space t ravelers.

No lon ger wer e t h e t h in -sk in n ed per son n el sph er esof von Br a u n ’s 1950s Ma r s sh ips ju dged a dequ a t e.Von Br a u n h a d m a de lit t le pr ovision for lim it in gcr ew r a dia t ion exposu r e, t h ou gh h e h a d expr essedt h e h ope t h a t “by t h e t im e a n expedit ion fr om ea r t his r ea dy t o t a ke off for Ma r s, per h a ps in t h e m id-2000s . . . r esea r ch er s will h ave per fect ed a dr u gwh ich will en a ble m en t o en du r e r a dia t ion for com -pa r a t ively lon g per iods.”8

The Lewis t eam did not place it s t rust in pha rmacolo-gy. For their study, they assumed the following ion iz-ing radia t ion sources: the Van Allen belt s a t Ea r thand Mars (in r ea lity, Mars lacks radia t ion belt s), con-t inuous cosmic ray bombardment , sola r fla res, and, ofcou r se, t h e sh ip’s n u clea r-t h er m a l r ocket en gin e.Their spacecra ft crew compar tment , an unsh ieldedtwo-deck cylinder providing 50 square feet of floorspace per crewmember (“between tha t provided forch ief pet ty officer s and commissioned officer s on sub-mar ines”), con ta ined a heavily sh ielded cylindr ica l“vau lt ” a t it s cen ter, in to which the crew would ret rea tdur ing passage th rough the Van Allen belt s, nuclea rr ocket oper a t ion , a n d la r ge sola r fla r es.9

Crewmembers would a lso sleep in the vau lt ; th iswou ld r edu ce t h eir cosm ic r a y exposu r e du r in gapproximately one-th ird of each day.

Not surpr isingly, the weight of radia t ion shieldingrequired depended on how much radia t ion exposure forthe crew was a llowed. If major solar fla res could beavoided dur ing the 420-day voyage and a tota l radia-t ion dose of 100 Roentgen Equivalent Man (REM) werepermissible, then 23.5 tons of shielding would suffice,

the Lewis researchers found. If, however, one majorflare could not be avoided, shielding weight jumped to82 tons to keep the tota l dose below 100 REM. If only50 REM were considered permissible and one majorflare could not be avoided, shielding weight wouldbecome “enormous”—140 tons.10 “These data ,” theywrote, served “to underscore . . . the impor tance ofdetermining more precisely the nature and viru lence ofthe radia t ion in space.”11

Th e Lewis r esea r ch er s det er m in ed t h a t “sh or t t r ipsa r e a s, or m or e, econ om ica l, in t er m s of weigh t , t h a nlon g-du r a t ion m ission s,” even t h ou gh t h ey gen er a llyr equ ir ed m or e pr opella n t , beca u se lon g t r ipsr equ ir ed m or e h eavy sh ieldin g t o keep t h e cr ewwit h in t h e r a dia t ion dose lim it .12 Th ey est im a t edt h a t a n u clea r-t h er m a l spa cesh ip for a 420-dayr ou n d t r ip in 1971 wit h a m a xim u m a llowa ble t ot a lr a dia t ion dose of 100 RE M wou ld weigh 675 t on s a tE a r t h -or bit la u n ch .

Twirling Ion Ships to Mars

J ust as the crea t ion of NASA was prompted by the ColdWar clash between the United Sta tes and the SovietUnion, so was the goal tha t dominated NASA’s firstdecade. On 12 Apr il 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yur iGagar in became the first person to orbit Ear th . HisVostok 1 spacecraft completed one circuit of the planetin about 90 minutes. Gagar in’s flight was a blow to thenew administ ra t ion of President J ohn F. Kennedy, whohad narrowly defea ted Eisenhower’s Vice President ,Richard M. Nixon, in the November 1960 elect ions.Gagar in’s flight coincided with the embarrassing fa il-ure of a Centra l In telligence Agency (CIA)-sponsoredinvasion of Cuba a t the Bay of Pigs (17-19 April 1961).13

The t ide of Kennedy’s polit ica l for tunes began to turnon 5 May 1961, when ast ronaut Alan Shepard rode theFreedom 7 Mercury capsule on a suborbita l hop in to theAtlant ic Ocean. On 25 May 1961, Kennedy capita lizedon th is success to seize back the polit ica l h igh ground.Before a specia l J oint Session of Congress, he ca lled foran American to land on Ear th’s Moon by the end of the1960s.

NASA had unveiled a 10-year plan in February 1960that ca lled for a space sta t ion and circumlunar flightbefore 1970, and a lunar landing a few years la ter. The



Agency believed tha t th is const itu ted a logica l programof exper ience-building steps.14 Mars planners were tornover Kennedy’s new t imetable. On the one hand, it putMars work on the back burner by making the MoonNASA’s pr imary, overr iding goal. On the other hand, itpromised to make launch vehicles and exper ience need-ed for Mars available a ll the sooner.15

Two contenders led the pack of Apollo lunar missionmodes in mid-1961—Earth-Orbit Rendezvous (EOR)and Direct Ascent . Both stood to benefit piloted Marsmissions. In EOR, two or three boosters launched Moonship modules in to Ear th orbit . The modules docked;then the resultant sh ip flew to the Moon and landed.Mars planners knew that exper ience gained throughMoon ship assembly could be applied to Mars shipassembly. In Direct Ascent , the spacecraft flew direct lyfrom Ear th’s surface to the lunar surface and back.This ca lled for an enormous launch vehicle which couldbe used to reduce the number of launches needed to putMars ship par ts and propellants in to orbit .

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville,Alabama, was responsible for developing the rocketsrequ ired for luna r fligh t . Marsha ll began a s theABMA’s Guided Missile Development Division. In the1950s, the von Braun rocket team had developed someof the first U.S. missiles, including the in termedia te-range Redstone, the “Americanized” version of the V-2.A Redstone var iant ca lled J upiter-C launched theExplorer 1 sa tellite.

J ust as Saturn was next after J upiter among the plan-ets, the Saturn ser ies of rockets was next after J upiter-C. Sa t u r n I a n d Sa t u r n IB u sed a clu st er ofRedstone/J upiter tanks in their first stages. The engi-neers in Huntsville envisioned yet la rger rockets.NASA’s 1960 master plan ca lled for development of anenormous “post -Saturn” rocket ca lled Nova. EitherSaturn or Nova could be used to carry out an EORMoon mission; Nova was required for Direct Ascent .

Marshall might have performed the first NASA Marsstudy, but when the Lewis advanced propulsion engi-neers test ified to Congress in 1959, the Huntsvilleorganiza t ion was st ill not a par t of NASA. ErnstStuhlinger’s group with in the ABMA Guided MissileDevelopment Division had commenced work on elect r icpropulsion in 1953 and considered Mars expedit ions init s design process.

In elect r ic propulsion, a thruster applies elect r icity topropellant (for example, cesium), conver t ing it s a tomsinto posit ive ions. That is, it knocks an elect ron off eachcesium atom, giving it an elect r ic charge. The thrusterthen elect rosta t ica lly “gr ips” the cesium ions and“throws” them at h igh speed. Elect r ic propulsion pro-vides constant low-thrust accelera t ion while expendingmuch less propellant than chemical or nuclear-thermalpropulsion, consequent ly reducing spacecraft weight .Low thrust , however, means low accelera t ion.

Stuhlinger presen ted a paper in Aust r ia in 1954descr ibing a solar-powered elect r ic-propulsion space-cra ft with dish -shaped sola r concen t ra tor s.16 WaltDisney had contacted von Braun after reading theCollier ’s ar t icles; th is contact led to three space flighttelevision programs from 1955 to 1957. Disney’s Marsand Beyond, which premiered on 4 December 1957, fea-t u r ed St u h lin ger ’s dist in ct ive u m br ella -sh a pednuclear-elect r ic Mars ships, not von Braun’s sphere-and-girder chemical sh ips.17

The U.S. Army, eager to r et a in it s foothold in mis-silery, was loa th to r elease the von Braun t eam toNASA as requ ired by Presiden t E isenhower. Armyresist ance preven ted von Braun , Stuh linger, and theircollea gu es fr om officia lly join in g t h e n ew spa ceagency un t il 1 J u ly 1960. However, they had by thenworked direct ly with NASA for some t ime—hencetheir inpu t to NASA’s Februa ry 1960 master plan .18

Wernher von Braun became Marsha ll’s fir st director,and Ernst Stuh linger became director of Marsha ll’sResea rch Project s Division .

Stuhlinger’s 1962 piloted Mars mission design, target -ed for launch in the ear ly 1980s, would include five 150-meter long Mars ships of two types—“A” and “B”—eachcarrying three ast ronauts.19 As in von Braun’s TheMars Project , r isk to crew was minimized throughredundancy. The expedit ion could cont inue if as manyas two ships were lost , provided they were not of thesame type. One ship could return the ent ire 15-personexpedit ion to Ear th under crowded condit ions.

The three “A” ships would carry one 70-ton Mars landereach. At Mars, an unpiloted cargo lander would detach;if it landed successfully, the explorers would land in thesecond lander. If the cargo lander fa iled, the second lan-der would become an unpiloted cargo lander, and thethird lander would deliver the surface team. The lander



crew would stay on Mars for 29 days. If the crew landerascent stage fa iled to fire, the explorers could return toMars orbit in the cargo lander ascent stage.

Stuhlinger’s ships would each include a nuclear reactorproducing 115 megawat ts of heat . The reactor wouldheat a working flu id which would dr ive a turbine; theturbine in turn would dr ive a genera tor to supply 40megawat t s of elect r icity to two elect r ic-propulsionthrusters. To reject the heat it reta ined after leavingthe turbine, the working flu id would circula te throughradia tor panels with a tota l a rea of 4,300 squaremeters before returning to the reactor. The ship wouldmove through space with it s radia tor panels edge-on tothe Sun. Radia tor tubes would be designed to be indi-vidually closed off to prevent a meteoroid puncturefrom releasing a ll of the ship’s working flu id in to space.

Each fla t , diamond-shaped ship would weigh 360 tonswhen it switched on it s elect r ic thrusters in Ear th orbita t the star t of the Mars voyage—a lit t le more than halfas much as the NASA Lewis nuclear-thermal Marsship. Of th is, 190 tons (for the “B” ships) or 120 tons (forthe “A” ships) would be cesium propellant . As a lreadyindica ted, the pr ice of low spacecraft weight was lowaccelera t ion—Stuhlinger’s fleet would need 56 days tospira l up and out of Ear th orbit ; then, after a 146-dayEar th-Mars t ransfer, it would require 21 days to spira ldown to low-Mars orbit .

Stuhlinger’s ships would rota te 1.3 t imes per minute toproduce accelera t ion equal to one-tenth of Ear th’s grav-ity in the crew cabin . The reactor, located a t the oppo-site end of the ship from the crew cabin , would act asan ar t ificia l gravity counterweight . Thus, the separa-t ion needed to keep the crew away from the reactorwould a lso serve to increase spin radius.

Engineers designing ar t ificia l gravity systems mustendeavor to make the spin radius as long as possible.This is because an ar t ificia l gravity system with a shor tspin radius must rota te more rapidly than one with along spin radius to genera te the same level of accelera-t ion , which the crew feels as gravity. A shor t -radius,fast -spinning rota t ing system produces pronouncedcor iolis effects. For example, water leaving a faucetcurves not iceably. Similar ly, a person moving toward oraway from the center of such a rota t ing system tends toveer sideways. Turning the head tends to produce nau-sea . In addit ion , a t roublesome gravity gradient occurs

ver t ica lly a long the body—the head exper iences lessaccelera t ion than the feet .

Stuhlinger’s elect r ic thrusters would be mounted a t theship’s center of rota t ion on sta lks. These would rota teaga inst the sh ip’s spin to remain poin ted in therequired direct ion. In addit ion to a iding the crew,Stuhlinger noted, ar t ificia l gravity would prevent gaspockets from forming in the working flu id.20

Stuhlinger ’s design included a 50-ton , graphite-cladradia t ion shelt er (abou t 15 percen t of the en t ireweight of the sh ip) in the sh ip’s crew compar tment .Dr inking wa ter, propellan t , oxygen cylinders, andequipment would be a r ranged a round the shelter toprovide addit iona l sh ielding. The 2.8-meter-diameter,1.9-meter-h igh shelt er wou ld hold a t h ree-per sonship’s complement comfor tably and would protect theent ire 15-person expedit ion complement in an emer-gency. The crew would live in the shelter for 20 daysdur ing the ou tbound Van Allen belt crossing.

The Moon Intervenes

Stuhlinger wrote tha t it “is genera lly accepted tha t amanned expedit ion to . . . Mars will be carr ied out soonafter such an ambit ious project becomes technica llyfeasible . . . [it is] the na tura l follow-on project to beunder taken after the lunar program.”21 Mars plannerstook Kennedy a t h is word when he sa id tha t reachingthe Moon was “impor tant for the long-range explo-ra t ion of space.”

On 11 J u ly 1962, however, NASA announced tha t ithad selected Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR) over EORa n d Dir ect Ascen t a s t h e Apollo m ission m ode.At ten t ion had turned from EOR and Direct Ascent toLOR ear ly in 1962. LOR, a concept zea lously promotedby NASA La n gley Resea r ch Cen t er en gin eer J oh nH ou bolt , p r om ised t h e lowes t lu n a r spa cecr a ftweigh t . Th is en a bled a lu n a r expedit ion wit h on ly as in gle Sa t u r n r ock et la u n ch , m a k in g LOR t h efa st est , ch ea pest way of m eet in g Ken n edy’s en d-of-deca de dea dlin e.22

In LOR, the lunar spacecraft—which consists of a smalllander and a command ship—blasts off direct ly fromEarth with no Ear th-orbita l assembly. The lander landson the Moon, leaving the large command ship in lunar



orbit . Surface explora t ion completed, the lander blastsoff from the Moon and returns to the orbit ing commandship. Spacecraft weight is reduced because only thesmall, light -weight lander must burn propellant to landand lift off.

I t sh ou ld be n ot ed t h a t t h e NASA Lewis a n dSt u h lin ger Ma r s pla n s u sed t h e sa m e gen er a lapproach for the same reason . Landing the en t ir emassive sh ip on Mars and launch ing it back to Ear thwould requ ire impossible amounts of propellan t or animpossibly small in terplaneta ry veh icle. The st andardNASA Mars plan can thus be dubbed Mars OrbitRendezvous (MOR).

The LOR decision impacted post -Apollo ambit ions.The reduct ion in luna r expedit ion mass promised byLOR removed the need for a post -Sa tu rn Nova rocket ,a s well a s the need to lea rn how to a ssemble la rgemodula r veh icles in Ear th orbit . It t hus reducedApollo’s u t ility a s a t echnologica l st epping stone toMars. The need to crea te a new just ifica t ion for bigrocket s in fluenced Marsha ll’s decision to st a r t a newMars study in ea r ly summer 1962. As will be seen inthe next chapter, th is study, known as EMPIRE,kicked off the most in tense per iod of piloted Mars mis-sion plann ing in NASA’s h istory.



Ma n n ed explor a t ion of Ma r s is t h e key m is-sion in in t er pla n et a r y spa ce fligh t . Ma n m u stplay a key r ole in t h e explor a t ion of Ma r sbeca u se t h e pla n et is r ela t ively com plex,r em ot e, a n d less a m en a ble t o explor a t ion byu n m a n n ed pr obes t h a n is t h e [M]oon . . . ser i-ou s in t er est in t h e Ma n n ed Ma r s Mission isspr in gin g u p . . . wit h m a n y pla n n in g st u diesbein g per for m ed by sever a l s t u dy t ea m swit h in [NASA] a n d wit h in in du st r y . . . .Per h a ps t h e m ost im por t a n t r esu lt em er gin gfr om t h e pr esen t st u dies is t h e in dica t iont h a t t h e Ma n n ed Ma r s Mission ca n be per -for m ed in t h e r ela t ively n ea r fu t u r e wit hequ ipm en t a n d t ech n iqu es t h a t will for t h em ost pa r t be br ou gh t in t o oper a t ion by t h eApollo P r oject . . . t h e Ma n n ed Ma r s Missionis r a pidly t a k in g sh a pe a s t h e dir ect follow-on t o t h e Apollo P r oject . (Rober t Soh n , 1964)1

EMPIRE

Ernst Stuhlinger’s Research Projects Division was thesmaller of two advanced planning groups in ABMA.The larger, under Heinz Koelle, became the MarshallSpace Flight Center’s Future Projects Office. Unt il1962, Koelle’s group focused pr imar ily on lunar pro-grams—Koelle was, for example, pr incipal author ofthe U.S. Army’s 1959 Project Hor izon study, whichplanned a lunar for t by 1967. Koelle’s deputy, HarryRuppe, a lso supervised a limited number of Mars stud-ies. Ruppe had come from Germany to join the vonBraun team in Huntsville in 1957.

In the 1962-1963 per iod, however, the Future ProjectsOffice spearheaded NASA’s Mars planning effor ts. Asdiscussed in the last chapter, Marshall’s pr imary focuswas on launch vehicles. Advanced planning becameimportant a t Marshall in par t because of the long leadt im es a ssocia t ed wit h developin g n ew r ocket s.Marshall director von Braun foresaw a t ime in the mid-1960s when his center might become idle if no goalsrequir ing large boosters were defined for the 1970s. AsT. A. Heppenheimer wrote in h is 1999 book The SpaceShutt le Decision,

The developmen t of t he Sa tu rn V set t he pacefor t he en t ir e Apollo program. Th is Moonr ocket , h owever, wou ld h ave t o r ea ch a nadvanced st a t e of r eliabilit y before it cou ld be

used to ca r ry a st ronau t s. The Marsha ll st a ffa lso was r esponsible for developmen t of t hesma ller Sa tu rn IB tha t cou ld pu t a pilot edApollo spacecra ft t h rough it s paces in Ea r thorbit . Because both rocket s wou ld have tola rgely complet e t heir developmen t beforeApollo cou ld h it it s st r ide, von Braun knewtha t h is [C]en ter wou ld pass it s peak of act iv-it y and wou ld sh r ink in size a t a r ela t ivelyea r ly da t e. He wou ld face la rge layoffs evenwhile other NASA [C]en ter s wou ld st ill beact ively prepa r ing for t he fir st m ission to t heMoon .2

Mars was an obvious target for Marshall’s advancedplanning. Von Braun was predisposed toward Marsexplora t ion, and landing ast ronauts on Mars providedample scope for h is Center to build new large boosters.The t iming, however, was not good. The Moon would, ifa ll went well, be reached by 1970—but NASA wouldcer ta in ly not be ready to land ast ronauts on Mars sosoon. For one th ing, planners needed more data on theMart ian environment before they could design landers,space suits, and other surface systems. What Marshallneeded was some kind of shor t -term in ter im programthat answered quest ions about Mars while st ill provid-ing scope for new rocket development .

A 1956 paper by It a lian a st ronomer Gaetano Crocco,presen ted a t t he Seven th In t erna t iona l Ast ronau t ica lFedera t ion Congress in Rome, offer ed a possible wayou t of Marsha ll’s dilemma .3 Crocco demonst r a t edtha t a spacecra ft cou ld, in t heory, fly from Ea r th t oMars, per form a r econna issance Mars flyby, andretu rn t o Ea r th . The spacecra ft wou ld fir e it s rocketon ly t o leave Ea r th—it wou ld coast for t he r ema inderof t he fligh t . The Mars flyby mission wou ld r equ ir eless t han ha lf a s much energy—hence propellan t—asa min imum-energy Mars stopover (orbit a l or landing)expedit ion . Th is mean t a cor r espondingly r educedspacecra ft weigh t . Tota l t r ip t ime for a Crocco-typeMars flyby was abou t one yea r ; for t he t ype of missionvon Braun employed in The Mars Project (1953), t r ipt ime was abou t t h r ee yea r s.

Flyby ast ronauts would be like tour ists on a tour bus,seeing the sights from a distance in passing but not get -t ing off. Crocco wrote tha t they would use “a telescopeof modera te aper ture . . . to reveal and dist inguish nat -ura l [fea tures] of the planet . . . .” He found, however,tha t Mars’ gravity would deflect the flyby spacecraft ’s


Chapter 3: EMPIRE and After

course so it missed Ear th on the return leg if it flewcloser to Mars than about 800,000 miles. Such a distantflyby would, of course, “frust ra te the explora t ion scopeof the t r ip.”

To permit a close flyby without using propellant , Croccoproposed tha t the close Mars flyby be followed by aVenus flyby to bend the craft ’s course toward Ear th .The Venus flyby would be an explora t ion bonus, Croccowrote, a llowing the crew to glimpse “the r iddle which isconcealed by her th ick a tmosphere.” Crocco ca lcula tedthat an oppor tunity to begin an Ear th-Mars-Venus-Ear th flight would occur in J une 1971.4

From a vantage point a t the star t of the twenty-firstcentury, a piloted planetary flyby seems a st rangenot ion, yet in the 1960s NASA gave near ly as muchat tent ion to piloted Mars flybys as it did to pilotedMars landings. Piloted Mars flybys are now viewedfrom the perspect ive of more than three decades of suc-cessful automated flyby missions (as well as orbitersand landers). Of the n ine planets in the solar system,only Pluto has not been subjected to flyby examinat ionby machines. Robots can do flybys, so why enta il theexpense and r isk to crew of piloted flybys?

Indeed, there were cr it ics a t the t ime the FutureProjects Office launched it s Ear ly Manned Planetary-Interplanetary Roundtr ip Expedit ions (EMPIRE) pilot -ed flyby/orbiter study. For example, Maxime Faget ,pr incipal designer of the Mercury capsule, coauthoredan ar t icle in February 1963 which pointed out tha t apiloted Mars flyby would “demand the least [propul-sive] energy . . . but will a lso have the least scient ificvalue” because of the shor t per iod spent near Mars. Headded tha t da ta on Mars ga thered through a pilotedflyby would be “in many ways no bet ter than thosewhich might be obta ined with a proper ly opera t ing,ra ther sophist ica ted unmanned probe.”5

The key phrase in Faget ’s cr it icism is, of course, “prop-er ly opera t ing.” When the Fu tu re P roject s Officelaunched EMPIRE in May-J une 1962, robot probes didnot yet possess a respectable performance record. TheMariner 2 probe carr ied out the first successful flybyexplora t ion of another planet (Venus) in December1962, midway through the EMPIRE study, but theother major U.S. automated effor t , the Ranger lunarprogram, was off to a shaky star t . That ser ies did notenjoy it s first success unt il Ranger 7 in J uly 1964. Thefirst successful Mars flyby did not occur unt il a year

after tha t . In fact , one of the ear ly just ifica t ions forpiloted flybys was tha t the ast ronauts could act as care-takers for a cargo of automated probes to keep themhealthy unt il just before they had to be released a t thetarget planet .

Faget also believed that the “overall planning of a totalspaceflight program should be based on a logical seriesof steps.” Mercury and Gemini would provide basic expe-rience in living and working in space, paving the way forApollo, which would, Faget explained, “have the first realmission.” After that , NASA should build an Earth-orbit-ing space stat ion and possibly a lunar base.6

For Faget , a piloted Mars flyby mission in the 1970swas a devia t ion from the model von Braun popular izedin the 1950s, which placed the first Mars expedit ion acentury or more in the fu ture. Faget avoided ment ion-ing, however, tha t he had a lready been compelled tora t ionalize Kennedy’s polit ica lly mot ivated dr ive forthe Moon. Going by von Braun’s logica l bluepr in t , pilot -ed lunar flight should have been postponed unt il a fterthe Ear th-orbit ing space sta t ion was in place.

For the EMPIRE study, three contractors studied pilot-ed flyby and “capture” (orbiter) expedit ions to Mars andVenus. Aeronutronic studied flybys7; Lockheed looked atflybys and, br iefly, orbiters8; and General Dynamicsfocused on orbit er missions.9 Aeronu t ron ic’s studysummed up EMPIRE’s three goals:

• Establish a requirement for the Nova rocketdevelopment program.

• Provide inputs to the joint AEC-NASA nuclear rocket program, which had been established in1960 and included a flight test program over which Marshall had technical direction.

• Explore advanced opera t ional concepts neces-sary for flyby and orbiter missions.10

The first two goals were contradictory as far as spacecraftweight minimization was concerned. Seeking justifica-tion for a new large rocket provided lit t le incentive forweight minimization, while one of the great attractions ofnuclear-thermal rockets was their increased efficiencyover chemical rockets, which helped minimize weight.The contractors’ tendency not to t ightly control spacecraftweight assisted them with crew risk minimization. Forexample, all three contractors saw fit to include in their



EMPIRE designs heavy spacecraft structures for gener-ating artificial gravity.

Lockheed ident ified two main Mars flyby t ra jectoryclasses, which it n icknamed “hot” and “cool.” In the for-mer, the piloted flyby spacecraft would drop insideEar th’s orbit (in some launch windows Venus flybyoccurred), reach it s far thest point from the Sun (aphe-lion) as it flew by Mars, and return to Ear th about 18months after launch. In the la t ter, the flyby spacecraftwould fly out from Ear th’s orbit , pass Mars about 3months after launch, reach aphelion in the AsteroidBelt beyond Mars, and return to Ear th about 22months after launch.

The Aeronutronic team opted for a “hot” t ra jectory.They assumed a Nova rocket capable of lift ing 250 tonsto Ear th orbit . For compar ison, the largest plannedSaturn rocket , the Saturn C-5 (as the Saturn V wasknown a t th is t ime) was expected to launch around 100tons. One Nova rocket would thus be able to launch theent ire 187.5-ton Aeronutronic flyby spacecraft in toEar th orbit .

Aeronutronic’s “design point mission” had the flybyspacecraft leaving Ear th orbit between 19 J uly 1970and 16 August 1970, using a two-stage nuclear-thermalpropulsion system. Aeronutronic’s design reta ined theempty second-stage hydrogen propellant tanks to helpshield the command center in the ship’s core againstradia t ion and meteoroids. Two cylindr ica l crew com-par tments would deploy from the core on booms; thenthe ship would rota te to provide ar t ificia l gravity. AnAE C-developed r a dioisot ope power sou r ce wou lddeploy on a boom behind the ship. At the end of theflight the crew would board a lift ing body Ear th-returnvehicle and separa te from the ship. A two-stage ret ro-rocket package would slow the lift ing body to a safeEar th a tmosphere reent ry speed while the abandonedflyby ship sa iled by Ear th in to orbit a round the Sun.

Lockheed also emphasized a rotat ing design for itsEMPIRE spacecraft . In the company’s report , the flybycrew rode into orbit on a Saturn C-5 in an ApolloCommand and Service Module (CSM) perched atop afolded, lightweight flyby spacecraft . A nuclear upperstage would put the CSM and flyby ship on course forMars. The CSM would then separate and the flybyspacecraft would automatically unfold two long boomsfrom either side of a hub. The CSM would dock at the

end of one boom to act as counterweight for a cylindricalhabitat ion module at the end of the other boom. Whenthe ship rotated, the CSM and habitat ion module wouldexperience accelerat ion the crew would feel as gravity.

The weight less hub a t the center of rota t ion would con-ta in chemical rockets for course correct ion propulsion,a radia t ion shelter, automated probes, and a dish-shaped solar power system. At Mars, the crew wouldstop the spacecraft ’s rota t ion and release the probes. Atjourney’s end, the crew would separa te from the flybycraft in the CSM, fire it s rocket engine to slow down,discard it s cylindr ica l Service Module (SM), and re-enter Ear th’s a tmosphere in the conica l CommandModule (CM). The abandoned flyby craft would fly pastEar th in to solar orbit . Lockheed’s repor t ment ionedbr iefly how a Mars orbiter mission might invest iga tethe Mart ian moons Phobos and Deimos.11

The Genera l Dynamics repor t was by far the mostvoluminous and deta iled of the three EMPIRE entr ies,reflect ing a rea l passion for Mars explora t ion on thepar t of Krafft Ehr icke, it s pr incipal author. Ehr ickecommanded tanks in Hit ler ’s a t tack on Moscow beforejoining von Braun’s rocket team at Peenemünde. Hecame to the U.S. in 1945 with the rest of the von Braunteam but left in 1953 to take a job a t Genera l Dynamicsin San Diego, California . There he was inst rumenta l inAt las missile and Centaur upper-stage development . Int h e la t e 1950s h e beca m e in volved in Gen er a lDynamics advanced planning.

Ehr icke’s team looked a t piloted Mars orbiter missions.These would permit long-term study of the planet fromclose a t hand, thus answer ing cr it ics who complainedthat piloted flybys would spend too lit t le t ime nearMars. Genera l Dynamics’ 450-day Mars orbiter missionwas set to launch in March 1975.

Modular ized Mars ships would t ravel in “convoys”made up of a t least one crew ship and two automatedservice ships. Ship systems would be “standardized asmuch as pract ica l” so tha t the crew ship could can-nibalize the service ships for replacement par ts. If ameteoroid perfora ted a propellant tank, for example,the crew would be able to replace it with an ident ica ltank from a service ship. The ships would carry small“tugboat” spacecraft for moving propellant tanks andother bulky spares.12 This approach—providing many



spares—helped minimize r isk to crew, but would dra-mat ica lly boost overa ll expedit ion weight .

Genera l Dynamics descr ibed many possible ship con-figura t ions; what follows was typica l. The companyallot ted a nuclear propulsion stage for each majormaneuver. After performing it s assigned maneuver, thestage would be cast off. Ehr icke’s team est imated tha tnuclear engine flight test ing would have to occurbetween May 1968 and April 1970 to suppor t a March1975 expedit ion . The M-1 engine system would performManeuver-1 of the Mars expedit ion , escape from Ear thorbit (hence it s designat ion). The M-2 engine systemwould slow the ship so Mars’ gravity could capture itin to Mars orbit , and M-3 would launch the spacecraftout of Mars orbit toward Ear th . The M-4 engine systemwould slow the ship a t Ear th a t the expedit ion’s end.

At tached to the front of the M-4 stage would be the 10-foot-diameter, 75-foot-long spine module, or “neck,”which served two funct ions: in addit ion to separa t ingthe ast ronauts from the nuclear engines to minimizecrew r adia t ion exposu re, it wou ld place dist ancebetween the crew and the ship’s center of gravity, mak-ing the ar t ificia l gravity spin radius longer.

Genera l Dynamics opted arbit rar ily for providing ar t i-ficia l gravity equal to 25 percent of Ear th’s surfacegravity and est imated tha t five rota t ions per minutewas the upper limit for crew comfor t . As engine sys-tems were cast off, however, the ship’s center of rota t ionwould shift forward. For exa m ple, befor e t h e M-1m a n eu ver it wou ld be a t t h e a ft en d of t h e M-2en gin e syst em , 420 feet fr om t h e sh ip’s n ose, a n d a tt h e st a r t of t h e M-2 m a n eu ver it wou ld be a t t h efr on t of t h e M-2 syst em , 265 feet fr om t h e n ose. Ast h e sh ip gr ew pr ogr essively sh or t er, t h e spin r a diu swou ld decr ea se, for cin g fa st er r ot a t ion t o m a in t a int h e sa m e a r t ificia l gr avit y level. Th e r epor t pr oposedjoin in g t h e a ft en d of t h e cr ew veh icle t o t h e en d of aser vice veh icle du r in g r et u r n t o E a r t h , a ft er t h e M-3en gin e syst em wa s ca st off, in or der t o pla ce t h e cen -t er of r ot a t ion a t t h e join t bet ween t h e t wo veh iclesa n d per m it a n a ccept a ble r ot a t ion r a t e.

The Genera l Dynamics crew sh ip design included theLife Suppor t Sect ion (LSS) for the eigh t -per son crew.The LSS, which would be t est ed a t t ached to an Ear th -orbit a l space st a t ion beginn ing in November 1968,a ga in illu s t r a t ed t h e in t en se m odu la r it y of t h e

Genera l Dynamics design . The 10-foot -diameter cen-t ra l sect ion would be a t t ached to the fron t of the spinemodule and would house the repa ir shop, food storage,and radia t ion-sh ielded Command Module (not to beconfused with the Apollo CM). The Command Modulewould serve double du ty as the sh ip’s radia t ion shelterand “last redoubt” if a ll other habitable modules weredest r oyed. Cr ewm em ber s wou ld sleep in t h eCommand Module’s lower level to reduce their overa llradia t ion exposure. The top level would serve as thecrew sh ip’s br idge and the “blockhouse” from which theservice vehicles would be remote-cont rolled.

Two-level, 10-foot-diameter Mission Modules wouldcluster a round the cent ra l sect ion to provide addit ionalliving space. Individual levels could be sea led off if pen-et ra ted by meteoroids, and ent ire Mission Modulescould be cast off if the crew had to reduce spacecraftmass to permit return to Ear th—for example, if a la rgeamount of propellant were lost and could not bereplaced from the service vehicles. The LSS would a lsoinclude the Ear th Entry Module, an Apollo CM-styleconica l capsule. In addit ion to carrying the ast ronautsthrough Ear th’s a tmosphere a t voyage’s end, it wouldserve as emergency abor t vehicle dur ing the M-1maneuver. The service vehicles would each carry aspare Ear th Entry Module.

On the service sh ips, a hanga r for robot probes wou ldr epla ce t h e LSS. U n lik e t h e Lock h eed a n dAeronu t ron ic r epor t s, t he Genera l Dynamics r epor tt r ea t ed it s au toma ted Mars probes in some det a il.They wou ld include the Retu rner Mars sample collec-tor, a Mars Lander ba sed on t echnology developed forNASA’s planned Su rveyor luna r soft -landing probes,Deimos P robe (Deipro) and Phobos P robe (Phopro)Mars moon ha rd lander s ba sed on t echnology devel-oped for NASA’s Ranger luna r probes, t he MarsE n vir on m en t a l Sa t ellit e (Ma r en s) or bit er, a n dF loa t er ba lloons.13

Gen er a l Dyn a m ics’ E MP IRE st a t em en t of wor kspecified t h a t it sh ou ld st u dy pilot ed Ma r s-or bit a lm ission s; h owever, en t h u sia st ic E h r icke cou ld n otr esis t in ser t in g a n opt ion t o ca r r y a sm a ll pilot edMa r s la n der. A pilot ed Mars orbit er must , a ft er a ll,en t er and depa r t Mars orbit , t hus per forming a ll t hem a jor m a n eu ver s r equ ir ed of a Ma r s Or bitRendezvous landing mission except t he landing it self.The Mars Excur sion Veh icle lander, wh ich wou ld be



based on the au toma ted Retu rner, wou ld be ca r r ied ina service veh icle probe hanga r. It wou ld suppor t twopeople for seven days on Mars.14 Eh r icke’s t eam pro-posed tha t a cr ew t est it on t he Moon in November1972.

To get it s sh ips in t o E a r t h or bit , E h r icke’s t ea min voked a ver y la r ge post -Sa t u r n h eavy-lift r ocketca pa ble of la u n ch in g 500 t on s. Two of these giantswould be able to place parts for one ship into orbit so thatonly one rendezvous and docking would be required tocomplete assembly. By contrast , if the Saturn C-5 wereused, eight launches and seven rendezvous and dockingmaneuvers would be needed to launch and assembleeach General Dynamics Mars ship. The Ehricke teamtargeted post-Saturn vehicle development to commencein J uly 1965; the giant rocket would be declared opera-t ional in August 1973.

Mars in Texas

NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) (renamedthe J ohnson Space Center in 1973) began as the SpaceTask Group (STG) a t NASA Langley Research Centerin Hampton , Virgin ia , where it was formed in la te1958 t o develop a n d m a n a ge P r oject Mer cu r y.Following Kennedy’s May 1961 Moon speech , theSTG’s responsibilit ies expanded, so it needed a newhome. The STG became the MSC and moved toHouston , Texas.

Maxime Faget became MSC’s Assistant Director forResearch and Development . He launched the first MSCpilot ed Ma r s m ission st u dy in m id-1961, bu t itremained in-house and a t a minimal level of effor t unt illa te 1962, after Marshall kicked off EMPIRE. MSC’sstudy was supervised by David Hammock, Chief ofMSC’s Spacecra ft Technology Division , and BruceJ ackson, one of h is branch chiefs. Chief products ofMSC’s study were a Mars mission profile unlike anyproposed up to tha t t ime and the first deta iled MarsExcursion Module (MEM) piloted Mars lander design.

J ackson and Hammock presented MSC’s Mars plan a tthe fir st NASA in tercenter meet ing focused on in ter -pla n et a r y t r avel, t h e Ma n n ed P la n et a r y MissionTechnology Conference held a t Lewis from 21 to 23May 1963. The NASA Headquar ters Office of AppliedResea rch and Technology organ ized t he meet ing,

which focused main ly on specific technologies, manywith applica t ions to missions other than Mars. The“Mission Examples” session , cha ired by Harry Ruppe,was relega ted to the a fternoon session on the last dayof the meet ing.

Hammock and J ackson presen t ed MSC’s missiondesign publicly for the first t ime a t the AmericanAst r on a u t ica l Societ y (AAS) Sym posiu m on t h eManned Explora t ion of Mars in Denver, Colorado, thefirst non-NASA conference devoted to piloted Marst r avel.15 George Morgen tha ler of Mar t in Mar iet t aCorpora t ion in Denver organized the symposium. Asmany as 800 engineers and scient ists heard 26 papersand a banquet address by Secretary of the Air ForceEugene Zucker t . It was the first t ime so many individ-uals from Mars-rela ted disciplines came together inone place, and the last Mars conference as la rge unt ilthe 1980s. Sky & Telescope magazine repor ted tha t the“Denver symposium . . . helped narrow the gapsbetween engineer, biologist , and ast ronomer.”16

H a m m ock a n d J a ckson ca lled Ma r s “per h a ps t h em ost excit in g t a r get for spa ce explor a t ion followin gApollo . . . beca u se of t h e possibilit y of life on it s su r -fa ce a n d t h e ea se wit h wh ich m en m igh t be su p-por t ed t h er e.”17 Two of t h eir pla n s u sed va r ia t ion s ont h e MOR m ode, bu t t h e t h ir d, du bbed t h e F lyby-Ren dezvou s m ode, wa s n ovel—it wou ld a ccom plish ap ilot ed Ma r s la n d in g wh ile s t ill a ccr u in g t h eweigh t -m in im iza t ion ben efit s of a Cr occo-t ype flyby.

The Flyby-Rendezvous mode would use two separa tespacecraft , designated Direct and Flyby. They wouldreach Ear th orbit a top Saturn V rockets. The unpilotedFlyby craft would depar t Ear th orbit 50 to 100 daysahead of the piloted Direct craft on a 200-day t r ip toMars. The Direct craft , which would include the MEMlander, would reach Mars ahead of the Flyby craft a ftera 120-day flight . The ast ronauts would then board theMEM and abandon the Direct craft . The MEM wouldland while the Direct craft flew past Mars in to solarorbit . For ty days la ter the Flyby craft would pass Marsand begin the voyage back to Ear th . The crew would liftoff in the MEM ascent vehicle and set out in pursuit ,boarding the Flyby craft about two days after leavingMars. Near Ear th the ast ronauts would separa te fromthe Flyby spacecraft in an Ear th-return capsule, enterEar th’s a tmosphere, and land.



One of MSC’s MOR plans used aerobraking, while theother relied on propulsive braking. In aerobraking, thelift in g-body-sh a ped Ma r s spa cecr a ft wou ld sk imthrough Mars’ upper a tmosphere to use drag to slowdown and enter orbit . The Mars surface explorerswould separa te from the orbit ing ship in the MEM andland for a surface stay of 10 to 40 days. They wouldthen lift off in the MEM ascent stage, dock with theorbit ing ship, and leave Mars orbit . Ear th a tmospherereent ry would occur as in the F lyby-Rendezvous mode.Hammock and J ackson’s propu lsive-braking MORmission resembled the aerodynamic-braking modedesign , except tha t a chemica l or nuclear propulsionstage would place the sh ip in Mars orbit .

H a m m ock a n d J a ckson fou n d t h a t t h e ch em ica l a ll-pr opu lsive spa cecr a ft design wou ld weigh t h e m osta t E a r t h -or bit depa r t u r e (1,250 t on s), wh ile t h en u clea r a er obr a k in g design wou ld weigh t h e lea st

(300 t on s). Th e F lyby-Ren dezvou s ch em ica l a n d a er -obr a k in g ch em ica l design s wou ld weigh a bou t t h esa m e (1,000 t on s).

The MEM design for t he Houston Cen ter ’s MORplans—the fir st det a iled design for a pilot ed Marslander—was presen ted in J une 1964 a t t he nextm a jor m eet in g devot ed t o Ma r s explor a t ion , t h eSym posiu m on Ma n n ed P la n et a r y Miss ion s a tMarsha ll.18 Ph ilco (former ly Ford) Aeronu t ron ic per -formed the study between May and December 1963.Franklin Dixon , the presen ter, was Aeronu t ron ic’smanager for Advanced Space Syst ems. The design ,wh ich the company believed cou ld land on Mars in1975, was fir st descr ibed publicly in Houston inN ovem ber 1964 a t t h e Am er ica n In s t it u t e ofAst ronau t ics and Aeronau t ics (AIAA) 3rd MannedSpace F ligh t Conference.



Figure 1—Landing on Mars. Aeronut ronic’s Mars lander, a lift ing body glider, relied on aerodynamic lift to min imize requ iredpropellan t . The design was based on opt imist ic est imates of Mar t ian a tmospher ic density. (“Summary Presenta t ion : Study ofa Manned Mars Excursion Module,” Franklin Dixon , Proceeding of the Symposium on Manned P laneta ry Missions:1963/1964 Sta tus, NASA TM X-53049, Future Projects Office, NASA George C. Ma rsha ll Spacefligh t Center, Huntsville,Ala ba ma , J une 12, 1964, p. 467.)

Dixon poin ted ou t tha t the ch ief problem facing Marslander designers was the lack of r eliable Mars a tmos-phere da ta , not ing tha t “two orders of magn itude va r i-a t ions in density a t a given a lt itude were possiblewhen compar ing Mars a tmosphere models of r espon-s ible in vest iga t or s.” Aer on u t r on ic set t led on aMar t ian a tmosphere compr ising 94 percen t n it rogen ,2 percen t ca rbon dioxide, 4 percen t a rgon , and t r acesof oxygen and wa ter vapor, with a su r face pressure of85 milliba r s (abou t 10 percen t of Ear th sea -level pres-su re). For opera t ion in th is a tmosphere, Aeronu t ron icproposed a “modified ha lf-cone” lift ing body with twostubby winglet s. The Aeronu t ron ic MEM would meas-u re abou t 30 feet long and 33 feet wide across it s t a il.Th e 30-t on ME M wou ld r ide t o Ma r s on it s m ot h er -sh ip’s ba ck u n der a t h er m a l/m et eor oid sh ield wh icht h e cr ew wou ld eject t wo h ou r s befor e t h e Ma r sla n din g. Th e t h r ee-per son la n din g pa r t y, wh ichwou ld con sist of t h e ca pt a in /scien t ific a ide, fir s t offi-cer /geologist , a n d secon d officer /biologist , wou ld donspa ce su it s a n d en t er t h e sm a ll fligh t ca bin in t h eME M’s n ose. F ive m in u t es befor e pla n n ed deor bit ,t h e ME M wou ld sepa r a t e fr om it s m ot h er sh ip a n dr et r ea t t o a dist a n ce of 1,000 feet . Th er e it wou ldpoin t it s t a il for wa r d a n d fir e it s s in gle descen ten gin e t o begin t h e fa ll t owa r d Ma r s’ su r fa ce.

Th e ME M’s h ea t -r es is t a n t h u ll wou ld be m a dela r gely fr om colu m biu m , wit h n ickel-a lloy a ft su r-fa ces. Aer on u t r on ic ca lcu la t ed t h a t fr ict ion h ea t in gwou ld dr ive n ose t em per a t u r e t o 3,050 degr eesFa h r en h eit . At Ma ch 1.5, bet ween 75,000 a n d100,000 feet a bove Ma r s, a s in gle pa r a ch u t e wou ldbe deployed a n d t h e ME M wou ld a ssu m e a t a il-downa t t it u de. Th e en gin e wou ld t h en ign it e a secon d t im ea n d t h e pa r a ch u t e wou ld sepa r a t e. Aer on u t r on ic’sdesign in clu ded en ou gh pr opella n t for a n est im a t ed60 secon ds of h over befor e t ou ch down on fou r la n d-in g legs wit h cr u sh a ble pa ds.

Aeronutronic a t tempted to select a MEM landing siteusing photographs taken by Ear th-based telescopes.Theor izing tha t living th ings might follow the ret rea t -ing edge of the melt ing polar cap in spr ingt ime, theysuggested tha t NASA target the MEM to Cecropia a t65 degrees nor th la t itude (th is corresponds to Vast itasBorealis nor th of Antoniadi cra ter on modern Marsmaps).19 Upon landing, the ast ronauts would ejectshields cover ing the MEM windows and look out over

their landing site to evaluate “local hazards,” includingany “unfr iendly life forms.”20 Mars surface access wouldbe through a cylindr ica l a ir lock tha t lowered like anelevator from the MEM’s ta il.

Dixon sta ted tha t “biologica l evaluat ion of life forms isessent ia l for the first purely scient ific effor t to a llowpre-contaminat ion studies before man a lters the Marsenvironment ,”21 implying tha t lit t le effor t would bemade to prevent the ast ronauts from int roducing ter -rest r ia l microorganisms. Aeronutronic listed “invest i-ga te life forms for possible nut r it ional va lue”22 amongthe tasks of the Mars biology study program. The crewwould explore Mars for between 10 and 40 days, spend-ing about 16 man-hours outside the MEM each day.

Aeronutronic’s MEM was envisioned as a two-stagevehicle. For return to Mars orbit , the ascent motorwould fire, blast ing the flight cabin free of the descentstage. Two propellant tanks would be cast off dur ingascent . After docking with the orbit ing mothership, theMEM flight cabin would be discarded.



Figure 2—Astronauts explor ing Mars near Aeronutronic’slander would take pa ins to collect biologica l specimens beforeter rest r ia l contaminat ion made study impossible. A largedish antenna (left ) would let them share their discover ieswith Ear th . (“Summary Presen ta t ion : Study of a MannedMa rs Excursion Modu le,” Franklin Dixon , Proceeding of theSymposium on Manned Planeta ry Missions: 1963/1964Sta tus, NASA TM X-53049, Future Project s Office, NASAGeor ge C. Ma r sh a ll Spa cefligh t Cen t er, H u n t sville,Ala ba m a , J une 12, 1964, p. 470.)

UMPIRE

Every 26 months, an oppor tunity occurs for a shor t (six-month) minimum-energy t ransfer from Ear th to Mars.In some oppor tunit ies the planet is far ther from Ear ththan in others. This means tha t in some oppor tunit iesthe min imum energy necessary to reach Mars isgrea ter than in others. The most difficult Mars oppor-tunit ies require about 60 percent more energy than thebest oppor tunit ies. The more energy required to reachMars, the more propellant a spacecraft must expend.Because of th is, a spacecraft launched in a poor Marsoppor tunity will weigh more than twice as much as onelaunched in a good Mars oppor tunity.

Th e qu a lit y of Ma r s la u n ch oppor t u n it ies r u n sthrough a cont inuous cycle last ing about 15 years. Notsurpr isingly, th is cor responds to the cycle of ast ronom-ica lly favorable opposit ions descr ibed in Chapter 1.The EMPIRE studies showed tha t the best Mars

oppor tunit ies since 1956 would occur in 1969 and1971, just as the Apollo lunar goa l was reached.Oppor tunit ies would become steadily worse a fter tha t ,h it t ing a peak in 1975 and 1977, then would gradua l-ly improve. The next set of favorable opposit ions wouldoccur in 1984, 1986, and 1988.

The Marshall Future Projects Office contracted withGenera l Dynamics/For t Worth and Douglas AircraftCompany in J une 1963 to “survey a ll the a t t ract ivemission profiles for manned Mars missions dur ing the1975-1985 t ime per iod, and to select the mission pro-files of pr im a r y in t er est .” Th e st u dy, n ickn a m ed“UMPIRE” (“U” stood for “unfavorable”), was summedup in a Future Projects Office in ternal repor t inSeptember 1964.23

Genera l Dynamics and Douglas worked independent ly,but each found tha t the “best method of a llevia t ing thecyclic var ia t ion of weight required in Ear th orbit is to



Figure 3—Return ing to Mars orbit : Like the Apollo Lunar Module, Aeronut ronic’s lander design used it s descent stage as ala u n ch pa d for it s ascent stage. Unlike the Lunar Module, it cast off spent propellan t t anks as it climbed to orbit . (“SummaryPresenta t ion: Study of a Manned Mars Excursion Module,” Franklin Dixon , Proceeding of the Symposium on MannedPlaneta ry Missions: 1963/1964 Sta tus, NASA TM X-53049, Future Projects Office, NASA George C. Ma rsha ll Spacefligh tCenter, Huntsville, Ala ba ma , J une 12, 1964, p. 468.)

plan long (900-1100 days) missions.”24 The companiesadvised tha t “ser ious considera t ion . . . be given to theconcept of the first manned landing on Mars being along term base” ra ther than a shor t visit .25 That is, thetwo companies recommended making the first Marsexpedit ion conjunct ion class, not opposit ion class.

The terms “conjunct ion class” and “opposit ion class”refer to the posit ion of Mars rela t ive to Ear th dur ingthe Mars expedit ion . In the former, Mars moves behindthe Sun as seen from Ear th (tha t is, it reaches conjunc-t ion) ha lfway through the expedit ion; in the la t ter,Mars is opposite the Sun in Ear th’s skies (tha t is, a topposit ion) a t the expedit ion’s ha lfway point .

Con junct ion-class expedit ions a re typified by low-energy t r ansfer s to and from Mars, each la st ing abou tsix months, and by long st ays a t Mars—roughly 500days. Tota l expedit ion dura t ion thus tota ls abou t1,000 days. The long st ay gives Mars and Ear th t imeto reach rela t ive posit ions tha t make a min imum-energy t r ansfer from Mars to Ear th possible. VonBraun opted for a con junct ion-class expedit ion in TheMa rs Project .

Opposit ion-class Mars expedit ions have one low-energytransfer and one high-energy t ransfer separated by ashort stay at Mars—typically less than 30 days. Totaldurat ion is about 600 days. This was the approach

Lewis used in its 1959-1961 study. In the 1960s, mostMars expedit ion plans were opposit ion class.

Because they require more energy, opposit ion-classexpedit ions demand more propellant . All else beingequal, a purely propulsive opposit ion-class Mars expe-dit ion can need more than 10 t imes as much propellantas a purely propulsive conjunct ion-class expedit ion .This adds up, of course, to a correspondingly grea terspacecraft weight a t Ear th-orbit depar ture.

Therefore, the conjunct ion-class plan is a t t ract ive.However, the long mission dura t ion is problemat ica l,for it demands grea t endurance and reliability fromboth machines and ast ronauts, exposes any crew left inMars orbit to r isk from meteoroids and radia t ion for alonger per iod, and requires complex Mars surface andorbita l science programs to enable product ive use of the500-day Mars stay.

Mars in California

NASA’s Ames Research Center, a former NACA labora-tory in Mountainview, California, also became involvedin piloted Mars planning in the EMPIRE era. In 1963,Ames cont racted with the TRW Space TechnologyLaboratory to perform a non-nuclear Mars landing expe-dit ion study emphasizing weight reduction. Robert Sohn



Figu r e 4—Con ju n ct ion -cla ss Ma r s m ission s in clu de alow-en er gy t r a n sfer fr om E a r t h t o Ma r s, a lon g st a y a tMa r s, a n d a low-en er gy t r a n sfer fr om Ma r s t o E a r t h . 1 -Ea r th depa r tu r e. 2- Ma r s a r r iva l. 3 - Ma r s depa r tu re. 4 -E a r t h a r r iva l. (Manned Explora t ion Requ irements andConsidera t ions, Advanced Studies Office, Engineer ing andDevelopment Directorate, NASA Manned Spacecraft Center,Houston , Texas, February 1971, p. 1-7.)

Figure 5—Opposit ion-class Mars missions offer a short Marsstay but require one high-energy transfer, so they demand morepropellant than conjunction-class missions. 1 - Earth depar-ture (low-energy transfer). 2 - Mars arr ival. 3 - Mars departure(high-energy transfer). 4 - Earth arr ival. (Manned Explorat ionRequirements and Considerations, Advanced Studies Office,Engineering and Development Directorate, NASA MannedSpacecraft Center, Houston, Texas, February 1971, p. 1-8.)

supervised the study for TRW and presented the study’sresults at the 1964 Huntsville meeting.26 Sohn’s teamtargeted 1975 for the first piloted Mars landing.

TRW found tha t the biggest potent ia l weight-saver wasaerobraking. For it s aerobraking ca lcula t ions, it usedthe Rand Corpora t ion’s August 1962 “Conjectu ra lModel III Mars Atmosphere” model, which posited aMart ian a tmosphere consist ing of 98.1 percent n it ro-gen and 1.9 percent carbon dioxide a t 10 percent ofEar th sea-level pressure. This a tmospher ic density andcomposit ion dicta ted the spacecraft ’s proposed shape—a conica l nose with dome-shaped t ip, cylindr ica l centersect ion, and skir t -shaped aft sect ion. This shape wasbased on an At las missile nose cone. The TRW team’stwo-stage, 12.5-ton MEM would a lso use the nose-coneshape. All else being equal, a version of TRW’s space-craft for the 1975 Mars launch oppor tunity tha t usedbraking rockets a t Mars and Ear th would weigh 3,575tons, while the company’s aerobraking design wouldweigh only 715 tons.

TRW’s Ea r th aerobraking syst em was the Ea r thReturn Module, a slender ha lf-cone lift ing body carr iedinside the main spacecraft . A few days before Ear thencounter the crew would enter the Ear th ReturnModule and separa te from the main spacecraft . TheEar th Return Module would enter Ear th’s a tmosphereas the main spacecraft flew past Ear th in to solar orbit .

The TRW study proposed a lightweight ar t ificia l grav-ity system—a 500-foot tether linking the main space-craft to the expended booster stage tha t pushed it fromEarth orbit—which would, it ca lcula ted, add less than1 percent to overa ll spacecraft weight . The resultantassemblage would spin end over end to produce ar t ifi-cia l gravity. TRW repor ted tha t NASA Langley hadused computer modeling to confirm th is design’s long-term rota t ional stability.27

TRW found tha t Ear th-Mars t ra jector ies designed toreduce spacecraft weight a t Ear th depar ture wouldresult in h igh reent ry speeds a t Ear th return . Forexample, an Ear th Return Module would reenter a t66,500 feet per second a t the end of a 1975 Mars voy-age, while one returning after a 1980 mission wouldreenter a t a lmost 70,000 feet per second. TRW foundthat available models for predict ing a tmospher ic fr ic-t ion tempera tures broke down a t such speeds.28 Forcompar ison, maximum Apollo lunar-return speed was“only” 35,000 feet per second.

Reentry speed could be reduced by using rockets. TRWfound, however, tha t including enough propellant toslow the ent ire spacecraft from 66,500 feet per secondto 60,000 feet per second would boost spacecraft weightfrom 715 tons to 885 tons. Slowing only the Ear thReturn Module by the same amount would increaseovera ll spacecraft weight to 805 tons.

The study proposed a new a lternat ive—a Venus swing-by a t the cost of a modest increase in t r ip t ime. A shipreturning from Mars in 1975 could, the study found, cutit s Ear th reent ry speed to 46,000 feet per second bypassing 3,300 kilometers over Venus’s n ight side. AVenus swingby dur ing flight to Mars in 1973 wouldallow the ship to ga in speed without using propellantand thus ar r ive a t Mars in t ime to take advantage of aslower Mars-Ear th retu rn t ra jectory. According toTRW’s ca lcu la t ion s, Ven u s swin gby oppor t u n it iesoccurred a t every Mars launch oppor tunity.29



Figu r e 6—TRW’s 1964 Ma rs sh ip design , sh a ped like amissile wa rhea d, sough t t o min imize r equ ir ed propellan tby aerobraking in t he Mar t ian a tmosphere. Th is cu t awayshows the Mars la n der a n d E a r t h Ret u r n Modu le in sidethe spa cecra ft . (“Su m m a r y of Ma n n ed Ma r s MissionSt u dy,” Rober t Soh n , P r oceedin g of t h e Sym posiu m onMa n n ed P la n et a r y Mission s: 1963/1964 St a t u s, NASATM X-53049, Fu tu re P roject s Office, NASA George C.Ma rsha ll Spacefligh t Cen ter, Hun t sville, Ala ba m a , J une12, 1964, p. 150.)

Building on Apollo

By t h e en d of t h e J u n e 1964 Ma r sh a ll Ma r s sym po-siu m , ea r ly flyby det r a ct or Ma xim e Fa get h a d com et o see som e m er it in t h e con cept . In a pa n el discu s-sion ch a ir ed by H ein z Koelle, Fa get decla r ed t h a t“we sh ou ld, I t h in k , con sider a flyby . . . if we u n der -t a ke a flyby we r ea lly h ave t o fa ce t h e pr oblem s ofm a n flyin g ou t t o in t er pla n et a r y dist a n ces . . . . It h in k we h ave t o u n der t a ke a pr ogr a m t h a t will for cet h e t ech n ology, ot h er wise we will n ot get [t o Ma r s] inm y lifet im e . . . .”30

Von Br a u n , a lso a pa n el m em ber, a dded, t h a t “I t h in k[pilot ed] flyby m ission s, pa r t icu la r ly flybys in volvin g[a u t om a t ed] la n din g pr obes . . . wou ld be in va lu a ble. . . . On e su ch fligh t , givin g u s m or e in for m a t ion onwh a t t o expect . . . on t h e su r fa ce of Ma r s, will beext r em ely va lu a ble in h elpin g u s in layin g ou t t h eequ ipm en t for t h e la n din g . . . t h a t wou ld follow t h efir st flyby fligh t .” 31

Von Braun then implicit ly announced an impendingshift in NASA advanced planning. “I am a lso inclined tobelieve,” he sa id, “tha t our first manned planetary flybymissions should be based on the Saturn V as the basicEar th-to-orbit car r ier. The reason is tha t , once the pro-duct ion of th is vehicle is established and a cer ta in reli-ability record has been built up, th is will be a vehiclethat will be ra ther easy to get .” Von Braun’s sta tementacknowledged tha t a post -Sa turn rocket appearedincreasingly unlikely.32 In an out line of fu ture planssubmit t ed to P residen t Lyndon J ohnson’s BudgetBureau in la te November 1964, NASA sta ted tha t thepost -Saturn rocket should receive low funding pr ior ity,and ca lled for post -Apollo piloted spaceflight to befocused on Ear th-orbita l opera t ions using technologydeveloped for the Apollo lunar landing.33

The 1964 decision to use Apollo technology for missionsafter the lunar landing could be seen as a reject ion ofpost -Apollo piloted Mars missions. Histor ian EdwardEzell wrote in 1979 tha t the “determinism to u t ilizeApollo equipment for the near fu ture was very dest ruc-t ive to the dreams of those who wanted to send men toMars.”34 As if to emphasize th is, the amount of fundingapplied to piloted planetary mission studies took a nosedive after November 1964. In the 17 months precedingNovember 1964, $3.5 million was spent on 29 pilotedplanetary mission studies. Between November 1964

and May 1966, NASA contracted for only four suchstudies a t a cost of $465,000.35

Mars planners were not so easily discouraged, however.After EMPIRE, and concurren t with UMPIRE, aMarshall Future Projects Office team led by Ruppe com-menced an in-house study to look at using Apollo hard-ware for Mars exploration. Ruppe’s study report , pub-lished in February 1965, found that piloted Mars flybymissions would be technically feasible in the mid- to late-1970s using Saturn rockets and other Apollo hardware. 36

The report’s flyby spacecraft design used hardwarealready available or in an advanced state of development.Two RL-10 engines would provide rendezvous and dock-ing propulsion, for example, and an Apollo Lunar Moduledescent engine would perform course corrections.

A pressur ized hangar would protect a modified ApolloCSM dur ing the in terplaneta ry voyage. The hangarwould a lso provide a sh ir t -sleeve environment so tha tthe a st ronau t s cou ld act a s in -fligh t ca retakers forfive tons of au tomated probes, including “landers,a tmospher ic floa ter s, skippers, orbit er s, and possiblyprobes . . . t o per form aerodynamic en t ry t est s [of]designs and mater ia ls.”37 The la st of these would,Ruppe wrote, provide da ta to help engineers designthe piloted Mars landers to follow. His report drew onthe UMPIRE conclusions when it stated that

sign ifican t reduct ion of in it ia l mass in Ear thorbit is possible if we can use aerodynamicbraking a t Mars or refueling there, bu t thesemethods assume a knowledge about . . . theMar t ian a tmosphere, or about Mars sur faceresources which just is not ava ilable. The fir stventure, st ill a ssuming tha t we a re not veryknowledgeable . . . would probably t ranspor t 2or 3 men to the sur face of Mars for a few days. . . [a t a cost of] a billion dolla rs per man-dayon Mars. If the physica l proper t ies of Marswere well known, we could th ink . . . of the fir stlanding as a long-dura t ion base, reducing costto less than 10 million dolla rs per man-day.38

The three-person flyby crew would live in a sphericalhabita t containing a radiat ion shelter and a small cen-tr ifuge for maintaining crew health (the study rejectedart ificia l gravity systems that rota ted the ent ire craft asbeing too complex and heavy). Twin radioisotope powerunits on extendible booms would provide electr icity.



The mission would require six Sa turn V launches andone Sa turn IB launch . Sa turn V rocket 1 would launchthe unpiloted flyby spacecraft ; then Sa turn V rockets 2through 5 would launch liqu id oxygen tankers. Thesixth Sa turn V would then launch the Ear th-depar turebooster, a modified Sa turn V second stage ca lled the S-IIB, which would reach orbit with a fu ll load of 80 tonsof liqu id hydrogen but with an empty liqu id oxygentank. Ruppe wrote tha t sola r hea t ing would cause theliqu id hydrogen to tu rn to gas and escape; to ensuretha t enough remained to boost the flyby cra ft towardMars, the S-IIB would have to be used with in 72 hoursof launch from Ear th .

The three ast ronauts would launch in the modifiedApollo CSM on the Sa turn IB rocket and then boardt h e flyby spa cecr a ft . Th ey wou ld u se t h e RL-10engines to gu ide the flyby cra ft to a docking with theS-IIB. The oxygen tankers would then dock in tu rn andpump their ca rgoes in to the S-IIB’s empty oxygentank. Ruppe’s flyby cra ft and booster would weigh 115tons a t Ear th-orbit depar ture. The S-IIB would thenignite, burn to deplet ion , and detach , placing the flybycraft on course for Mars.

Dur ing the flight , the ast ronauts would regular lyinspect and service the automated probes. As theyapproached Mars, the ast ronauts would release theprobes and observe the planet using 1,000 pounds ofscient ific equipment . The flyby spacecraft would relayradio signals a t a h igh data ra te between the Marsprobes and Ear th unt il it passed out of range; thendirect communicat ion between Ear th and the probeswould commence a t a reduced data ra te.

As Ear th grew la rge aga in ou tside the viewpor ts, theflyby ast ronauts would en ter the modified Apollo CSMand abandon the flyby cra ft . The CSM’s propulsion

system would slow it to Apollo lunar return speed,then the CM would separa te from the SM, reenter, andland. Depending on the launch oppor tun ity used, tota lmission dura t ion would range from 661 to 691 days.

Even as Ruppe’s repor t was published, the “robot care-taker” just ifica t ion for piloted Mars flybys was becom-ing increasingly untenable. On 31 J uly 1964, theRanger 7 Moon probe snapped 4,316 images of one cor-ner of Mare Nubium before smashing in to the lunarsurface as planned. The images showed the Moon to besufficient ly smooth for Apollo landings, and gave thecredibility of robot explorers a vita l boost . As Ruppepublished h is r epor t , Mar iner 4, launched on 28November 1964, was making it s way toward Mars. Notlong after Ruppe published his repor t , on 20 February1965, Ranger 8 returned 7,137 images as it plungedtoward the Sea of Tranquillity. A month la ter, Ranger 9returned 5,148 brea thtaking images of the complex112-kilometer cra ter Alphonsus.

Beyond providing engineer ing and scient ific just ifica-t ions for the piloted flyby mission, Ruppe’s repor t ten-dered a polit ica l just ifica t ion. He wrote:

From the luna r landing in t h is decade to apossible planet a ry landing in t he ea r ly ormiddle 1980s is 10 to 15 yea r s. Withou t ama jor new under t aking, public suppor t willdecline. Bu t by plann ing a manned planet a ry[flyby] mission in t h is per iod . . . t he Un it edSta t es will st ay in t he game.39

That Ruppe felt it necessary in ear ly 1965 to a t tempt tojust ify a piloted Mars flyby mission in terms of proba-ble impact on the U.S. domest ic polit ica l environment istelling, as will be seen in the next chapter.



An era ended for the National Aeronautics andSpace Administration last week when Congressvoted a $234-million cut in that agency’s budgetauthorization for Fiscal 1968 . . . . The NASAbudget cut is symptomatic of the many currentsof basic change that are flowing through the landthis summer . . . . If top NASA officials have notinterpreted their admittedly long and arduousbuffeting on Capitol Hill this spring and summercorrectly, then they are facing a much worse t imein the years ahead . . . . (Robert Hotz, 1967)1

Mariner 4

On 15 J uly 1965, the Mariner 4 probe snapped 21 blur-ry pictures of Mars’ southern hemisphere as it flew byat a distance of 9,600 kilometers. The flyby, whichmarked the culminat ion of a seven-and-a-half-monthvoyage, was an unprecedented engineer ing achieve-ment . Mariner 4 had withstood the in terplanetaryenvironment for near ly twice as long as Mariner 2 haddur ing it s 1962 Venus flyby mission.

Mar iner 4 revea led Mars to be a disappoin t inglyMoonlike, cra tered world with no obvious signs ofwater. Scient ists had expected to see a wor ld more likeEar th , where erosion makes obvious cra ters the excep-t ion ra ther than the ru le. That Mariner 4’s images wereblack and wh it e accen tua t ed the r esemblance t oEar th’s desola te sa tellite. Canals were conspicuouslyabsent . They are now believed to have been an opt ica lillusion or a product of eyest ra in .

Mariner 4’s impact on Mars explora t ion planning ishard to overest imate. First , it showed tha t MaximeFaget had been r ight in 1962. Robots cou ld performMars flybys—astronauts were not required for th ispar t icular explora t ion mission. It a lso showed tha trobot probes could reach Mars in reasonably good con-dit ion , undermining the “robot caretaker” just ifica t ionfor piloted Mars flybys.

Mar iner 4’s r adio-occu lt a t ion exper imen t r evea ledMars’ a tmosphere to be less than 1 percent as dense asEar th’s. Based on these new data and on measure-ments of the Mart ian a tmosphere made from Ear thsince the 1940s, planetary scient ists ca lcula ted tha t themajor ity of Mars’ a tmosphere was carbon dioxide, notnit rogen, as had been widely supposed.2

The new Mars a tmosphere data relegated to the recyclebin aerodynamic landing systems such as von Braun’sdelta-winged gliders and Aeronutronic’s lift ing-body.That meant more rocket propulsion would be requiredto accomplish a Mars soft landing, which would in turndemand more propellant . Th is would boost min imumlander weigh t , which mean t more propellan t would beneeded to t r anspor t the lander from Ear th to Mars.Th is in tu rn would boost Mars spacecra ft weigh t a tEar th -orbit depar tu re, which mean t , of course, tha tmore expensive rocket s would be requ ired to launchthe Mars sh ip in to Ear th orbit .

Most im por t a n t ly, Ma r in er 4 dea lt a body blow t oh opes for a dva n ced Ma r t ia n life. H is t or ica lly,h u m a n per cept ion s of life on Ma r s h ave occu r r eda lon g a con t in u u m . At on e en d st ood t h e r om a n t icview of n in et een t h -cen t u r y Am er ica n a st r on om erPer civa l Lowell, wh ose Ma r s wa s a dyin g E a r t hin h a bit ed by a r a ce of civil en gin eer s wh o h a d du g apla n et -gir dlin g n et wor k of ir r iga t ion ca n a ls t o s t aveoff t h e en cr oa ch in g r ed deser t . By t h e 1930s,Lowell’s vis ion wa s widely seen a s op t im is t ic.Non et h eless, t h e r om a n ce of Lowell’s Ma r s in spir edwou ld-be Ma r s explor er s in t o t h e 1960s.3

Th e Ma r in er 4 r esu lt s er a dica t ed a n y lin ger in gt r a ces of Lowellia n r om a n ce, a n d in fa ct sh ift ed t h epr eva ilin g view of life on Ma r s a ll t h e way down t h econ t in u u m t o a pessim ism wit h a lm ost a s lit t leba sis a s Lowell’s opt im ism . Th e spa cecr a ft h a d,a ft er a ll, im a ged on ly 1 per cen t of Ma r s a t r esolu -t ion so low t h a t , h a d it ph ot ogr a ph ed E a r t h , scien -t is t s exa m in in g it s p ict u r es wou ld lik ely h a vem issed a ll s ign s of t er r est r ia l life.4 NASA t ook pa in st o poin t ou t t h a t Ma r in er 4 h a d been in t en ded on lya s a fir s t , pr elim in a r y st ep t owa r d r esolvin g t h equ est ion of life on Ma r s, a n d t h a t it h a d “bla zed t h eway for la t er spa cecr a ft t o la n d in st r u m en t s a n d,even t u a lly, m en on Ma r s.”5

On the plus side, Mar iner 4 provided the fir st firmda t a on con dit ion s a st r on a u t s cou ld expect t oencounter in in terplaneta ry space dur ing the voyageto Mars. The in t repid robot registered fewer meteoroidimpacts than expected, but a lso detected a h igher-than-expected level of cosmic radia t ion and between12 and 20 sola r fla res dur ing what was expected to bea qu iet Sun per iod.6


Chapter 4: A Hostile Environment

Vietnam and Watts

President Lyndon J ohnson suppor ted the lunar pro-gram launched by his predecessor, which was not sur-pr ising, given tha t he had played a key role in formu-la t ing the Moon goal as Kennedy’s Vice President andNat ional Space Council chair. Like many others, how-ever, he was uncer ta in what NASA’s scope and direc-t ion should be in the years after it put an ast ronaut onthe Moon. In a let ter on 30 J anuary 1964, J ohnsonasked NASA Administ ra tor J ames Webb for a list ofpossible fu ture NASA goals.7

As sta ted in the last chapter, the out line of agencypla n s su bm it t ed t o J oh n son ’s Bu dget Bu r ea u inNovember 1964 emphasized using Apollo hardware inEar th orbit . An Apollo-based piloted program in theear ly 1970s was seen as an in ter im step to an Ear th-orbit ing space sta t ion in the mid- to la te-1970s.8 Whenthe Nat ional Academy of Sciences Space Science Boardcalled instead for an emphasis on planetary explo-ra t ion, NASA officia ls insisted tha t the Ear th-orbita lfocus was President J ohnson’s preference.9

This philosophy—that the United Sta tes would be bestserved by using Apollo hardware as an in ter im step toa fu ture space sta t ion—set the tone for much of NASA’spost -Apollo planning through the beginning of 1969.NASA’s program for reapplying Apollo hardware wasthe Apollo Applica t ions Program (AAP), an in it ia llyambit ious sla te of lunar and Ear th-orbita l missionsthat eventually shrank to become the Skylab program.As shown in the last chapter, Mars planners in theFuture Projects Office a t Marshall sought a lso to applyApollo technology to Mars explora t ion.

An event on 25 J anuary 1965 a lso helped set the tonefor NASA’s post -Apollo fu ture. On tha t da te, PresidentJ ohnson sent to Congress a $5.26-billion NASA budgetfor FY 1966, an increase of only $10 million over the$5.25-billion FY 1965 budget . This was the smallestNASA budget increase since the agency was estab-lished in 1958. NASA’s eventual FY 1966 appropr ia t ionwas $5.18 billion , the Agency’s first budget drop. Mostof the cuts came from AAP and other new star ts.

Th is new fruga lity in the admin ist r a t ion and inCongress with regards to space reflected growingunease across the United Sta tes. In August 1964, fol-lowing a naval incident in the Gulf of Tonkin off Nor th

Vietnam, Congress passed the Tonkin Resolu t ion ,which empowered President J ohnson to take whatsteps he deemed necessary to thwar t fur ther com-munist aggression in Indochina . In February 1965,Vietcong guerr illas a t tacked the South Vietnamese mil-ita ry base a t Pleiku, killing 8 Americans and wounding126. In response, J ohnson ordered the bombing ofNorth Vietnam’s base a t Dong Hoi. On 8 March, thefirst U.S. combat t roops—two bat ta lions of mar ines—joined the 23,000 American advisors a lready in SouthVietnam.

As Mariner 4 approached Mars in J uly, PresidentJ ohnson announced tha t he would increase the numberof soldiers in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000.On 4 August , while Mariner 4’s images were t r icklingback to Ear th , J ohnson asked Congress for an ad-dit ional $1.7 billion to suppor t the expanding war.

On 11 August , as Mars planners at tempted to reconcilethe thin atmosphere and craters revealed by Mariner 4with their old plans for Mars, racial violence flared in theWatts ghetto of Los Angeles, California. Five nights ofanarchy left 34 dead and caused $40 million in damage.

Planetary JAG

Against t h is backdrop of war, socia l un rest , andMariner 4 results, NASA launched a two-prong assaulton Mars. The first , the Voyager program, aimed a t plan-etary explora t ion using automated orbiters and lan-ders. The second was an in ternal piloted Mars flybystudy involving severa l NASA centers.

As a lready indica ted, planetary scient ists had rejectedthe AAP space sta t ion emphasis in favor of planetaryexplora t ion, which, they felt , was being neglected inNASA’s headlong rush to reach the Moon. In it s repor tSpace Research: Direct ions for the Future, released inJ anuary 1966, the Nat ional Academy of Sciences SpaceScience Board designated “the explora t ion of the nearplanets as the most rewarding goal on which to focusnat ional a t tent ion for the 10 to 15 years followingmanned lunar landing.”10 In May 1966, the AmericanAst ronomica l Society Symposium “The Search forExtra ter rest r ia l Life” re-emphasized the impor tance ofseeking life on Mars despite the Mariner 4 results.11

These inputs helped build both Voyager and pilotedflyby mission ra t ionales.




Voyager, first proposed in 1960 a t the J et PropulsionLabora tory (J PL) in Pasadena, California , was envi-sioned as a follow-on program to the Mariner flybyser ies. The 1960s Voyager should not be confused withthe twin Voyager flyby probes launched to the outerplanets in 1977 and 1978. In the FY 1967 budget cycle,NASA had postponed proposing Voyager as a new star tfollowing assurances tha t it could get off to an aggres-sive star t in FY 1968. The delay was par t ly a result ofthe Mariner 4 findings. New atmosphere data forced are-design tha t drove the program’s est imated costbeyond $2 billion .12 Voyager was in it ia lly ta rgeted forfirst launch in 1971, with a second mission in 1973, andother missions to follow.

The NASA Headqua r t er s Office of Manned SpaceF ligh t (OMSF) under George E . Mueller, Associa t eAdmin ist r a tor for Manned Space F ligh t , managedthe pilot ed flyby study. Mueller had t aken cha rge ofthe OMSF in September 1963 and had set up theAdvanced Manned Missions Office under EdwardGray in November 1963 to dir ect NASA’s pilot edplanet a ry mission plann ing act ivit ies. At a meet ing

on 15 Apr il 1965, Mueller had r eceived au thor it yfrom NASA Depu ty Admin ist r a tor Rober t Seamansto pu t t ogether a NASA-wide group to plan pilot edplanet a ry missions. A prelimina ry meet ing of t hegroup occu r r ed on 23 Apr il 1965. Th is prepa red theground for developmen t of t he P lanet a ry J oin t Act ionGroup (J AG), wh ich was forma lly est ablished la t er inthe yea r. The P lanet a ry J AG was headed by Gray anddrew member s from NASA Headqua r t er s, Marsha ll,MSC, and Kennedy Space Cen ter (KSC), a s well a sfrom the Apollo plann ing con t r actor, Bellcomm.13

In it ia lly t h e P la n et a r y J AG’s focu s wa s on pilot edMa r s m ission s u sin g n u clea r r ocket s. In Apr il 1966,h owever, Mu eller la u n ch ed a pilot ed Ma r s flybyst u dy wit h in t h e P la n et a r y J AG a t t h e r equ est ofNobel La u r ea t e Ch a r les Town es, ch a ir of t h e NASAScien ce a n d Tech n ology Advisor y Com m it t ee.Town es h a d a sked Mu eller in J a n u a r y 1966 t o ca r r you t a s t u dy com pa r in g t h e u n pilot ed Voya ger pr ojectwit h a pilot ed flyby wit h r obot pr obes (wh a t h eca lled a “m a n n ed Voya ger ”).14 In t h e secon d h a lf of1966, NASA spen t $2.32 m illion on 12 pilot ed pla n -


Figure 7—The 1966 P laneta ry J oin t Act ion Group study used exist ing and near-term technology for it s piloted Mars flybyspacecraft design . Note the Ear th Entry Module (left ) based on the Apollo Command Module. (NASA Photo S-66-11230)

et a r y m iss ion s t u dies su ppor t in g t h e P la n et a r yJ AG.15

Later tha t year, Mueller test ified to the House SpaceCommit tee on the benefit s of a piloted flyby. Heexpla ined tha t it a fforded

the best oppor tunity for performing mannedplanetary explora t ion with minimal cost and a tan ear ly da te . . . . The a t t ract iveness of th istype of mission . . . stems from the rela t ivelylight burden which it imposes on the propul-sion system, although the shor t in terval ofdirect contact with the target planet det ractsfrom its desirability. The usefulness of the flybymission becomes clea r ly est a blish ed wh enviewed as an in-situ test -bed for evaluat ing theperformance of var ious subsystems such asnavigat ion, life suppor t , and communicat ionsto be used in la ter landing missions; [and]when a lso viewed as a pla t form for launchinginst rumented probes toward the target planetdur ing the close passage.16

On 3 October 1966, the P laneta ry J AG published it sPhase 1 repor t , P laneta ry Explora t ion Ut ilizing aManned Fligh t System.17 The repor t placed piloted fly-bys with in an evolu t iona ry “in tegra ted program” ofnew and Apollo-based t echnology with “ba lanced” useof humans and robot s, the object ive of which was“maximum retu rn a t min imum cost , a ssuming in ten-sive invest iga t ion of the planet s is a goa l.” By th ist ime the in tegra ted program concept had been dis-cussed for more than a yea r ou t side NASA.18 TheP la n et a r y J AG’s in t egr a t ed pr ogr a m pr oceededth rough the following st eps:

• Apollo Applica t ions Program (1968-73):Astronauts would remain aloft in space stat ionsbased on Apollo hardware for progressivelylonger periods to collect data on human reac-t ions to weightlessness. Some would live inEarth orbit for more than a year approximatelythe durat ion of a piloted Mars flyby mission.

• Mariner (1969-73) and Voyager (1973): TheP la n et a r y J AG r epor t ca st Ma r in er a n dVoyager as lead-ins to piloted expedit ions bysta t ing tha t da ta they collected would a id engi-neers design ing piloted flyby hardware. A

Mariner probe would fly by Mars in 1969; in1971 another Mariner would drop a probe in toMars’ a tmosphere. The first Voyager probewould land on Mars in 1973 bear ing a suite oflife-detect ion exper iments.

• Piloted Mars/Venus Flybys (1975-80): The firstpiloted Mars flyby mission would leave Ear th-orbit in September 1975. Mars flyby launchoppor tunit ies would a lso occur in October 1977and November 1979. Mult iple flyby missionswere possible—a Venus/Mars mission couldstar t in December 1978, and a Venus/Mars/Venus mission could launch in February 1977.These would dispense automated probes basedon Mariner and Voyager technology.

• P ilot ed Ma r s La n din g a n d pilot ed Ven u sCapture (orbiter ) missions (post -1980) wouldsee in t roduct ion of AEC-NASA nuclear-ther-m a l r ocket s. Th e P la n et a r y J AG deem ednuclear propulsion “essent ia l for a flexibleMars landing program” capable of reachingMars in any launch oppor tunity regardless ofthe energy required. (The nuclear rocket pro-gram is descr ibed in more deta il in Chapter 5.)

The P laneta ry J AG’s piloted Mars flyby spacecra ftwould reach Ear th orbit on an Improved Sa tu rn Vrocket with a modified S-IVB (MS-IVB) th ird st age.Th e MS-IVB wou ld fea t u r e s t r et ch ed t a n ks t oincrease propellan t capacity and in terna l foam insu-la t ion to permit a 60-hour wa it in Ear th orbit beforesola r hea t ing caused it s liqu id hydrogen fuel to tu rnto gas and escape.

The four-person flyby crew would r ide in to Ear th orbiton a two-stage Improved Saturn V in an Apollo CSMstacked on top of the flyby craft . Upon reaching orbit ,the CSM/flyby craft combinat ion would detach from thespent Saturn V S-II second stage; then the ast ronautswould detach the CSM, turn it a round, and dock with atemporary docking st ructure on the flyby craft ’s for-ward end.

The P laneta ry J AG’s flyby spacecraft would consist ofthe Mid-Course Propulsion Module with four mainengines; the Ear th Ent ry Module, a modified ApolloCM for Ear th a tmosphere reen t ry a t mission’s end;and the Mission Module, the crew’s living and working




space. The Ear th Ent ry Module would serve doubleduty as a radia t ion shelter dur ing sola r fla res. Mid-Course Propulsion Module propellan t t anks would beclustered a round it to provide addit iona l radia t ionsh ielding. The Mission Module’s forward level (for “restand pr ivacy”) would be lined with lockers conta in ingfreeze-dr ied foods; the a ft level would conta in the flybycraft ’s cont rol console, science equipment , and ward-room table. The P laneta ry J AG repor t proposed tha tthe Mission Module st ructure and subsystems, such aslife suppor t , be based on Ear th-orbita l space sta t ionmodule designs.

Th e a u t om a t ed pr obes wou ld be h ou sed in t h eExper iment Module forming the aft end of the flybyspacecraft , a long with a probe deployment manipula torarm, a biology labora tory, a 40-inch telescope, and anair lock for spacewalks with an Apollo-type dockingunit . A 19-foot-diameter radio dish antenna for h igh-data-ra te communicat ions with Ear th unfolded fromthe back of the Exper iment Module, as did a 2,000-square-foot solar ar ray capable of genera t ing 22 kilo-wat ts of elect r icity a t Ear th , 8.5 kilowat ts a t Mars, and4.5 kilowat ts in the Asteroid Belt .

With the crew and flyby craft in Ear th orbit , threeImproved Saturn V rockets would launch 12 hoursapar t to place the three MS-IVB rocket stages in orbit .


Figure 9—Three modified Apollo S-IVB stages burn oneafter the other to launch the 1967 Planeta ry J oin t Act ionGroup Mars flyby spacecraft ou t of Ear th orbit . (NASAPhoto S-67-5998)

Figure 8—Typica l piloted Mars flyby mission . 1—depar t Ear th orbit . 2, 4, 10—course correct ions. 3, 5, 6, 7—eject automatedMa rs probes. 8—automated probe collect s Mars su r face sample and launches it off the planet . 9—piloted flyby craft retr ievesMa rs sur face sample. 11—crew leaves Mars flyby craft in Ear th return capsule. The abandoned flyby spacecraft sa ils pastEar th in to sola r orbit . 12—Ear th a tmosphere reen t ry and landing. (P laneta ry Explora t ion Ut ilizing a Manned F ligh tSystem, Office of Manned Space F ligh t , NASA Headquar ters, Washington , DC, October 3, 1966, p. 16.)


This rapid launch ra te, a ver itable sa lvo of 3,000-tonrockets, each near ly 400 feet ta ll, would demand con-st ruct ion of a th ird Saturn V launch pad a t KSC. ThePlanetary J AG determined, however, tha t Pad 39Cwould be the only major new ground facility needed toaccomplish it s flyby program.

Using the CSM’s propulsion system, the ast ronautswould perform a ser ies of rendezvous and dockingmaneuvers to br ing together the flyby craft and threeMS-IVBs. The flyby crew would then undock the CSMfrom the temporary docking st ructure, re-dock it to theair lock docking unit on the flyby craft ’s side, and enterthe flyby craft for the first t ime. They would discard theCSM and eject the temporary docking st ructure.

Launch from Ear th orbit would occur between 5September and 3 October 1975. The MS-IVB stageswould in turn ignite, deplete their propellants, and bediscarded. As Ear th and Moon shrank in the distance,the crew would deploy the radio antenna and rectan-gular solar ar ray.

The ast ronauts would perform a wide range of scien-t ific exper iments dur ing the 130-day flight to Mars.These included solar studies, monitor ing themselves tocollect da ta on the physiologica l effects of weight less-

ness, planetary and stella r observat ions, and radioast ronomy far from ter rest r ia l radio in ter ference.

Mars flyby would occur between 23 J anuary and 4February 1976, the precise date being dependent on thedate of Earth departure. Beginning several weeks beforeflyby, the crew would turn the craft’s telescope towardMars and its moons. The pace would quicken 10 daysbefore flyby, when the flyby craft was 2 million kilome-ters from Mars. At that t ime the astronauts would usethe probe deployment arm to unstow and release theautomated probes. At closest approach, the flyby space-craft would fly within 200 kilometers of the Martiandawn terminator (the line between day and night).

For the 1975 mission, the flyby craft would carry in itsExperiment Module three 100-pound Mars impactors,one five-ton Mars polar orbiter, one 1,290-pound Marslander, and one six-ton Mars Surface Sample Return(MSSR) lander. The MSSR was designed to leave theflyby craft , land on Mars, gather a two-pound sample ofdir t and rock, and then blast it back to the passing flybycraft using a three-stage liquid-fueled ascent vehicle.

This last concept , an effor t to improve the piloted flybymission ’s scien t ific product ivit y, wa s proposed by


Figu re 11—The 1967 Planetary Joint Act ion Group’s Marsflyby spacecraft releases automated probes and deploysinstruments. Close Mars flyby would last mere hours, but theastronauts would study themselves throughout the mission,helping to pave the way for future Mars landing expedit ions.(NASA Photo S-67-5999)

Figure 10—Following fina l S-IVB stage separa t ion , the 1967Planetary J oin t Act ion Group’s Mars flyby spacecraft deployssola r a r rays and a dish-shaped radio an tenna . (NASA PhotoS-67-5991)


Bellcomm at the Planetary J AG’s meet ing a t KSC on29-30 J une 1966.19 The concept or iginated in a paper byR. R. Titus presented in J anuary 1966.20 Titus, a UnitedAircraft Research Labora tor ies engineer with a ta lentfor unfor tunate acronyms, dubbed his concept FLEM,for “Flyby-Landing Excursion Mode.” He had been par tof the Lockheed EMPIRE team.

Titus’ mission plan had a piloted MEM lander sep-ara t ing from the flyby spacecraft dur ing the Mars voy-age and changing course to in tersect the planet . Titusca lcu la ted tha t MEM separa t ion 60 days before Marsflyby would permit it to stay for 16 days a t Mars, whilesepara t ion 30 days ou t yielded a 9-day stay t ime. AtMars the MEM would fire it s rocket engine to en terorbit , then land. As t h e flyby spa cecr a ft pa ssed Ma r s,t h e excu r sion m odu le wou ld bla st off in pu r su it . Th ea m ou n t of pr opella n t r equ ir ed for F LE M wa s m u chless t h a n for a n MOR la n din g m ission beca u se on lyt h e ME M wou ld en t er a n d depa r t Ma r s or bit . Tit u sca lcu la t ed t h a t a F LE M m ission boost ed t o Ma r s in1971 u sin g a n u clea r-t h er m a l r ocket m igh t weigh a slit t le a s 130 t on s—ligh t en ou gh , per h a ps, t o per m it apilot ed Ma r s la n din g wit h a sin gle Sa t u r n V la u n ch .

In the 1966 J AG piloted flyby plan , the automatedMSSR would land on Mars about two hours before theflyby craft flew past the planet and would immedia telyset to work gather ing rock and soil samples usingscoop, brush, st icky tape, dr ill, and suct ion collect iondevices. Less than two hours after MSSR touchdown,it s ascent vehicle first stage would ignite. If a ll wentwell, the ascent vehicle’s small th ird stage would deliv-er the samples to a point in space a few miles ahead ofthe flyby craft about 17 minutes la ter, 5 minutes afterthe flyby craft ’s closest Mars approach. As their craftover took the sample package, the ast ronauts wouldsnatch it in passing using a boom-mounted dockingr ing. They would then deposit it inside the Exper imentModule’s biology lab.

The Planetary J AG pointed out tha t the MSSR/pilotedflyby approach improved the chances for studying liv-ing Mart ian organisms because the Mars sampleswould reach a t ra ined biologist with in minutes of col-lect ion. Living organisms collected using a purely auto-mated sample-return lander would likely per ish dur ingthe months-long flight to a lab on Ear th .

Th e t r ip ba ck t o E a r t h wou ld la st 537 days, du r in gwh ich t h e a st r on a u t s wou ld st u dy t h e Ma r s sa m plesa n d r epea t m a n y of t h e sa m e exper im en t s per -for m ed du r in g t h e E a r t h -Ma r s voya ge. Th e flybycr a ft wou ld pen et r a t e t h e Ast er oid Belt befor efa llin g ba ck t o E a r t h , m a kin g pilot ed a st er oid flybysa possibilit y. Wh en fa r t h est fr om t h e Su n t h e flybycr a ft wou ld be on t h e opposit e s ide of t h e Su n fr omE a r t h , m a kin g possible s im u lt a n eou s obser va t ion sof bot h sola r h em isph er es.

A few days before reaching Ear th , the crew wouldboard the Ear th Entry Module and abandon the flybycraft . On 18 J uly 1977, the Ear th Entry Module wouldreenter Ear th’s a tmosphere, deploy parachutes, andlower to a land touchdown, while the flyby craft wouldfly past Ear th in to solar orbit . J ust before the landing,solid-propellant rocket motors would fire to cushionimpact , ending the 667-day Mart ian odyssey.

The Fire

NASA’s FY 1967 funding request was $5.6 billion . TheWhite House Budget Bureau t r immed th is to $5.01 bil-lion out of a $112 billion Federa l budget before sendingthe budget on to Capitol Hill. By the t ime PresidentJ ohnson signed it in to law, NASA’s FY 1967 appropr ia-t ion was $4.97 billion , more than $200 million less thanFY 1966. Programs a imed a t giving NASA a post -Apollo fu ture were hardest h it . Of the $270 millionNASA requested for AAP, for example, only $83 millionwa s a ppr opr ia t ed. Voya ger fu n din g st a r t -u p wa sbumped to FY 1968. Apollo Moon program funding, bycontrast , barely suffered. In par t th is was because theagency was flying frequent Gemini missions—10 in 20months—which kept the Moon goal in the public eye.Kennedy’s goal seemed very close, with the first pilotedlunar landing expected in just over a year.

In Gemini’s last year, however, America’s a t tent ion wasincreasingly drawn away from space. In March 1966,pr ot est er s m a r ch ed a ga in st t h e Viet n a m Wa r inBoston , San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia , andWashington. The summer of 1966 saw race r iots inCh icago and At lan t a and r acist mob violence inGrenada, Mississippi. In J une 1966, President J ohnsonordered bombing ra ids against the Nor th Vietnamesecit ies of Ha iphong and Hanoi. By then , 285,000Americans were serving in Vietnam. As Gemini 12, the


last in the ser ies, splashed down in November 1966, thenumber of American soldiers on the ground in Vietnamwas well on it s way to it s 1 J anuary 1967 tota l of380,000.

Against th is backdrop, in J anuary 1967, the PlanetaryJ AG resumed piloted flyby planning, th is t ime with thepurpose of developing “a clear sta tement of the act ivi-t ies required in FY 69 for budget discussions”21 to placeNASA “in a posit ion to in it ia te a flyby project in FY1969.”22 P lanetary J AG par t icipants had some reason tobe hopeful. As they reconvened, President J ohnsonannounced a $5.1-billion FY 1968 NASA budget tha tincluded $71.5 million for Voyager and $8 million foradvanced planning. He a lso backed $455 million for asu bst a n t ia l AAP. In presen t ing h is budget , t hePresident explained that “we have no alternat ive unlesswe wish to abandon the manned space capability wehave created.”23

On 26 J anuary the OMSF presented it s ambit ious AAPplans to Congress. Barely more than a day la ter,NASA’s plans received a harsh blow as fire eruptedinside the AS-204 Apollo spacecraft on the launch padat KSC, killing Apollo 1 ast ronauts Gus Grissom, EdWhite, and Roger Chaffee. They had been scheduled totest the Apollo CSM for 14 days in Ear th orbit begin-ning in mid-February. NASA suspended piloted Apolloflights pending the outcome of an invest iga t ion. TheAS-204 invest iga t ion repor t , issued in Apr il, foundshor tcomings in Apollo management , design, const ruc-t ion , a n d qu a lit y con t r ol. Apollo r edesign keptAmerican ast ronauts grounded unt il September 1968.

After the fire, NASA could no longer count on a fr iend-ly recept ion on Capitol Hill. The fire, plus growingpressure on the federa l budget , meant tha t a ll NASAprograms were subjected to increased oversigh t . InMarch , Avia t ion Week & Space Technology repor ted a“growing an t ipa thy from Congress” toward NASA’sprograms, adding tha t “[d]elays in the manned pro-gram, resu lt ing from the Apollo 204 crew loss . . . willhamper the agency’s a rguments before Congress sincepu blic in t er est will dwin dle wit h ou t spect a cu la rr esu lt s.”24 The ma ga zine pr edict ed, however, t ha tProject Gemini’s conclusion would free up funds in FY1968, per m it t in g “a m odest s t a r t on ApolloApplica t ions and . . . Voyager.” 25

As NASA in genera l came under increased scrut iny, thepiloted flyby concept suffered high-level cr it icism fort h e fir st t im e. Th e P r esiden t ’s Scien ce Advisor yCommit tee (PSAC) repor t The Space Program in thePost-Apollo Per iod (February 1967) was genera lly posi-t ive, ca lling for cont inued Apollo missions to the Moonafter the first piloted lunar landing, as well as plane-tary explora t ion using robots such as Voyager.26 ThePSAC reitera ted Faget ’s 1962 cr it icism of the pilotedflyby mission, however, sta t ing tha t

the manned Mars flyby proposal, among it sother weaknesses, does not appear to u t ilizeman in a unique role . . . it appears to us tha tNASA must address it self more fu lly to thequest ion, “What is the opt imum mix of manneda n d u n m a n n ed com pon en t s for pla n et a r yexplora t ion?”27

The PSAC a lso compla ined tha t Voyager and theP laneta ry J AG’s piloted flyby plans were “dist inct andapparen t ly independen t plans for planeta ry explo-ra t ion ,” and cr it icized NASA for “absence of in tegra t -ed plann ing in th is a rea .”28 As has been seen , th is cr it -icism reached the P laneta ry J AG ea r ly enough for anin tegra ted plan to be included in it s r epor t . NASAofficia ls den ied, however, tha t the PSAC’s cr it icismshad prompted it s effor t to in tegra te Voyager and thepiloted flyby.29

The PSAC’s cr it ique stung the Planetary J AG. Oneresponse was to distance itself from the term “flyby”—aword ident ified increasingly with automated explorerssince Mariner 4’s success—by dubbing its mission an“encounter.”30 P lanetary J AG members a lso sought toreemphasize tha t the encounter mission ast ronautswould accomplish product ive observat ions and exper i-ments throughout their two-year voyage, not just dur-ing the hours of Mars encounter.

OMSF advanced planner Edward Gray and his deputyFranklin Dixon first publicly proposed the PlanetaryJ AG’s Apollo-based piloted Mars flyby as an FY 1969new star t the next month (March 1967) a t the AASFifth Goddard Memoria l Symposium, where they pre-sented a paper ca lled “Manned Expedit ions to Marsand Venus.”31 That same month , NASA forecast a stableannual budget of about $5 billion per year through1970, after which the budget would decline to $4.5 bil-lion annually for the rest of the 1970s. New programs



such as Voyager and the piloted flyby would be phasedin as the share of NASA’s budget a llot ted to Apollolunar missions decreased.32 In May, Avia t ion Week &Space Technology repor ted tha t the $71.5-million new-star t funding approved for Voyager by the House SpaceCommit tee “does not face ser ious problems.”33

A New Era for NASA

By the beginning of 1967, 25,000 United States service-men had died in Vietnam. The summer of 1967 sawracial violence wrack Newark, New J ersey, and Detroit ,Michigan. Large sect ions of Detroit burned to theground. At least 5,000 people lost their homes, andmore than 70 lost their lives. Violence a lso swept morethan 100 other American cit ies. Detroit a lone sufferedup to $400 million in damage. Needless to say, mostAmericans focused more on Ear th than on space.

The cost of the Vietnam War soared to $25 billion ayear—the ent ire FY 1966 NASA budget every 10weeks. This, plus the cost of President J ohnson’s GreatSociet y socia l welfa r e pr ogr a m s, led t o spir a lin gFedera l budget deficit s. Congress approached theJ ohnson Administ ra t ion’s 1968 Federa l Budget with it sscissors out , and NASA was an easy target .

In ea r ly J u ly, Avia t ion Week & Space Technologyr epor t ed t h a t t h e H ou se a n d Sen a t e h a d “su st a in edt h e pa ce of spen din g in t h e Apollo pr ogr a m bu t ser i-ou sly cu t in t o NASA’s pla n s for bot h m a n n ed a n du n m a n n ed spa ce pr ogr a m s of t h e fu t u r e.”34 Th eSen a t e vot ed down a ll Voya ger fu n din g, wh ile t h eH ou se cu t t h e pr ogr a m t o $50 m illion . H ou se a n dSen a t e con fer ees set t led on $42 m illion for t h e a u t o-m a t ed Ma r s pr ogr a m . In r espon se, NASA a n n ou n cedt h a t a 1971 Voya ger m ission wa s ou t of t h e qu est ion .A 1973 la n din g wa s, h owever, st ill fea sible if t h e pr o-gr a m wa s fu n ded a dequ a t ely in F Y 1969.35

In ear ly J uly, the Senate repor t on it s FY 1968 NASAauthor iza t ion bill specifica lly advised against pilotedplanetary missions, sta t ing tha t “a ll near-term [piloted]missions should be limited to ear th orbita l act ivity orfur ther lunar explora t ion.”36 Later tha t month , in test i-mony to the Senate Appropr ia t ions Commit tee, J amesWebb refused to “give a id and comfor t to those whowould cu t our program” when asked by SpessardHolland (Democra t -F lor ida) to choose between $45

million for AAP and $50 million for Voyager. Hollandchided Webb for “fa iling to see tha t Congress is facedwith dilemmas in applying a ll it s economies.”37

That some in the aerospace world were sympathet ic toHolland’s plight is telling. In an editor ia l t it led “NewEra for NASA,” for example, Avia t ion Week & SpaceTechnology editor Rober t Hotz wrote,

We have no quarrel with reduct ions imposed sofar by Congress . . . . They reflect a judicious andnecessary pruning of NASA’s budget . . . . [Spaceexplorat ion] cannot hope to occupy such a largeshare of the nat ional spot light in the future asit did during the pioneering days of Mercuryand Gemini when the war in Vietnam was onlya t iny cloud on a distant horizon; when noAmerican city cores had yet glowed red at night ,and when a tax cut was the order of the dayinstead of the t idal wave of tax r ises that nowthreatens to engulf the nat ion.38

Though none of th is augured well for piloted planetarymissions, the Planetary J AG cont inued planning it spiloted encounter mission with the a im of seeing itincluded a s an FY 1969 new st a r t . The r evisedPlanetary J AG plan ca lled for just two MS-IVBs.39 Thismeant tha t only two Saturn V rockets would need to belaunched in rapid succession, so the cost ly new Pad 39Cwas no longer required.

The encounter spacecraft would aga in include anExper iment Module with an automated probe suitebased on Voyager technology. This t ime, however, theprobes, including a t least one large MSSR lander,would be sea led in the Exper iment Module beforelaunch from Ear th and ster ilized to avoid biologica lcontaminat ion of Mars. Previous piloted flyby studieshad just ified the presence of ast ronauts in par t by theirability to service the probes dur ing flight . This wouldnow be impossible because servicing would in t roducecontaminat ion.

The Planetary J AG rea lized tha t the MSSR was themost challenging element of it s encounter missionplan—the one demanding the ear liest developmentstar t if the first piloted encounter mission was to beready for flight in 1975. On 3 August 1967, therefore,MSC issued a Request for Proposals for a “9-monthengineer ing study . . . to perform a deta iled analysis




and preliminary design study of unmanned probes tha twould be launched from a manned spacecraft on aMars encounter or a Mars capture mission, [and] wouldret r ieve samples of the Mars surface and a tmosphereand rendezvous with the manned spacecraft .” MSCadded, “The results of th is study” would “a id in select -ing exper iment payload combinat ions of these andot h er pr obes a n d in con figu r in g t h e E xper im en tModule sect ion of the manned spacecraft used in theMars . . . Reconnaissance/Retr ieval missions in the1975-1982 t ime per iod.” Cost and technica l proposalswere to be submit ted to MSC by 4 September.40 At thesame t ime, MSC released an RFP calling for a pilotedflyby spacecraft design study.

The Planetary J AG knew of the de facto congressional“no new star ts” in junct ion but apparent ly assumedthat it did not apply to studies with implica t ionsbeyond the next fisca l year.41 Congressman J osephKa r t h (Dem ocr a t -Min n esot a ), ch a ir of t h e H ou seSubcommit tee on Space Science and Applica t ions, sawit different ly. Normally a st rong NASA suppor ter, hela sh ed ou t a t t h e “ost r ich -like, h ea d-in -t h e-sa n dapproach of some NASA planning,” and added, “Veryblunt ly, a manned mission to Mars or Venus by 1975 or1977 is now and a lways has been out of the quest ion—and anyone who persists in th is kind of misa llocat ion ofresources is going to be stopped.”42

By August , the expected 1967 Federa l budget deficitwa s $30 billion . Goa ded by MSC’s Requ est forProposals, on 16 August 1967 the House zeroed outfunding for both Voyager and advanced piloted missionplanning. AAP funding fell to $122 million . On 22August , the House approved a $4.59 billion FY 1968NASA budget—a cut of more than $500 million fromthe J anuary 1967 White House request .

Faced by a spira ling budget deficit , war and ant i-wardissent , and urban r iots, President J ohnson reduced hissuppor t for NASA, saying, “Under other circumstancesI would have opposed such a cut . However, condit ionshave grea t ly changed since I submit ted my J anuarybudget request .”43 He added, “Some hard choices mustbe made between the necessary and the desirable . . . .We . . . dare not eliminate the necessary. Our task is topare the desirable.”44

Denouement

The Voyager program died in pa r t because NASA castit a s a lead-in t o pilot ed flybys. The scien t ific com-mun ity viewed Voyager ’s loss a s a slap in t he face. InSeptember, in an unusua l move, NASA officia ls wen tbefore t he Sena t e Appropr ia t ions Commit t ee t o nego-t ia t e a Mar iner mission in 1971 and a Mars landingmission in 1973, both designed “to con form to sha rplyreduced funding in FY 1969.”45 The 1971 Mar inermission became Mar iner 9. In March 1968, NASAunveiled P roject Viking—a cu t -pr ice ver sion of t heVoya ger pr ogr a m . Vik in g, m a n a ged by N ASA’sLangley Resea rch Cen ter, emerged a s one of t he fewFY 1969 NASA new st a r t s.

MSC received and reviewed MSSR study proposa lsfrom indust ry, a lthough , of course, no con t ract for sucha study was ever issued. The piloted flyby mission , theobject of so much study from mid-1962 to la t e 1967,was defunct . Despit e t h e obviou s con gr ession a l h os-t ilit y t owa r d a dva n ced pla n n in g, h owever, NASA’spilot ed Ma r s m ission st u dies wer e n ot . As will beseen in t h e n ext ch a pt er, t h e focu s sh ift ed t o t h eot h er a r ea of P la n et a r y J AG em ph a sis—pilot edMa r s la n din g m ission s u sin g n u clea r r ocket s.



Thus, Mr. Vice President—[the s]olar system isopening up before us. With landing on theMoon we know that man can lay cla im to theplanets for h is use. We know fur ther tha t manwill do th is. The quest ion is when? We knowthat [the] U.S. will take par t . The quest ion ishow soon will we follow up on what we havebegun with Apollo? It could be the ear ly 1980s.(Thomas Paine, 1969)1

The Big Shot

In a November 1965 a r t icle on the next 20 yea r s ofspace fligh t , Wernher von Braun sough t to convey theSa tu rn V rocket ’s immense poten t ia l. “One Sa tu rn Va lone,” he wrote, “will ca r ry twice a s much payload asthe en t ir e NASA space program up to th is poin t int ime. In fact , a ll the orbit er s, a ll the deep spaceprobes, and a ll the Mercurys and Gemin is tha t haveever flown would on ly load the ca rgo compar tment ofone Sa tu rn V to 50% of capacity.”2 With Sa tu rn Vava ilable, the Moon , Mars, and indeed the en t ir e sola rsystem seemed with in reach .

The first of fifteen Saturn V’s ordered by NASA to sup-port Project Apollo rolled out to Launch Pad 39A atKennedy Space Center on 26 August 1967. DesignatedAS-501, the mighty rocket would launch Apollo 4, thefirst unmanned test of an Apollo CSM spacecraft . The24-hour countdown commenced early on 8 Novemberand reached T-0 at 7 a .m. Eastern Standard Time on 9November. Seen from the KSC press sit e, t h r ee andone-ha lf miles from the pad, the wh it e and blackrocket rose slowly a t t he summit of an expandingmoun ta in of r ed flame and gray smoke. Thunder from“the Big Shot,” as the news media nicknamed AS-501,drowned out television and radio reporters giving livecommentary and threatened to collapse their temporarystudios.

AS-501 stood 111 meters ta ll and weighed about 2,830metr ic tons a t liftoff. It s 10-meter-diameter S-IC fir ststage car r ied 2,090 met r ic tons of kerosene fuel andliqu id oxygen oxidizer for it s five F-1 rocket engines.They gulped 13.6 metr ic tons of propellants each sec-ond to develop a tota l of 3.4 million kilograms of thrusta t liftoff. AS-501’s first stage depleted it s propellants intwo and one-half minutes a t an a lt itude of 56 kilome-ters, detached, and crashed in to the At lant ic about 72kilometers from Pad 39A.

The 10-meter-diameter S-II second st age ca r r ied 423met r ic t ons of liqu id hydrogen and liqu id oxygen forit s five J -2 engines, wh ich developed a t ot a l of 1 mil-lion pounds of t h rust . The S-II deplet ed it s propel-lan t s a ft er six and one-ha lf minu tes a t an a lt it ude of161 kilometer s.

The 6.7-meter-diameter S-IVB third stage carr ied 105metr ic tons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for itssingle restar table J -2 engine, which fired for two min-utes to place the Apollo 4 CSM in a 185-kilometer park-ing orbit . For an Apollo lunar mission, the J -2 enginewould ignite again after one orbit to place the Apollospacecraft on course for the Moon. For Apollo 4, thethird stage restar ted after two Earth orbits, 3 hours and11 minutes after liftoff, put t ing the stage and spacecraftinto an Earth-intersect ing ellipse with a 17,335-kilome-ter apogee (highest point above the Earth).

The Apollo 4 CSM separa ted from the S-IVB stage,then fired it s engine for 16 seconds to nudge it s apogeeto 18,204 kilometers. The CSM engine ignited a secondt ime 8 hours and 10 minutes in to the flight to throwthe CM at Ear th’s a tmosphere a t a lunar-return speedof about 40,000 kilometers per hour. The CM separa tedand posit ioned it self with it s bowl-shaped heat sh ieldforward. Heat sh ield tempera ture soared to 2,760degrees Celsius, and CM decelera t ion reached eightt imes the pull of Ear th’s gravity. Three parachutesopened, and the Apollo 4 CM splashed in to the PacificOcean 10 kilometers from the planned spot , 8 hoursand 38 minutes after liftoff.

The success of AS-501/Apollo 4 helped rebuild confi-dence in NASA’s ability to fu lfill Kennedy’s mandatefollowing the J anuary 1967 fire. President J ohnson toldrepor ters tha t the “successful complet ion of today’sflight has shown that we can launch and br ing backsafely to Ear th the space ship tha t will take men to the[M]oon.” Von Braun told repor ters tha t he regarded“this happy day as one of the three or four h ighlights ofmy professional life—to be surpassed only by themanned lunar landing.”3

“To the Very Ends of the Solar System”

Apollo 4 a lso cheered Mars planners, for Saturn V hadbecome their launch vehicle of choice following the endof post -Saturn rocket planning in 1964. NASA and AECengineer s developing the NERVA nuclea r-therma l

Chapter 5: Apogee

rocket engine saw specia l cause for celebra t ion, forSaturn V was their bra inchild’s r ide in to space. Theencouragement was well t imed. NERVA, which stoodfor Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Applica t ion, st illhad no approved mission and had just survived a nar-row scrape in a Congress ill-disposed toward fundingtechnology for fu ture space missions.

NE RVA wa s a solid-cor e n u clea r-t h er m a l r ocketengine. Hydrogen propellant passed through and washeated by a uranium nuclear reactor, which caused thepropellant to turn to plasma, expand rapidly, and ventout of a nozzle, producing thrust . Un like chemica lrocket s, no oxygen was r equ ir ed to bu rn the hydrogenin t he vacuum of space. Nuclea r-therma l rocket spromised grea t er efficiency than chemica l rocket s,mean ing less propellan t was r equ ir ed to do the samework a s an equ iva len t chemica l syst em. This wouldreduce spacecraft weight a t Ear th-orbit depar ture,opening the door to a broad range of advanced mis-sions.

In it ia l theoret ica l work on nuclear-thermal rocketsbegan a t Los Alamos Nat ional Labora tory (LANL) in1946. The New Mexico labora tory opera ted under theaegis of the AEC. The join t AEC-U.S. Air Force ROVERnuclear rocket program began in 1955, in it ia lly toinvest iga te whether a nuclear rocket could providepropulsion for a massive in tercont inenta l missile. In1957, the solid-core reactor engine design was selectedfor ground test ing. The test ser ies engine was appro-pr ia tely named Kiwi, for it was in tended only forground test ing, not for flight .

Cit ing LANL’s nuclear rocket work, AEC suppor ters inthe U.S. Senate, led by New Mexico Democrat Clin tonAnderson, pushed unsuccessfully in 1958 for the com-mission to be given control of the U.S. space program.Anderson was a close fr iend of Senate Major ity LeaderLyndon J ohnson, who led the Senate Space Commit teeformed after Sputnik 1’s launch on 4 October 1957.4 InOctober 1958, the Air Force t ransferred it s ROVERresponsibilit ies t o t he newly cr ea t ed NASA, a ndROVER became a join t AEC-NASA program. AEC andNASA set up a join t Space Nuclear Propulsion Office(SNPO). NASA Lewis—which a t th is t ime was per-forming the first NASA Mars study, an examinat ion ofthe weight-minimizing benefit s of advanced propul-sion, including nuclear rockets (see chapter 2)—became

responsible with in NASA for technica l direct ion of theROVER program.

In J u ly 1959, the fir st Kiwi-A test was car r ied ou t suc-cessfu lly using hydrogen gas as propellan t a t theNu clea r Rocket Developm en t St a t ion (NRDS) a tJ ackass F la t s, Nevada , 90 miles from Las Vegas.Sen a t or An der son a r r a n ged for delega t es t o t h eDemocra t ic Nat iona l Convent ion to be on hand for thesecond Kiwi-A test in J u ly 1960. At the Convent ion ,Anderson a r ranged for a plank on nuclear rocketdevelopment to be inser ted in to the Democra t ic Par typla t form.5 In October 1960, the th ird Kiwi-A test usinghydrogen gas showed promising resu lt s, bu ilding sup-por t for a cont ract to be issued for development of afligh t -wor thy nuclear rocket engine.

The Democra t ic t icket of J ohn Kennedy and LyndonJ ohnson nar rowly defea ted Dwight Eisenhower’s VicePresident , Richard Nixon , in the November 1960 elec-t ion . Anderson took over as head of the Sena te SpaceCommit tee. President Kennedy embraced space a fterthe Soviet Union helped end h is White House honey-moon by launching the fir st human in to space on 12Apr il 1961. He charged J ohnson with formula t ing avisible, dramat ic space goa l the United Sta tes mightreach before the Soviet s. J ohnson suggested landingan Amer ican on the Moon.

Before a specia l join t session of Congress on 25 May1961, Kennedy ca lled for an American ast ronaut on theMoon by the end of the 1960s. Then he asked for “anaddit ional $23 million , together with $7 million a lreadyavailable, [to] accelera te development of the ROVERnuclear rocket . This gives promise of some day provid-ing a means for even more excit ing and ambit iousexplora t ion of space, perhaps beyond the Moon, per-haps to the very ends of the solar system . . . .”6

Because of Kennedy’s speech, FY 1962 saw the rea lstar t of U.S. nuclear rocket funding. NASA and theAEC together were author ized to spend $77.8 millionin FY 1962. Funding in the preceding 15 years hadtota led about $155 million .

In J uly 1961, Aerojet -Genera l Corpora t ion won the con-t ract to develop a 200,000-pound-thrust NERVA flightengine. NERVA Phase 1 occurred between J uly 1961and J anuary 1962, when a preliminary design wasdeveloped and a 22.5-foot NERVA engine mockup was


Chapter 5: Apogee

assembled. At the same t ime, NASA Marshall set upthe Nuclear Vehicle Projects Office to provide technica ldir ect ion for t he Reactor-In -F ligh t -Test (RIFT), aSa t u r n V-la u n ch ed NE RVA fligh t dem on st r a t ionplanned for 1967.

The first Kiwi-B nuclear-thermal engine ground testusing liquid hydrogen (December 1961) ended ear lyafter the engine began to blast sparkling, melt ing bitsof uranium fuel rods from its reactor core out of it s noz-zle. Though the cause of th is a larming fa ilure remainedunknown, Lockheed Missiles and Space Company wasmade RIFT contractor in May 1962. In ear ly summer1962 the Marshall Future Projects Office launched theEMPIRE study, mot ivated in par t by a desire to de-velop missions suitable for nuclear propulsion. Hence,ear ly on NERVA became closely ident ified with Mars.

The second and third Kiwi-B ground tests (September1962 and November 1962) fa iled in the same manner asthe first . Failure cause remained uncerta in, but vibra-t ion produced as the liquid hydrogen propellant flowedthrough the reactor fuel elements was suspected.

The PSAC and the White House Budget Bureau a lliedagainst the nuclear rocket program following the th irdKiwi-B fa ilure. They opposed funding for an ear ly RIFTflight test because they saw it as a foot in the door lead-ing to a cost ly piloted Mars mission, and because theybelieved the technology to be insufficient ly developed,som et h in g t h e Kiwi-B fa ilu r es seem ed t o pr ove.Kennedy himself in tervened in the AEC-NASA/BudgetBureau-PSAC deadlock, visit ing Los Alamos and theNRDS in December 1962.

On 12 December 1962, Kennedy decided to postponeRIFT unt il a fter addit ional Kiwi-B ground tests hadoccurred, expla in ing tha t “the nuclear rocket . . . wouldbe useful for fur ther t r ips to the [M]oon or t r ips toMars. But we have a good many areas compet ing forour available space dollars, and we have to channel itin to those programs which will br ing a result—first ,ou r [M]oon la n din g, a n d t h en con sider Ma r s.”Kennedy’s decision marked the beginning of annualbat t les to secure cont inued nuclear rocket funding.7

At the May 1963 AAS Mars symposium in Denver,SNPO director Harold Finger pessimist ica lly repor tedthat nuclear rockets were not likely to fly unt il the mid-1970s.8 However, the four th Kiwi-B test , in August

1963, revealed tha t vibra t ion had indeed produced theear lier core fa ilures. The problem had a rela t ively easysolut ion, so NASA, AEC, and nuclear engine suppor tersin Con gr ess beca m e em bolden ed. Th ey pr essedKennedy to reverse h is December 1962 decision.

William House, Aerojet -Genera l’s Vice President forNuclear Rocket Engine Opera t ions, felt sufficient lyopt im ist ic in Oct ober 1963 t o t ell t h e Br it ishIn t erpla net a ry Society’s Symposium on Adva ncedPropulsion Systems tha t a Saturn V would launch a 33-foot-diameter RIFT test vehicle to orbit in 1967. Hepredicted tha t one NERVA stage would eventually beable to in ject 15 tons on direct course to Mars, or 3 tonson a three-year flight to distant Pluto.9

Kennedy never had the oppor tun ity to r econsider h isRIF T decis ion . Followin g t h e you n g P r esiden t ’sNovember 1963 a ssa ssina t ion , P residen t J ohnsontook up the quest ion . With an eye to con ta in ing gov-ernment expenditu res, he canceled RIFT in December1963 and made NERVA a ground-based resea rch andtechnology effor t .

The year 1964 saw the successful first ground test ofthe redesigned Kiwi-B engine and the first NERVAstar t -up tests. It a lso marked the nuclear rocket pro-gram’s peak funding year, with a join t AEC-NASAbudget of $181.1 million . Though NERVA was ground-ed, work proceeded under the assumpt ion tha t successwould eventually lead to clearance for flight .

The nuclear rocket program budget gradually declined,dropping to $140.3 million in FY 1967. NERVA did notcome under concer ted a t tack, however, unt il the bit terbat t le over the FY 1968 NASA budget . In August 1967,Congress deleted a ll advanced planning and MarsVoyager funds from NASA’s FY 1968 budget because itsaw them as lead-ins to a cost ly piloted Mars program,and J ohnson refused to save them (see chapter 4).NERVA funding was eliminated a t the same t ime.

Voyager had to wa it un t il FY 1969 to be resur rectedas Viking. Through Anderson’s in fluence, however,NERVA did bet t er—the nuclea r rocket program wasr est or ed wit h a com bin ed AE C-NASA bu dget of$127.2 m illion for F Y 1968. As if t o celebr a t eAnderson’s in terven t ion , the NRX-A6 ground t est inDecember 1967 saw a NERVA engine opera te for 60minu tes withou t a h it ch .


Chapter 5: Apogee


Boeing’s Behemoth

In J anuary 1968, the Boeing Company published thefina l repor t of a 14-month nuclear spacecraft study con-ducted under contract to NASA Langley. The study wasthe most deta iled descr ipt ion of an in terplanetary shipever under taken.10 As shown by the EMPIRE studies,t h e pr opella n t weigh t m in im iza t ion pr om ised bynuclear rockets tended to encourage big spacecraftdesigns. In fact , Boeing’s 582-foot long Mars cruisermarked the apogee of Mars ship design grandiosity.

At Ear th-orbita l depar ture, Boeing’s behemoth wouldinclude a 108-foot-long, 140.5-ton piloted spacecraftand a 474-foot-long propulsion sect ion made up of fivePr imary Propulsion Modules (PPMs). The ent ire space-craft would weigh between 1,000 and 2,000 tons, theexact weight being dependent upon the launch oppor-tunity used. Each 33-foot-diameter, 158-foot-long PPMwould hold 192.5 tons of liquid hydrogen. A 195,000-pound-thrust NERVA engine with an engine bell 13.5

feet in diameter would form the aft 40 feet of eachPPM. The six-person piloted spacecraft would consist ofa MEM lander, a four-deck Mission Module, and anEar th Entry Module.

Three PPMs would const itu te Propulsion Module-1(PM-1); two would const itu te PM-2 and PM-3, respec-t ively. PM-1 would push the ship out of Ear th orbittoward Mars, then detach; PM-2 would slow the ship sothat Mars’ gravity could capture it in to orbit , then itwould detach; and PM-3 would push the ship out ofMars orbit toward Ear th . At Ear th , the crew would sep-ara te in the Apollo CM-based Ear th Entry Module,reenter Ear th’s a tmosphere, and splash down a t sea .

Six upra ted Sa turn V rockets would place par t s forBoeing’s Mar s sh ip in Ea r th orbit for a ssembly.Assembly crews and the fligh t crew would reach thespacecraft in Apollo CSMs launched on Sa turn IBrockets. The 470-foot -ta ll upra ted Sa turn V, whichwould include four solid-fueled st rap-on rockets, would

Chapter 5: Apogee

Figu re 12—In January 1968, Boeing proposed this complex Mars expedit ion plan using nuclear rockets and an opposit ion-classtrajectory. The company’s Mars ship would measure near ly 200 meters long and support a crew of six. (In tegra ted MannedIn terplaneta ry Spacecra ft Concept Defin it ion , Vol. 1, Summary, D2-113544-1, Boeing Company, Aerospace Group, SpaceDivision , Seat t le, Wash ington , p. 7.)

be capable of deliver ing 274 tons to a 262-mile circu la rEar th orbit . Boeing envisioned modifying KSC SaturnV launch pads 39A and 39B to launch the upra tedSaturn V, and building a new Pad 39C nor th of theexist ing pads.

The company’s report listed opportunit ies for nineVenus-swingby, one conjunct ion-class, and five opposi-t ion-class Mars expedit ions between November 1978and J anuary 1998. The conjunct ion-class mission wouldlast 900 days, while the Venus-swingby and opposit ion-class missions would last from 460 to 680 days.

Boeing envisioned using the MOR mission plan NASALewis used in it s 1959-1961 studies. The MEM fordescending to Mars from Boeing’s orbit ing Mars sh ipwas designed for MSC between October 1966 andAugust 1967 by Nor th Amer ican Rockwell (NAR), the

Apollo CSM pr ime cont ractor.11 NAR’s MEM repor t ,published the same month as the Boeing repor t , wasthe fir st deta iled MEM study to incorpora te theMar iner 4 resu lt s. Cost min imiza t ion was a factor inNAR’s MEM design . The company proposed a 30-foot -diameter lander shaped like the conica l Apollo CM.The Apollo shape, it a rgued, was well understood andthus would require less cost ly development than anovel design .

The lightest NAR MEM (33 tons) would carry onlyenough life suppor t consumables to suppor t two peopleon Mars for four days, while the heaviest (54.5 tons)was a four-person, 30-day lander. Like the Apollo LunarModule (and many previous MEM designs), NAR’sMEM design included a descent stage and an ascentstage. The MEM would conta in two habitable areas—the ascent capsule and the descent stage lab compar t -


Chapter 5: Apogee

Figu re 13—Cutaway of North American Rockwell’s 1968 Mars lander. Based on the Apollo Command Module shape, its designincorporated new Mars a tmosphere data gathered during the 1965 Mariner 4 automated Mars flyby. (Manned Explora t ionRequirements and Considera t ions, Advanced Studies Office, Engineer ing and Development Directora te, NASA MannedSpacecraft Center, Houston, Texas, February 1971, p. 5-3.)


ment . The ascent capsule would include an Apollo dock-ing unit for linking the MEM to the mothership, andthe lab compar tment would include an a ir lock forreaching the Mart ian surface.

The MEM’s Apollo-st yle bowl-sha ped hea t sh ieldwould protect it from fr ict ion hea t ing dur ing Marsa tmosphere en t ry. To reduce cost , NAR proposed todevelop a single hea t sh ield design for both fligh tt est s in Ear th ’s a tmosphere and Mars a tmosphereen t ry. Th is mean t , of course, tha t the sh ield would bemore robust , and thus heavier, than one designed

specifica lly for Mars a tmosphere en t ry. Dur ing Marsa tmosphere en t ry the crew would feel seven Ear thgravit ies of decelera t ion .

After a tmospher ic en t ry, the MEM would slow it sdescen t using a drogue pa rachu te followed by a la rgerba llu te (ba lloon-pa rachu te). At an a lt itude of 10,000feet the ba llu te would detach . The MEM’s descen tengine would fir e; then two of the a st ronau t s wouldclimb from their couches to st and a t con t rols and pilotthe MEM to touchdown. The company proposed usingliqu id methane/liqu id oxygen propellan t s tha t would

Chapter 5: Apogee

Figu re 14—North American Rockwell’s plan for landing on Mars and returning to Mars orbit . The company’s lander, a two-stagedesign, would support up to four ast ronauts on Mars for up to 30 days and return to the orbit ing mothership with up to 300pounds of rocks. (In tegra ted Manned In terplaneta ry Spacecra ft Concept Defin it ion , Vol. 4, System Defin it ion , D2-113544-4,Boeing Company, Aerospace Group, Space Division , Seat t le, Wash ington , J anuary 1968, p. 145.)

offer h igh per formance bu t not r eadily boil off ordecompose. The MEM would ca r ry enough propellan t sfor two minu tes of hover. It s six landing legs wouldenable it t o set down sa fely on a 15-degree slope.

For return to the mothersh ip in Mars orbit , the crewwould st rap in to the ascent capsu le with their Marssamples and da ta . The ascent stage engine wouldignite, burn ing methane/oxygen propellan ts from eightst rap-on tanks. The ascent stage would blast awayfrom the descent stage, climb ver t ica lly for five sec-onds, then pitch over to steer toward orbit . Onceempty, the st rap-on tanks would fa ll away; the ascentengine would then draw on in terna l t anks to completeMars orbit inser t ion and rendezvous and docking withthe mothersh ip.

NAR had MEM development commencing in 1971 tosuppor t a 1982 Mars landing. The company envisioneda MEM flight test program using six MEM test a r t iclesand a range of rockets, including three two-stageSaturn Vs. The 1979 piloted MEM entry and landingtest , for example, would have a fu lly configured MEMlaunched in to Ear th orbit on a two-stage Saturn V witha piloted CSM on top. In orbit the CSM would detach,turn , and dock with the MEM for crew t ransfer. Thecrew would then cast off the CSM and fly the MEM tolanding on Ear th .

Boeing scheduled the first Mars expedit ion for 1985-1986, with Mars expedit ion contract awards in 1976,and Mars hardware tests in low-Ear th orbit beginningin 1978. NAR est imated development cost of it s MEMat $4.1 billion , while Boeing’s study placed tota l Marsprogram cost a t $29 billion .

End of an Era

As Aerospace Technology magazine put it in May 1968,“If the polit ica l climate in Washington for mannedplaneta ry missions is as bleak as the in it ia l congres-siona l budget hear ings indica te, the [NAR MEM]study is . . . likely to be the last of it s type for a t leasta year.”12 In fact , it was the last un t il the la te 1980s. Asthe ba t t le over the FY 1968 budget dur ing the summerof 1967 made abundant ly clear, a $29-billion Mars pro-gram enjoyed suppor t in neither the J ohnson WhiteHouse nor the Congress. Events in 1968 made even

more remote the possibility tha t the U.S. might take ona new Apollo-sca le space commitment .

On 30 J anuary 1968, immedia tely after Boeing andNAR published their repor ts, Nor th Vietnam invadedSouth Vietnam on the eve of Tet , the lunar new year.Though repulsed by U. S. and South Vietnamese forces,the la rge-sca le offensive drove home to Americans andthe J ohnson White House tha t American involvementin Indochina would likely grow before it shrank.

At t he end of May, the Defense Depa r tmen t a sked fora $3.9-billion supplemen ta l appropr ia t ion . Of t h is,$2.9 billion wa s ea r m a r ked t o pa y for t h e TetOffen s ive—t h e Defen se Depa r t m en t n eeded, forexample, t o r eplace 700 dest royed helicopter s—while$1 billion wou ld beef up U.S. defenses in Sou th Koreafollowing the Pueblo inciden t , in wh ich Nor th Koreaseized a U.S. sh ip.13 A tot a l of 14,592 Amer ican sol-dier s had been killed in Vietnam by the close of 1968,by wh ich t ime the t ot a l U.S. forces in Indoch ina stooda t more t han ha lf a million .

There was a lso t rouble a t home. J ohnson was a polit i-ca l casua lty of Tet and other t roubles shaking thena t ion . On 31 March 1968, he announced tha t hewould not stand for reelect ion . On 4 Apr il 1968, civilr igh ts leader Mar t in Luther King J r. was gunned downin Memphis, Tennessee; h is dea th t r iggered racia l vio-lence across the count ry. Tha t same month students a tColumbia University in New York seized buildings toprotest the Vietnam War in one of more than 200major demonst ra t ions a t some 100 universit ies dur ingthe year. On 6 J une 1968, Democra t ic Par ty fron t -run-ner Rober t Kennedy was shot in Los Angeles. InAugust , an t iwar protesters disrupted the Democra t icNat iona l Convent ion .

Near the star t of the FY 1969 budget cycle in ear lyFebruary 1968, as American and South Vietnameseforces pushed back the North Vietnamese, J ames Webbtest ified to the House Space Commit tee, where a $4 bil-lion FY 1969 NASA budget was, according to one com-mit tee staffer, a “fa it accompli.” He reminded theCommit tee tha t

NASA’s 1969 author iza t ion request , a t the$4.37-billion level, is $700 million below theamount requested last year. NASA expendi-tures for Fisca l 1969 will be down $230 million


Chapter 5: Apogee

from this year, $850 million from last year, and$1.3 billion less than in Fisca l 1966. The NASAprogram has been cut . I hope you will decide ithas been cut enough . . . .14

In test imony to the Senate Appropr ia t ions Commit teein May, after the House approved a $4-billion NASAbudget , Webb told the Senators tha t President J ohnsonh a d dir ect ed h im t o a cqu iesce t o t h e cu t , t h enexpressed concern over NERVA’s fu ture.15 The nuclearrocket stayed a live in ear ly J une 1968 only after alengthy Senate floor ba t t le waged by Howard Cannon(Democrat -Nevada), whose sta te included the NRDS.Webb told the Senate Appropr ia t ions Commit tee la tertha t month tha t the $4-billion NASA budget wouldrequire ha lt ing Saturn V product ion for a year and can-celing NERVA. In an a t tempt to ra lly NERVA suppor t -ers to approve their engine’s r ide in to space, he addedtha t “to proceed with NERVA while t ermina t ingSaturn V cannot be just ified.”16

On 1 August 1968, Webb turned down George Mueller ’srequest to make long lead-t ime purchases for manufac-ture of two more Saturn V’s, the sixteenth and seven-teenth in the ser ies. He informed the OMSF chief tha tproduct ion would halt with the fifteen a lready a llot tedfor the Apollo lunar program.17 A week la ter Webb toldCongress tha t “the fu ture is not br ight” for the Saturnrockets.18

At a White House press conference on 16 September1968, Webb announced that he would step down afternearly 8 years as NASA Administrator. He told journal-ists that he left the Agency “well prepared . . . to carry outthe missions that have been approved . . . . What we havenot been able to do under the pressures on the budgethas been to fund new missions for the 1970s . . . .”19

Thomas Paine Takes Charge

The fina l FY 1969 NASA budget was $3.995 billion ,making it the first below $4 billion since 1963. This wasmore than $370 million below NASA’s request , buta lmost exact ly what J ohnson had told Webb to acceptin May. The Saturn V product ion line went on standby.The nuclear rocket program received $91.1 million , ofwhich $33.1 million came from NASA funds.

NASA Deputy Administ ra tor Thomas Paine becameAct ing NASA Administ ra tor upon Webb’s depar ture on7 October. Webb, a 25-year veteran of Federa l govern-ment service, had descr ibed Paine as one of a “newbreed of scient ist -administ ra tors making their way in togovernment .”20 Formerly director of Genera l Elect r ic’sTEMPO think tank, he had entered government ser-vice through a program for recruit ing managers fromin du st r y. Pa in e h a d becom e Webb’s Depu t yAdm in ist r a t or in Ma r ch 1968, r epla cin g Rober tSeamans. When he took over NASA from Webb, Painehad seven months of Federa l government exper ience.

Immedia tely after taking NASA’s reins, Paine told theSenate Space Commit tee tha t he would seek a $4.5 bil-lion NASA budget in FY 1970, followed by annualincreases leading to a $5.5-billion budget in FY 1975.Paine sa id tha t he wanted a six- to n ine-man space sta-t ion serviced by Apollo CSMs in the mid-1970s. GeorgeMueller a lso test ified, ca lling for a $4.5-billion NASAbudget in FY 1970. He sa id tha t th is was necessary toavoid a gap in piloted flights after the Apollo lunarlandings.21

On 30 October 1968, the Budget Bureau completed a“h igh ligh t s” paper on “ma jor a spect s of Na t iona lAeronau t ics and Space opera t ions which war ran ta t tent ion a t an ear ly point in 1969” for PresidentJ ohnson’s successor. The paper noted tha t “pressure ismount ing to budget significant sums for follow-onmanned space flight act ivit ies.” It sta ted tha t “theadvantages of nuclear propulsion do not begin toapproximate the costs for missions shor t of a mannedMars landing. No nat ional commitment has been madeto under take th is mission[,] which would cost $40-$100B[illion] . . . never theless, pressures are st rong inNASA, indust ry, and Congress to under take the devel-opment of the nuclear rocket .”22

Republican Richard Nixon defea ted Huber t Humphrey,J ohnson’s Vice President , for the White House inNovember. Though Apollo 7 had t r iumphant ly returnedNASA ast ronauts to orbit in October, space had beenovershadowed as a campaign issue by the war, theeconomy, student revolt , and many other “down-to-Ear th” issues. Nixon had promised a tax cut , whichpromised to place yet more pressure on Federa l agen-cies to cut spending.


Chapter 5: Apogee

Six weeks a ft er t h e elect ion , in t h e J oh n sonAdminist ra t ion’s twilight days, space flight won backthe front page. On 21 December 1968, Apollo 8 ast ro-nau ts Frank Borman , J ames Lovell, and WilliamAnders became the first people to launch in to space ona Saturn V rocket and the first humans to orbit a wor ldother than Ear th . The Apollo 8 CSM dropped behindthe Moon ear ly on 24 December and fired it s engine forfour minutes to slow down and a llow the Moon’s grav-ity to capture it in to lunar orbit .

Thir ty-five minutes after the spacecraft passed beyondthe Moon’s limb, it emerged from the other side. As itdid, Ear th rose in to view over the h illy lunar hor izon,and the crew snapped their planet ’s picture. Lovelldescr ibed the Moon to people on Ear th as “essent ia llygray, no color ; looks like plaster of Par is or sor t of gray-ish deep sand.”23 Later, in one of the most memorablemoments of the space age, the crew took turns readingto the wor ld from the biblica l book of Genesis. Ear ly onChristmas Day 1968, after 10 lunar orbits, the Apollo 8crew fired their CSM’s engine to escape the Moon’sgravita t ional pull and fa ll back to Ear th .

Originally Apollo 8 was intended as an Earth-orbital testof the Saturn V and the Lunar Module Moon lander, butthe Lunar Module was not ready. Sending Apollo 8 toorbit the Moon was first proposed in August 1968 byGeorge Low, director of the Apollo Spacecraft ProgramOffice at MSC, and was eagerly promoted by Tom Painedespite init ial skepticism from NASA AdministratorWebb.24 Because the crew lacked a Lunar Module, theylacked the backup propulsion and life support systems itcould provide. These would come in handy dur ingJ ames Lovell’s next flight to the Moon on Apollo 13 inApril 1970.

The image of Ear th r ising in to view over the pit ted grayMoon fea tured prominent ly on end-of-year magazinesand newspapers. It formed a counterpoint of fragilebeauty and bold human achievement tha t accentuatedthe war, dissent , and assassinat ions of 1968. This wasreflected in Nixon’s fir st inaugura l speech on 20J anuary 1969:

We h ave fou n d ou r selves r ich in goods, bu tr a gged in spir it ; r ea ch in g wit h m a gn ificen tpr ecision for t h e Moon , bu t fa llin g in t o r a u -cou s discor d on E a r t h . We a r e ca u gh t in wa r,

wa n t in g pea ce. We a r e t or n by division s,wa n t in g u n it y.25

Democrat Paine submit ted h is resignat ion pro formawhen Republican Nixon took office. Surpr isingly, Nixondid not accept it . Though Avia t ion Week & SpaceTechnology repor ted tha t Nixon was impressed by thejob Paine had done since coming to NASA, the rea l rea-sons were apparent ly less mer itor ious.26 Nixon hadnever shown much in terest in space and could find noideologica lly suitable replacement who wanted to headNASA. He may a lso have desired to have a Democrat inplace to blame if the Kennedy/J ohnson Apollo programfailed.27 Pa ine was confirmed as NASA Administ ra torin March 1969.

Being a Democra t in a Republican administ ra t ion wasenough to leave Pa ine in a weak posit ion . On top oftha t , however, Pa ine was a Washington neophyte.Webb had been wily, a Washington insider given todea l-making; Pa ine was an idea list given to emot ivearguments. Pa ine was, according to NASA Histor ianRoger Launius, “every bit as zea lous for h is cause ashad been h is namesake.” Fur thermore, he was “unwill-ing to compromise and . . . publicly cr it ica l of the[Nixon] administ ra t ion’s lack of st rong act ion” withregards to space.28 He excor ia ted h is Center directorsfor lacking boldness. He considered th is disloyal to h isview of America , the expansive country, ready to tackleany challenge.29

To Paine, the late 1960s was not a t ime to try men’s souls.He complained to the Washington Evening Star of “whatI would call almost a national hypochondria . . . in manyways crippling some of the forward-looking things we’reable to do . . . I feel that one of the very highest prioritymatters is the war on poverty and the problems of thecities. But in the meantime we’re making . . . a lot ofprogress in t he civil r igh t s a r ea and r ea lly, t h isna t ion is a good dea l hea lth ier t han we’re giving itcr edit for t oday.”30

Pa ine t r ied to use the excitement genera ted by Apollo8 as a lever to ga in Nixon’s commitment to an expan-sive post -Apollo fu ture for NASA. His effor t s werecountered by voices counseling cau t ion . Nixon hadappoin ted “t ransit ion commit tees” to help char t acourse for h is new Administ ra t ion . On 8 J anuary 1969,the Task Force on Space t ransit ion commit tee, cha iredby Char les Townes, handed in it s repor t . The Task


Chapter 5: Apogee

Force, made up of 13 technologist s and scien t ist s, re-commended aga inst new sta r t s and proposed a steadyNASA budget of $4 billion per year “a ra ther fruga lamount” equiva len t to “three-quar ters of one percentof GNP [Gross Nat iona l Product ].”31

The Task Force counseled cont inued lunar explora t ionafter the in it ia l Apollo Moon landings and advisedNixon to postpone a decision on a la rge space sta t ionand the reusable shut t le vehicle needed to resupply iteconomically. The pr imary purpose of the sta t ion was, itsa id, “to test man’s ability for an extended spaceflightover t imes of a year or more, so tha t the pract ica lity ofa manned planeta ry mission cou ld be examined.However, the desirability of such a mission is not yetclear . . . .”32

The Task Force recommendat ions resembled those inthe February 1967 PSAC repor t , and with good rea-son—the membership list s of the two groups werea lm ost iden t ica l. On e n ew a ddit ion wa s Rober tSeamans, Secretary of the Air Force, who had beenNASA Deputy Administ ra tor when the PSAC had sub-mit ted it s 1967 repor t .

Even as the Task Force presented it s recommendat ionsto Nixon, Paine’s opt imist ic plans for NASA’s FY 1970budget foundered. President J ohnson’s FY 1970 budgetrequest for NASA, released 15 J anuary 1969, was $3.88billion—$800 million less than the $4.7 billion “opt i-mum” figure Paine had given the Budget Bureau inNovember and more than $100 million less than whatPaine had sa id was the “minimum acceptable.” WhenNixon’s Budget Bureau chief, Rober t Mayo, askedagency heads a week la ter to fur ther t r im the J ohnsonbudget , Paine pushed for a $198-million increase. Mayoquickly rebuffed Paine’s request .33 Nixon’s FY 1970budget went to Congress on 15 April. NASA’s share was$3.82 billion , of which Congress eventually appropr ia t -ed $3.75 billion .

Space Task Group

Paine pointed to the Task Force on Space repor t as anexample of what he did not want for NASA’s fu ture.34 Ata NASA meet ing on space sta t ions held in February a tLangley, Paine invoked instead von Braun’s Collier ’sar t icles.35 Following the meet ing, Avia t ion Week &Spa ce Tech n ology m a ga zin e r epor t ed t h a t NASA

planned a 100-person space sta t ion by 1980, with first12-person module to be launched on a modified SaturnV in 1975.36

Nixon’s science advisor, Lee Dubr idge, t r ied to getau thor ity to set NASA’s fu tu re course, in pa r t becausehe sensed Pa ine’s a ims were too expansive, bu t Pa ineprotested. On 13 Februa ry 1969, Presiden t Nixon sen ta memorandum to Dubr idge, Pa ine, Defense Secreta ryMelvin La ird, and Vice Presiden t Spiro Agnew, askingthem to set up a Space Task Group (STG) to provideadvice on NASA’s fu tu re.37 On 17 Februa ry, Nixonsolicit ed Pa ine’s advice on the agency’s direct ion .Pa ine’s long, deta iled let t er of 26 Februa ry sough t tostep a round the STG process and secure from Nixonea r ly en dor sem en t of a spa ce s t a t ion .38 In h isresponse, Nixon polit ely r eminded Pa ine of the newlyformed STG.39

STG meet ings began on 7 March 1969. In addit ion tot h e fou r vot in g m em ber s, t h e gr ou p in clu dedobser ver s: Glen n Sea bor g of t h e AE C; U. AlexisJ ohnson , Under Secreta ry of Sta te for Polit ica l Affa ir s;and, most in fluent ia l, the Budget Bureau’s Mayo.Rober t Seamans stood in for Melvin La ird. The STGch a ir wa s Agn ew, a n ot h er Wa sh in gt on n eoph yt e.Misreading the Vice President ’s impor tance with in theNixon Administ ra t ion , Pa ine focused h is effor t s onwooing Agnew to h is cause. Much of the STG’s workwas conducted outside formal STG meet ings, whichoccur red infrequent ly.

NASA’s STG posit ion became based on the In tegra tedProgram Plan (IPP) developed by Mueller ’s OMSF,which was first formally descr ibed to Paine in a repor tdated 12 May.40 Mueller a t t r ibuted many of it s conceptsto a NASA Science and Technica l Advisory Councilmeet ing held in La J olla , California , in December 1968.Though concerned most ly with Ear th-orbita l and cis-lunar missions, the repor t proposed tha t “the subsys-tems, procedures and even vehicles” for such missions“be developed with a view towards their possible use ina fu ture planetary program . . . .”41

The IPP schedule was aggressive even by 1960s Moonrace standards. Between 1970 and 1975, NASA wouldconduct a dozen Apollo lunar expedit ions and launchand opera te three AAP space sta t ions—two in Ear thorbit and one in lunar polar orbit . The year 1975 wouldsee the debut of the reusable Ear th-orbita l Space


Chapter 5: Apogee


Shut t le, which could carry a 25-ton, 40-foot-long, 22-foot-wide payload in it s cargo bay.

Shut t le payloads would include a standardized spacesta t ion module housing up to 12 ast ronauts, a propul-sion module usable as a piloted Moon lander or SpaceTug, and tanks conta in ing liquid hydrogen propellantfor the NERVA-equipped Nuclear Shut t le, which wouldfirst reach Ear th orbit on an upra ted Saturn V in 1977.Significant ly, Mueller ’s IPP gave NERVA a non-Marsmission as par t of a la rger reusable t ranspor ta t ion sys-tem in cislunar space. Up to 12 ast ronauts would con-duct a Mars flight simula t ion aboard the Space Sta t ionin Ear th orbit from 1975 to 1978, and 1978 would seeestablishment of a Lunar Base.

By 1980, 30 ast ronauts would live and work in cis-lunar space a t any one t ime. Four Nuclear Shut t lefligh ts and 42 Space Shut t le fligh ts per year wouldsuppor t t he Space Sta t ion P rogram. Six Nuclea rShut t le fligh ts, 48 Space Shut t le fligh ts, and eigh tSpace Tug Moon lander fligh ts per year would suppor tthe Lunar Base Program.

NASA’s Big Gun

Paine liked Mueller ’s ambit ious IPP. He asked Wernhervon Braun to make it even more expansive by buildinga Mars mission concept onto it in t ime for a 4 Augustpresenta t ion to the STG. The presenta t ion was t imed tocapita lize on the enthusiasm and excitement genera tedby the first Apollo Moon landing mission, which was setto lift off on 16 J uly 1969.

Paine saw von Braun as “NASA’s big gun.” He believedtha t the space fligh t sa lesmanship for which theGerman-born rocketeer was famous could st ill helpshape the fu ture of American space flight as it had inthe previous two decades. According to Von Braun, “itwas an effor t of a very few weeks to put a very consis-tent and good and plausible story together.”42

Meanwhile, Paine’s effor ts to woo Agnew were, itappeared, beginning to pay off. At the Apollo 11 launch,the Vice President spoke of h is “individual feeling” thatthe United Sta tes should set “the simple, ambit ious,opt imist ic goal of a manned flight to Mars by the end ofthe century.”43

On 20 J uly, Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong andLunar Module Pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldr in landed thespider-like Lunar Module Eagle on the Moon’s Sea ofTranquillity. At the star t of humanity’s first two-hourMoon walk, Aldr in descr ibed the landscape as a “mag-n ificen t desola t ion .” Th e a st r on a u t s r em a in ed a tTr a n qu illit y Ba se for 21 h ou r s befor e r ejoin in gCommand Module Pilot Michael Collins aboard theCSM Columbia in lunar orbit . On 24 J uly 1969, theysplashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean, achievingthe goal Kennedy had set eight years before.

In repor t ing the Apollo 11 landing, the Los AngelesHerald-Examiner pointed to space-age spin-offs, suchas “new paints and plast ics,” then predicted tha t “theMars goal should br ing benefit s to a ll mankind evengr ea t er t h a n t h e . . . [M]oon pr ogr a m .”44 Th ePhiladelph ia Inquirer ant icipa ted opposit ion to a Marsprogram; it asked, “will the inspira t ion be abandonedbefore the veiled censure of those who seem to suggestthe solut ion of a ll human dilemmas lies in turningaway from space to other pr ior it ies?”45

Aviat ion Week & Space Technology reported that “[s]paceofficials sense that public interest is near an all-t imehigh . . . .”46 Yet polls taken at the t ime did not indicatestrong public support for Mars explorat ion. A Gallup pollshowed that the majority of people polled aged under 30years favored going on to Mars; however, a larger major-ity of those over 30 opposed. Taken together, 53 percentof Americans opposed a Mars mission, 39 percentfavored it , and 8 percent had no opinion.47

In addit ion to the polls, new automated probe data sup-plied Mars mission det ractors with ammunit ion. TheMariner 6 spacecraft had left Ear th on 24 February,just before STG meet ings began. On 31 J uly 1969, asPaine and von Braun put the fin ishing touches on their4 August pitch , it flew over the southern hemisphere ofMars, snapping 74 gra iny images of a forbidding land-scape pocked by cra ters. A fea ture known to Ear th-based t elescopic observers a s Nix Olympica (“theOlympian Snows”) appeared as a 300-mile cra ter witha br ight cent ra l pa tch .

The spacecraft ’s twin , Mariner 7, had left Ear th on 26March. It flew over Mars’ southern hemisphere on 5August 1969, snapping 126 images of the smooth-floored Hellas basin , the heavily cra tered Hellespontusregion, and the south pole ice cap. The probes seemed

Chapter 5: Apogee

to confirm the pessimist ic picture pa inted by Mariner 4in 1965. The New York Times noted tha t NASA had“begun drumming up pressure to spend huge sumsrequired to send men to Mars in the ear ly 1980s . . . .But the la test Mariner informat ion makes the possibil-ity of life on Mars much less than it seemed even aweek ago, thus removing much of the or iginal mot iva-t ion for such a project .”48

NASA’s 4 August STG presenta t ion had three par ts,lasted 55 minutes, and took in to account neither theopinion polls nor the new Mars da ta . In the first par t ,Paine spent 20 minutes descr ibing the “mystery, chal-lenge, r ich potent ia l, and impor tance to man of thesolar system” and “how the United Sta tes can movefrom [the] star t represented by Apollo to explora t ion ofthe ent ire solar system with a program requir ing onlya modest investment of our na t ional resources.”49

Von Braun followed Pa ine and spent 30 minutesdescr ibing a piloted Mars expedit ion in 1982. His pres-enta t ion formed the hear t and soul of NASA’s STGpitch .50 In ret rospect , it a lso marked the apogee of vonBraun’s career.

Von Braun drew on a sizable library of conceptual Marsspacecra ft a r t genera t ed in t he Marsha ll Fu tu reProjects Office to show Mayo, Dubr idge, Seamans,J ohnson, Seaborg, and Agnew vehicles similar to the

Boeing Mars cruiser and the NAR MEM. In his IPP-based plan , the MEM was the only piece of hardwareapplicable only to Mars flight . All other vehicle ele-ments would, he expla ined, be developed for cislunarroles. MEM go-ahead in 1974 would mark de facto com-mitment to a 1982 Mars expedit ion . The first space sta-t ion module, the design of which would provide thebasis for the Mars ship Mission Module, would fly in1975, as would the first Ear th-orbita l Space Shut t le.The year 1978 would see the MEM test flight ; then, in1981, the first Mars mission would depar t Ear th orbitfor a Mars landing in 1982.

The Mars mission would employ two Mars spacecraftconsist ing of three Nuclear Shut t les ar ranged side byside and a Mission Module. The complete spacecraftwould measure 100 feet across the Nuclear Shut t lesand 270 feet long. All modules would reach orbit onupgraded Saturn V rockets. After the twin expedit ionships were assembled, reusable Space Shut t les wouldlaunch water, food, some propellant , and two six-personcrews to the wait ing Mars ships. At Ear th-orbit launch,

each ship would mass 800 tons, of which 75 percent washydrogen propellant .

Von Braun targeted Mars expedit ion departure for 12November 1981. The por t and st a rboa rd Nuclea rShut t les would then fire their NERVA engines, achieve


Chapter 5: Apogee

Figure 15—Twin Mars sh ips blast their a ll-male crews fromEar th orbit using NERVA nuclea r rocket stages. In August1969, Wernher von Braun used images such as th is to pres-ent NASA’s vision of a Mars expedit ion in the 1980s to theSpace Task Group and to Congress. (NASA Photo MSFC-69-PD-SA-176)

F igu re 16—Compa red with cr a mped Apollo spa cecr a ft , thelodgin gs pr oposed for NASA’s 1980s Mars sh ips were pa la -t ia l. In t h is cu t away, note the fou r-deck Mission Modu le(cen t er ) a n d la r ge con ica l Ma rs la n der (r igh t ). (NASAPhoto S-69-56295)


Trans-Mars Inject ion, and shut down and separate fromthe center Nuclear Shut t le and Mission Module. Theywould turn around and fire their engines again to slowdown and enter ellipt ical Earth orbit . A few days la terthey would reach per igee (lowest point above the Earth)at the or iginal assembly orbit a lt itude, fire their enginesto circular ize their orbits, and rendezvous with theSpace Stat ion for refurbishment and re-use. The shipswould weigh 337.5 tons each after port and starboardNuclear Shut t le separat ion.

As in the Planetary J AG piloted flyby missions, thenine-month coast to Mars would be “by no means anidle phase.” The ships each would serve as “a mannedlabora tory in space, free of the disturbing influences ofthe Ear th .” According to von Braun, “[t ]he fact tha tthere will be two observat ion points, Ear th and space-craft , permits severa l possible exper iments.” In addi-t ion , “as yet unident ified comets might be observed forthe first t ime.”51

Von Braun had the twin Mars sh ips reaching Mars on9 August 1982. Each would fire the NERVA engine onit s remain ing Nuclear Shut t le to slow down and en terMars orbit . At Mars Orbit Inser t ion each spacecraftwould weigh 325 tons. The crews would then spendtwo days select ing landing sites for the expedit ion’s 12automated Sample Return Probes. The probes wou ldland, r et r ieve samples uncon tamina t ed by humancon tact , and lift off, t hen deliver t he samples au to-ma t ica lly t o st er ilized bio-labs on the sh ips for study.

If the samples conta ined no hazards, a three-man land-ing par ty would descend to the surface in one of the47.5-ton MEMs. The other would be held in reserve—von Braun expla ined tha t “capability is provided forone man to land a MEM and br ing a st randed crewback to the ship.” He promised tha t “Man’s first step onMars will be no less excit ing than Neil Armstrong’sfirst step on the Moon.”52

The ast ronauts would then spend between 30 and 60days on Mars. Von Braun listed object ives for Mart ianexplora t ion, including the following:

• Understand Mart ian geology “because Marsprobably closely para lleled the ear th in or iginand . . . development .”

• Search for life—von Braun stated that “prelim-inary data indicate that some lower forms of life

can survive in the Martian environment . . . inisolated areas higher forms . . . may exist . Manon Mars will [also] be able to study . . . thebehavior of terrestr ial life forms transplanted tothe Martian environment.”

• “Dr illing for . . . wa ter will be an ea r ly objec-t ive . . . and it s discovery wou ld open manypossibilit ies . . . . For example, it m igh tbecome possible t o produce rocket fuel for t heretu rn t r ip on la t er missions.”53

The landing par ty would lift off in the MEM ascentstage using the descent stage as a launch pad. Theascent stage would dock with the orbit ing ship and thecrew would t ransfer 900 pounds of samples and equip-ment , then would discard the expended ascent stage.The ships would ignite their center Nuclear Shut t les toleave Mars on 28 October 1982, after 80 days near theplanet . The ships would weigh 190 tons each pr ior toMars orbit depar ture.

Von Braun told the STG that the twin Mars shipswould fly by Venus on 28 February 1983, to use theplanet ’s gravity to slow their approach to Ear th , there-by reducing the amount of braking propellant neededto enter Ear th orbit . Dur ing swingby the ast ronautswould map Venus’ cloud-shrouded surface with radarand deploy four automated probes.

Von Braun scheduled return to Ear th for 14 August1983. He noted tha t an Apollo-style direct reent ry waspossible; however, unt il “a bet ter assessment can bemade of the back contaminat ion hazard (the return byman of pa thogens tha t might prove harmful to ear thinhabitants), a more conservat ive approach has beenplanned, i.e., the return of the crew to ear th orbit for aquaran t ine per iod.”54 The cen ter Nuclea r Shu t t leswould place the Mission Modules in Ear th orbit andperform rendezvous with the Space Sta t ion, where doc-tors would examine the ast ronauts. The Mars shipswould weigh 80 tons each a t mission’s end, one-tenth oftheir Ear th-depar ture weight . Following their quaran-t ine per iod, the crew would return to Ear th aboard aSpace Shut t le. The center Nuclear Shut t les, mean-while, would be refurbished and reused.

He then looked beyond the first expedit ion , sta t ing tha taddit ional flights to Mars could occur dur ing the per i-ods 1983-84, 1986-87, and 1988-89. The 50-person MarsBase might be established in 1989, in t ime for the 20th

Chapter 5: Apogee


anniversary of von Braun’s presenta t ion. Von Brauntold the STG that NASA’s budget would peak a t $7 bil-lion per year in 1975, or about 0.6 percent of GNP, andthat it would level out a t $5 billion in 1989, a t whicht ime it s share of GNP would be 0.3 percent .55 Thisassumed steady 4 percent annual growth in the U.S.economy. In h is closing remarks, Paine put the cost alit t le h igher than had von Braun; he told the other STGmembers tha t “[t ]h is kind of program would be possiblefor the United Sta tes with a budget r ising to about $9billion [per year] in the last ha lf of the decade.”56

“Now Is Not the Time . . .”

NASA’s vision was brea th t aking, bu t st ood lit t lech a n ce of a ccept a n ce in 1969 Am er ica . Rober tSeamans appears to have been genera lly sympathet icto Pa ine’s vision , yet cognizant of polit ica l and eco-nomic rea lit ies. He a r r ived a t the 4 August meet ingwith a let ter for Agnew laying out a less expansiveview of Amer ica’s fu ture in space—one simila r to therecommendat ions made by the t ransit ion Task Forcein J anuary. Seamans wrote, “I don’t believe we shouldcommit th is Nat ion to a manned planeta ry mission , a tleast un t il the feasibility and need a re more firmlyestablished. Exper ience must be ga ined in an orbit ingspace sta t ion before manned planeta ry missions canbe planned.” Then he recommended aga inst ea r ly com-mitment to a space sta t ion .

Seamans advised instead tha t NASA should expandAAP and cont inue lunar explora t ion “on a careful step-by-step basis reviewing scient ific da ta from one flightbefore going to the next .” He differed from the t ransi-t ion Task Force by recommending “a program to studyby exper imenta l means including orbita l tests the pos-sibility of a Space Transpor ta t ion System that wouldpermit the cost per pound in orbit to be reduced by asubstant ia l factor (ten t imes or more).”57 Avia t ion Week& Spa ce Tech n ology h a d by t h is t im e a lr ea dy pr e-dict ed t h a t t h e STG wou ld r ecom m en d a r eu sa bleSpa ce Sh u t t le a s NASA’s post -Apollo focu s.58

On 5 August , the day Mariner 7 flew past Mars, Paineand von Braun presented their pitch to the SenateSpace Commit tee. Clin ton Anderson, it s chair, had ineffect a lready responded to the presenta t ion; on 29 J uly1969, he sa id tha t “now is not the t ime to commit our-selves to the goal of a manned mission to Mars.”59

Coming from Anderson, th is was ominous and some-

what puzzling. The New Mexico Senator had backedNASA since it s bir th , in la rge par t because the Agencygave the nuclear rocket program he suppor ted fundingand a raison d’être. His reject ion of Mars placed him ina dilemma—how could he back nuclear propulsion yetnot suppor t what was widely seen as it s chief mission?Other Space Commit tee members had simila r reac-t ions to NASA’s presen ta t ion . Sena tor Mark Hat field(Republican-Oregon) told Pa ine and von Braun tha t hesuppor ted the space program, but was “not rea llyready, a t th is poin t . . . to make commitments . . . tomeet a deadline to get a man to Mars.” Sena torMargaret Chase Smith (Republican-Maine) namedPaine’s game, saying tha t the government “shouldavoid making long-range plans dur ing th is emot iona lper iod [following Apollo 11] . . . otherwise we maybecome involved in a crash program without the just i-fica t ion we had for Apollo—and therefore without thefu ll suppor t of Congress.”60

Despite the clear signals from Congress, the STGremained split between Washington neophytes and oldhands, with the former stubbornly preaching Mars andthe la t ter counseling something less expansive. Rober tMayo broke the deadlock when he proposed tha t thegroup offer the President severa l pacing opt ions con-t ingent on available funds.61

Paine and Mueller then took their case to the publicwith a presentat ion to the Nat ional Press Club. Muellerpainted a picture of NASA’s space act ivit ies in 1979,when, he said, more than 200 people would work inspace at one t ime. Most would be scat tered in facilit iesbetween Earth orbit and the lunar surface; however, 12would be en route to Mars in two ships.62 Aviat ion Week& Space Technology editor Robert Hotz a t tended thePress Club ta lks and became swept up in NASA’s vision.In his editor ia l following the ta lks he took a page fromPaine’s book, writ ing that

the Apollo 11 mission has opened an endlessfron t ier wh ich mankind must explore. Man isext ending h is doma in from the 8,000-mile-diameter of h is home planet ea r th t o t he 8-billion -mile diameter of t he sola r syst em . . . .Hopefu lly [t he P residen t ] will not e t ha t on lyby set t ing ext r emely h igh goa ls have ext r aor -dina ry r esu lt s been ach ieved . . . . We th inkDr. Pa in e m a de a t ellin g poin t wh en h ewarned aga inst est ablish ing fu tu re goa ls t oolow.63

Chapter 5: Apogee

Con gr ess, m ea n wh ile, voiced m or e r eser va t ion s.George Miller (Democra t -Ca liforn ia ), cha ir of t heHouse Commit t ee on Science and Ast ronau t ics, didnot wan t “to commit t o a specific t ime per iod for set -t ing sa il t o Mars.” Miller was not opposed to going toMars on pr inciple; in fact , he believed it “h igh ly prob-able t ha t five, perhaps 10 yea r s from now we maydecide t ha t it wou ld be in t he na t iona l in t er est t obegin a ca refu lly planned program extending oversevera l yea r s t o send men to Mars.”64

J. W. Fulbr ight (Democrat -Arkansas), Commit tee onForeign Rela t ions chair, sought to put Apollo in properperspect ive as an element of 1960s realpolit ik: “The[Apollo 11] landing ca lled for th a grea t deal of poet izingabout the human spir it burst ing ear th ly bounds . . . . Ina ll th is I perceive not humbug . . . but ra ther more sen-tent iousness than pla in hard t ru th . Americans went tothe Moon for a number of reasons of which, I am con-vinced, the most impor tant by far was to beat theRussians.”65 Sending American ast ronauts on to Marshad nothing to do with beat ing the Russians. Therefore,Fulbr ight saw lit t le cause to suppor t such a mission.

America’s Next Decades in Space

NASA released it s repor t America’s Next Decades inSpace: A Report to the Space Task Group on 15September 1969.66 Paine was the pr incipal author ofthe repor t , which a imed to promote NASA’s STG posi-t ion . In ret rospect the repor t marked the apogee ofNASA Mars expedit ion planning. With a note of pr ideit pointed out tha t , in NASA’s first decade,

the Amer ican space program progressed fromthe 31-pound Explorer 1 in ea r th orbit t oApollo spacecra ft weigh ing 50 tons sen t ou t t othe moon [and] from manned fligh t s of a fewthousand miles and 15-minu te du ra t ion tothe 500,000 mile round-t r ip 8-day [Apollo 11]mission wh ich landed men on the [M]oon andretu rned them sa fely t o [E ]a r th .67

The NASA repor t then appealed to President Nixon toth ink of h is place in h istory, and to see h is decision asan unprecedented oppor tunity:

At the moment of it s grea test t r iumph, thespace program of the United Sta tes faces a cru-cia l situa t ion. Decisions made th is year will

affect the course of space act ivity for decades tocome . . . . This Administ ra t ion has a uniqueoppor tunity to determine the long-term futureof the Nat ion’s space progress. We recommend-ed tha t the United Sta tes adopt as a cont inuinggoal the explora t ion of the solar system . . . . Tofocus our developments and in tegra te our pro-grams, we recommend tha t the United Sta tesprepare for manned planetary expedit ions inthe 1980s.68

Not surpr isingly, the NASA repor t ’s program closelyresembled the one Paine and von Braun descr ibed intheir 4 August STG presenta t ion. Cont inued pilotedlunar explora t ion after Apollo would, the NASA repor tprocla imed, “expand man’s domain to include the[M]oon” by establishing a lunar base. This would laygroundwork for a piloted Mars expedit ion in the 1980s.As Mayo had proposed, the NASA repor t descr ibeddiffer en t program ra t es, each with a differ en t da t e forr each ing Mars, t he u lt ima te goa l of a ll t he programs.The “maximum ra t e,” in wh ich money was no objectand on ly t he pace of t echnology cou ld slow NASA’srush to Mars, schedu led the fir st Mar s expedit ion for1981. P rogram I launched the fir st expedit ion in1983, wh ile P rogram II, t he pacing opt ion favored byAgnew, pu t it in 1986. P rogram III was iden t ica l t oP rogram II, except t ha t no da t e was specified for t hefir st Mar s expedit ion .

The STG report proper, The Post-Apollo Space Program:Directions for the Future, was a lso published on 15September 1969. It had a split personality.69 The mainbody closely followed NASA’s America’s Next Decades inSpace report—not surpr isingly, since Paine was againthe pr incipal author. The introductory “Conclusions andRecommendat ions” sect ion, however, differed markedlyin tone and emphasis from the NASA-authored sect ion.This was because it was added in ear ly September a tthe insistence of senior White House staffers who didnot want to provide President Nixon with only ambi-t ious object ives from which to choose.70

Th e “Con clu sion s a n d Recom m en da t ion s” sect ionacknowledged tha t NASA had “the demonst ra t edorgan iza t iona l competence and t echnology base . . . t oca r ry ou t a successfu l program to land man on Marswith in 15 yea r s”; however, it fa iled to advoca te ana ggr essive Ma r s pr ogr a m , r ecom m en din g in st ea dsending humans to Mars “before the end of th is cen-tu ry.” At the same t ime, it cau t ioned tha t “in a ba l-


Chapter 5: Apogee

anced program con ta in ing other goa ls and act ivit ies,th is focus shou ld not a ssume over-r iding pr ior ity andcause sacr ifice of other impor tan t act ivity in t imes ofsevere budget const ra in t s.”71

New space capabilit ies would be developed in a three-phase program, to which the in t roductory sect ionat tached no firm schedule. Phase 1 would see “exploita-t ion of exist ing capability and development of newcapability, mainta in ing program balance with in avail-able resources.” This would include cont inued “Apollo-type” lunar missions. New development would be basedon the pr inciples of “commonality, reusability, and econ-omy.” Phase 2 was an “opera t ional phase” using newsystems in cislunar space with emphasis on “exploita-t ion of science and applica t ions” aboard space sta t ions.In Phase 3, “manned explora t ion missions out of[E]ar th-[M]oon space” would occur, “building upon theexper ien ce of t h e ea r lier t wo ph a ses.”72 Th e“Con clu sion s a n d Recom m en da t ion s” sect ion ca u -t ioned,

Schedule and budgetary implica t ions with inthese three phases are subject to President ia lchoice and decision . . . with deta iled programelements to be determined in a normal annualbudget and program review process. 73

Nixon’s Response

Shor t ly after the Apollo 11 lunar landing, von Brauntold space policy analyst J ohn Logsdon tha t

the legacy of Apollo has spoiled the people atNASA . . . . I believe that there may be too manypeople in NASA who at the moment are wait ingfor a miracle, just wait ing for another man on awhite horse to come and offer us another planet ,like President Kennedy.74

Von Braun might have placed his boss in tha t ca tegory.Paine placed grea t stock in the effect the NASA sect ionof the STG repor t would have on President Nixon.Another document—a lengthy memorandum by Mayodated 25 September 1969—apparent ly had grea tereffect , however. Mayo told the President tha t NASAhad requested $4.5 billion for FY 1971 despite a $3.5-billion cap imposed by his office. He then recommendedthat Nixon “hold an announcement of your space deci-

sion unt il a fter you have reviewed the [STG] repor t rec-ommendat ions specifica lly in the context of the tota l1971 budget problem . . . .” Mayo added tha t he believedthe NASA sect ions of the STG repor t “significant lyunderest imated” the costs of fu ture programs.75

In la te September, Avia t ion Week & Space Technologyrepor ted tha t NASA was hopeful tha t it might receivea supplementa l appropr ia t ion in FY 1970 to begin worktoward Mars.76 In October th is opt imism led Mueller toestablish the Planetary Missions Requirements Group(PMRG), which included representa t ives from NASAHeadquar ters and severa l NASA field centers. ThePMRG, the successor to the Planetary J AG, first metformally in December 1969. Its purpose was to blue-pr in t Mars mission concepts in the context of the STGintegra ted plan .77

By the t ime the PMRG met for the first t ime, however,NASA had received bad news. On 13 November 1969,Mayo’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) (for-merly the Budget Bureau) had informed Paine thatNASA’s FY 1971 request would be $1 billion shy of hisrequest—just $3.5 billion. Paine called the figure “unac-ceptable” and told Mayo that “the proposed rat ionale”for this budget figure “ignores and runs counter to theconclusions reached by the Space Task Group . . . theOMB staff proposals would force the President to rejectthe Space Program as an important cont inuing elementof his Administ ra t ion’s tota l program.”78

Paine was compelled to acquiesce, however. On 13J anuary 1970, he br iefed newsmen on NASA’s budgetahead of Nixon’s FY 1971 budget speech. He termedthe $3.5 billion budget “solid,” and announced tha t theSaturn V rocket product ion line, a lready dormant ,would close down permanent ly.79 This was a ser iousblow to the nuclear rocket program. It meant tha t , inaddit ion to having no approved mission, it now had noway to get in to space. NASA subsequent ly began studyof using the Ear th-orbita l Space Shut t le to placeNERVA-equipped rocket stages in to Ear th orbit .

Paine a lso canceled the planned tenth lunar landingmission, Apollo 20, so tha t it s Saturn V could launchthe Skylab space sta t ion , and announced tha t theViking Mars probe would slip to a 1975 launch with a1976 Mars landing. In an apparent effor t to ra ise a larmand fend off fur ther cuts, Paine released a list of NASACenter closures in order of pr ior ity. First to go would be


Chapter 5: Apogee

Ames, in Nixon’s California st ronghold, and the lastthree in order would be MSC, Marshall, and KSC.80

In la te J anuary, just before Nixon unveiled h is Federa lbudget for FY 1971, NASA took another cut . When sentto Capitol Hill on 2 February 1970, NASA’s por t ion ofthe budget had fa llen to $3.38 billion . In announcingNASA’s budget , Nixon sa id tha t “[o]ur act ions make itpossible to begin plans for a manned mission to Mars.”81

In fact , the 1970-71 per iod would see NASA’s last for-mal piloted Mars plan unt il the 1980s.

Nixon did not use h is 22 J anuary 1970 Sta te of theUnion address to plot the way forward in space assome in NASA had hoped tha t he migh t . His fir st pr i-or ity, he sa id, was to “br ing an end to the war inVietnam.” He a lso proposed to “begin to make repa ra -t ions for the damage we have done to our a ir, to ourland, and to our wa ter s.”82 Apollo 8 pictu res of blueEar th r ising over the ba r ren Moon had become a ra l-lying poin t for the environmenta l movement—not , a sPa ine had hoped, for space explora t ion . Pa ine wasun impressed by Nixon’s environmenta list slan t . Hetold an indust ry group tha t “[w]e applaud the increasein sewage disposa l plan t s. Bu t we cer t a in ly hope th isdoesn’t mean the na t ion has t aken it s eyes off thesta r s and pu t them in the sewers.”83

Nixon fina lly issued h is policy on the post -Apollospace program on 7 March 1970. Unlike Kennedy’s1961 Moon speech , Nixon’s st a t ement was broad andvague, with no specifics abou t NASA funding. Ra therthan endorse a specific t a rget da te for a piloted Marsmission , he sa id tha t “we will even tua lly send men toexplore the planet Mars.” The Br it ish weekly TheEconomist repor ted tha t people a t NASA “looked likechildren who got the jigsaw puzzle they were expect ingra ther than the bicycle they were dreaming of.”84

PSAC Recommends Shuttle

At the same t ime Nixon issued his space policy, hisPSAC issued The Next Decade in Space, a reportextolling the possibilit ies of a Space Shut t le-based spaceprogram. The president ia l advisory body acknowledgedthat “[e]normous technological capabilit ies have beenbuilt up in the Apollo Program,” but recommended “acivilian space effor t about half the magnitude of thepresent level.”85 The PSAC emphasized the military and

direct economic benefits of piloted space t ravel, which itsa id could only be accrued by replacing vir tually a llexpendable rocket s with a r eusable SpaceTransporta t ion System (STS). This would include theSpace Shut t le and a reusable orbita l tug.

The STS would a llow “orbita l assembly and ult imatelyradica l reduct ion in unit cost of space t ranspor ta t ion ,”the PSAC sta ted, quot ing a NASA/Defense Depar tmentstudy tha t placed the cost per flight of the STS a t $5million , or 1 percent of the Saturn V cost .86 At the t imethe PSAC released it s repor t , the U.S. could launch fourSaturn V rockets per year, each with a payload of about100 tons. The PSAC reasoned tha t “[s]ince only tenflights of the STS can in pr inciple fu lfill the role of twoSa tu rn V launches/yea r, th is capabilit y migh t bereached soon after in it ia l opera t ion of the STS.”87

The PSAC then addressed piloted Mars explorat ion,writ ing that “[p]rudence suggests that the possibility ofundertaking a manned voyage to Mars be kept in mindbut that a national commitment to this project bedeferred at this t ime.”88 The STS, it expected, “could placethe equipment needed for the Mars mission in orbit withone or two dozen launches and at a cost substantiallybelow that of a single Saturn V.” It also recommendedthat the permanent space stat ion it said should precedea piloted Mars mission be deferred until after the STScould be used to assemble it .89 Despite the heavy relianceit placed on the STS, the PSAC recommended deferringa decision to build it until FY 1972.

In J uly 1970, Paine submit ted h is resignat ion. On 15September the first anniversary of the release of theSTG and NASA repor ts, George Low took over asAct in g NASA Adm in ist r a t or. In Febr u a r y 1971,President ia l Assistant Peter Flanigan was ordered tofind a NASA Administ ra tor who would “turn downNASA’s empire-building fervor and turn h is a t tent ionto . . . work[ing] with the OMB and White House.”90

The Last Mars Study

The PMRG, meanwhile, cont inued low-level Mars expe-dit ion planning. NASA’s post-Apollo Mars aspirat ionsdied with a whimper—a call to NASA Centers par t ici-pat ing in the PMRG for reports summing up their work.PMRG work at MSC resided in the Engineering andDevelopment Directora te’s Advanced Studies Office


Chapter 5: Apogee


under Morr is J enkins. MSC Associa te Director ofEngineering Maxime Faget reviewed J enkins’ February1971 report . In his introduct ion, J enkins explained,

Officia l st a t emen t s r ega rding t he mannedMars mission have a lways been condit ioned byan emphasis tha t there was no set t ime framefor it . This together with problems of budgetconst ra in ts on the more immedia te fu ture pro-grams and the overa ll posture of the space pro-gram, influenced formal suppor t for th is study.J ust ifiably, the formal suppor t was a lways verysmall and . . . non-cont inuous . . . .91

Th e gu idin g pr in ciple of MSC’s P MRG st u dy wa sa u st er it y. In gen er a l con figu r a t ion it s Ma r s sh ipr esem bled Boein g’s 1968 beh em ot h , bu t ch em ica lp r opu ls ion s t ood in for n u clea r. Accor d in g t oJ en k in s, “ever yt h in g [wa s] don e t o m a ke [t h is s t u dy]a u sefu l poin t of depa r t u r e wh en n a t ion a l pr ior it iesa n d econ om ic con sider a t ion s en cou r a ge t h e m ou n t -in g of a m a n n ed Ma r s expedit ion .”92 MSC t a r get edit s 570-day Ma r s expedit ion for t h e 1987-88 la u n ch

oppor t u n it y, followin g a n 11-yea r developm en t a n dt est per iod begin n in g in t h e m id-1970s.

MSC assumed availability of a fu lly reusable SpaceShut t le based on Max Faget’s “flyback” design. The fly-back shut t le would include a winged orbiter launchedon a winged booster. Both booster and orbiter wouldcarry ast ronauts. MSC envisioned a booster the size ofa 747 and an orbiter on the sca le of a DC-9.

The study r eject ed launch ing Mars spacecra ft compo-nen t s in t he 15-foot -diameter payload bay of t heorbit er because a s many a s 30 modu les wou ld have tobe launched sepa ra t ely and brough t t ogether in orbit ,necessit a t ing a “complex and lengthy a ssembly andcheckou t process.”93 In st ead, MSC proposed launch -ing the Mars sh ip’s t h r ee 24-foot -diameter modu leson the back of t he Shu t t le boost er with t he a id ofChemica l P ropu lsion Syst em (CPS) st ages. ThreeCPS st ages wou ld be launched in to orbit withou ta t t ached modu les.

The Shut t le booster would carry the CPS and a t tachedmodule (if any) par tway to orbit , then separa te to

Chapter 5: Apogee

Figu r e 17—La st ga sp (for a wh ile): NASA’s 1971 Mars spacesh ip design , the la st un t il t he 1980s, proposed to r educe costby using projected Space Shu t t le t echnology and r eject ing nuclea r engines in favor of cheaper ch em ica l pr opu lsion .(Ma n n ed E xplor a t ion Requ ir em en t s a n d Con sider a t ion s, Advanced Studies Office, Engineer ing and DevelopmentDirectorate, NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston , Texas, February 1971, p. 5-2.)

return to the launch site. The CPS would then ignite toachieve Ear th orbit . Each CPS would weigh 30 tonsempty and hold up to 270 tons of liquid hydrogen/liquidoxygen propellants. In keeping with the pr inciple ofauster ity, the CPS stages would use the same rocketengine and propellant tank designs as the Shut t lebooster and orbiter, and do double duty as Mars shippropulsion stages. Assembling the expedit ion’s singleship would need 71 Shut t le booster launches. Six wouldlaunch the ship (three modules and six CPS stages),and the remainder would carry Shut t le orbiters servingas tankers for loading the CPS stages with propellants.

The assembled Mars ship would include a hangar forautomated probes and a MEM based on the 1968 NARdesign. For redundancy, it s 55-ton, four-deck MissionModule would be split in to two independent pressur-ized volumes, each conta in ing a duplica te spacecraftcontrol sta t ion . Deck four would be the ship’s solar fla reradia t ion shelter. The 65-foot-long Elect r ica l PowerSystem module would conta in pressur ized gas storagetanks and twin solar ar rays. The crew would rota te theMars ship end over end about twice per minute to pro-duce ar t ificia l gravity in the Mission Module equal toone-sixth Ear th’s gravity (one lunar gravity).

Ear th depar ture would require a ser ies of maneuvers.Maneuver 1 would expend two CPS stages to place theMars ship in ellipt ica l “in termedia te orbit .” Maneuver 2and Maneuver 3 would use one CPS stage—the firstwould place the ship in ellipt ica l “wait ing orbit ,” andthe second would adjust the plane of the depar turepath . Space tugs would la ter recover the three discard-ed CPS stages for reuse. Maneuver 4 would place theship on a 6-month t ra jectory to Mars. The four th CPSwould enter solar orbit a fter detaching from the Marsship and would not be recovered.

Slowing the sh ip so tha t Mars’ gravity cou ld captu reit in to a 200-mile by 10,000-mile orbit would expendthe fifth CPS. The ellipt ica l orbit would requ ire lesspropellan t to en ter and depar t than a circu la r one.The five-person crew would spend 15 days in orbitstudying Mars and prepar ing the MEM for landing;then th ree crewmembers would sepa ra te in the MEM,leaving beh ind two to wa tch over the mothersh ip.

The MEM crew would explore their landing site usinga pair of unpressur ized elect r ic rovers resembling theApollo Lunar Roving Vehicle, which was sla ted to be

dr iven on the Moon for the first t ime on Apollo 15 inJ u ly 1971. Du r in g Ma r s su r fa ce excu r sion s, on ecrewmember would remain in the MEM while theother two took out one rover each. This “tandem con-voy” arrangement would a llow the Mars explorers toavoid the “walk back” limit imposed on single-rovert raverses in the Apollo program. Walk back distancewas limited less by ast ronaut stamina than by theamount of water and a ir the space suit backpacks couldhold. If one Mars rover fa iled, the funct ional roverwould return both ast ronauts to the MEM. Each roverwould include a hook for towing the fa iled rover back tothe MEM for repairs.

Rover maximum speed would be 10 miles per hour, andtota l a rea available to two rovers would amount to8,000 square miles, compared to only 80 square milesfor a single rover. Once every 15 days, a 36-hour t ra-verse of up to 152 miles would occur, with the ast ro-nauts sleeping through the fr igid Mart ian n ight on theparked rovers in their hard-shelled a luminum spacesuits. J enkins did not a t tempt to est imate the amountof sleep the ast ronauts might actually be able toachieve dur ing their overnight camping t r ips.

The ast ronauts would collect samples of rock and soilwith emphasis on finding possible life. According to theMSC repor t , “[t ]he potent ia l for even elementary life toexist on another planet in the solar system may . . . bethe keystone to the implementa t ion of a manned plan-etary explora t ion program . . . man’s unique capabili-t ies in explora t ion could . . . have a direct qualita t iveimpact on life science yield.”94

After 45 days of surface explora t ion, the crew wouldblast off in the MEM ascent stage and dock with themothership. Any specimens of Mars life collected wouldbe t ransferred to a Mars environment simula tor. Thecrew would discard the ascent stage; then the sixthand fina l CPS would ignite to push the ship backtoward Ear th . The MEM ast ronauts would remainquarant ined in one pressur ized volume unt il the dan-ger of spreading Mart ian contagion to the other ast ro-nauts was judged to be past .

The MSC PMRG repor t received only limited dist r ibu-t ion with in NASA and vir tua lly none outside theAgency. Formal studies with in NASA aimed a t sendinghumans to Mars would not occur again unt il theManned Mars Missions exercise in 1984 and 1985.


Chapter 5: Apogee


Chapter 5: Apogee

NERVA Falls, Shuttle Rises

The OMB’s FY 1972 request for NASA was $3.31 bil-lion . The budget slashed NERVA funding in favor ofcon t inued Space Shu t t le studies. Combined AEC-NASA nuclear rocket funding plummeted to $30 mil-lion split evenly between the two agencies. NASA andthe AEC had together requested $110 million . Theallot ted budget threa tened to place the NRDS onstandby and was considered by many sufficient only toshut down the program.

In February 1971, Clin ton Anderson held a hear ing onthe cut in NASA’s NERVA funding. In h is in t roductoryremarks, he lauded the nuclear rocket program as “oneof the most successful space technology programs everunder taken” and pointed to the $1.4-billion investmentin nuclear propulsion technology since 1955.95 SenatorAlan Bible (Democrat -Nevada) then pointed out tha tthe STG repor t ca lled for nuclear rockets.96

Act ing NASA Administ ra tor George Low took h ismarching orders from the h ighest levels of the NixonWhite House. The Ear th-orbita l Shut t le had to comefirst , he sa id—without it NERVA had no r ide to space.He told the Senators tha t , “NERVA needs the Shut t le,but the Shut t le does not need NERVA.”97

Low denied tha t the funding cut would kill the pro-gram, expla in ing tha t “useful work on long lead-t imeitems” could be accomplished.98 There would, however,be no technica l progress dur ing FY 1972, and possiblynone in FY 1973. “We have not , as yet , been able to lookforward beyond tha t ,” Low added.99

Two months la t er, in May 1971, 21 members ofCongress wrote to President Nixon request ing morefunds for NERVA in FY 1972. When the White Housefa iled to respond, Congress of it s own accord budgeted

$81 million for nuclear rockets, of which NASA’s por-t ion was $38 million . In October, however, the OMBrefused to release more than the $30 million theAdminist ra t ion had requested. In November the OMBstood by it s FY 1972 nuclear propulsion request despiteprotests from the Senate floor.100

On 5 J anuary 1972, President Nixon met with J amesF let ch er, Tom Pa in e’s su ccessor a s NASAAdminist ra tor, a t the “Western White House” in SanClemente, California . Afterward, Fletcher read outNixon’s sta tement ca lling for an FY 1973 new star t onthe Shut t le. The announcement’s venue was signifi-cant—California , a sta te of many aerospace firms, wasvita l to Nixon’s 1972 reelect ion bid.101 Nixon pointed outtha t “th is major new nat ional enterpr ise will engagethe best effor ts of thousands of h ighly skilled workersand hundreds of contractor firms over the next severa lyears.” Fletcher added tha t it was “the only meaningfulnew manned program that can be accomplished on amodest budget .”102 First flight was scheduled for 1978.

Nixon sent h is FY 1973 budget to Capitol Hill on 24J anuary 1972. As it s suppor ters had feared, the budgetconta ined no funds for NERVA. Anderson, nuclearpropulsion’s grea test champion, was ill and could notdefend it . The last NERVA tests occurred in J une andJ uly of 1972. Anderson ret ired from the Senate a t theend of 1972. The FY 1974 budget terminated whatremained of the U.S. nuclear rocket program.103

With both NERVA and Saturn V gone—the last SaturnV flew in May 1973—NASA’s piloted space flight ambi-t ions collapsed back to low-Ear th orbit . Yet the Agencydid not cease to st r ive toward Mars. As we will see inthe next chapter, NASA’s robot explorers conducted thefirst in-depth Mars explora t ion in the 1970s, holdingopen the door for renewed piloted Mars planning.

Addit ional automated missions will most cer-ta inly occur, but the ult imate scient ific study ofMars will be realized only with the coming ofman—man who can conduct seismic and elec-t romagnet ic sounding surveys; who can launchballoons, dr ive rovers, establish geologic fieldrela t ions, select rock samples and dissect themunder the microscope; who can t rack clouds andwitness other meteorological t ransients; whocan dr ill for permafrost , examine core tubes,and inser t heat-flow probes; and who, with hisinimitable capacity for applicat ion of scient ificinsight and methodology, can pursue the questfor indigenous life forms and perhaps discoverthe fossilized remains of an ear lier biosphere.(Benton Clark, 1978)1

The New Mars

In the 1960s, most automated missions beyond low-E a r t h or bit —t h e Ra n ger s, Su r veyor s, a n d Lu n a rOrbiters—suppor ted the piloted Apollo program. In the1970s, as NASA’s piloted program contracted to low-Ear th orbit , it s automated program expanded beyondthe Moon . Soph ist ica t ed robot s flew by Mercu ry,J upiter, and Saturn , and orbited and landed on Venusand Mars.

Though they were not tailored to serve as precursors tohuman expedit ions in the manner of the Rangers,Surveyors, and Lunar Orbiters, the automated missionsto Mars in the 1970s shaped the second period of pilotedMars mission planning, which began in about 1981. Thefirst of these missions, Mariner 9, took advantage of thefavorable Ear th-Mars t ransfer oppor tunity associa tedwith the August 1971 opposit ion to carry enough pro-pellant to enter Mars orbit . It was launched from CapeKennedy on 30 May 1971.

In September, as Mariner 9 made it s way toward Mars,Ear th-based ast ronomers observing the planet throughtelescopes saw a br ight cloud denot ing the onset of adust storm. By mid-October it had become the largeston record. Wind-blown dust obscured the ent ire sur-face, ra ising fears tha t Mariner 9 might not be able tomap the planet from orbit as planned.2

On 14 November 1971, after a 167-day Ear th-Marst ransfer, Mariner 9 fired it s engine for just over 15 min-

utes to slow down and become Mars’ first a r t ificia lsa tellite. Dust st ill veiled the planet , so mission con-t rollers pointed the spacecraft ’s cameras a t the smallMart ian moons Phobos and Deimos. In Ear th-basedtelescopes they were mere dots near ly lost in Mars’ redglare. In Mariner 9 images, Phobos was marked by par-a llel cracks extending from a large cra ter. Apparent lythe impact tha t gouged the cra ter had near ly smashedthe lit t le moon. Deimos, Mars’ more distant sa tellite,had a less dramat ic, dust ier landscape.

Th e gia n t du st st or m su bsided du r in g Decem ber,t h ea t r ica lly u n veilin g a su r pr isin g wor ld. Ma r s wa sn eit h er t h e dyin g r ed E a r t h espou sed by Per civa lLowell n or t h e dea d r ed m oon glim psed by t h e flybyMa r in er s.3 F r om it s lon g-t er m or bit a l va n t a ge poin t ,Ma r in er 9 fou n d Ma r s t o be t wo-fa ced, wit h sm oot hn or t h er n lowla n ds a n d cr a t er ed sou t h er n h igh la n ds.Th e m ission s t o t h e Moon con fir m ed t h a t a r ela t ion -sh ip exist s bet ween cr a t er den sit y a n d a ge—t h em or e den sely cr a t er ed a r egion , t h e older it is. H en ce,Ma r s h a s a n a n cien t h em isph er e a n d a r ela t ivelyyou n g h em isph er e.

Mars is a sma ll wor ld—ha lf Ea r th ’s diameter—withla rge fea tu res. The Va lles Mar iner is canyons, forexample, span more t han 4,000 kilometer s a longMars’ equa tor. Nix Olympica , imaged by Mar iner 6and Mar iner 7 from afar and widely in terpreted as abr igh t cra ter, tu rned out to be a sh ield volcano 25 kilo-meters ta ll and 600 kilometers wide a t it s base.Ren a m ed Olym pu s Mon s (“Mou n t Olym pu s”), itstands a t one edge of the Tharsis P la teau , a cont inent -sized tecton ic bu lge domina t ing ha lf the planet . Threeother sh ield volcanoes on the sca le of Olympus Monsform a line across Tharsis’ cen ter.

Most excit ing for those in terested in Mart ian life weresigns of water. Mariner 9 char ted channels tens of kilo-meter s wide. Some con t a in st r ea mlined “isla nds”apparent ly carved by enormous rushing floods. Many ofthe giant channels or iginate in the southern h ighlandsand open out onto the smooth nor thern pla ins. Thenor thern pla ins preserve rampar t cra ters—also ca lled“splosh” cra ters—which scient ists believe were formedby asteroid impacts in permafrost . The heat of impactapparent ly melted subsurface ice, which flowed out-ward from the impact as a slurry of red mud, thenrefroze.4


Chapter 6: Viking and the Resources of Mars

Mariner 9 depleted it s n it rogen a t t itude-control propel-lant on 27 October 1972, after returning more than7,200 images to Ear th . Controllers quickly lost radiocontact as it tumbled out of control. A week la ter, on 6November 1972, mission planners using Mariner 9images announced five candidate Viking landing sites.5

Viking 1 left Ear th on 20 August 1975 and ar r ived inMars orbit on 19 J une 1976. Its twin , Viking 2, leftEar th on 9 September 1975 and ar r ived a t Mars on 7August 1976. The spacecraft consisted of a nuclear-powered lander and a solar-powered orbiter. The Viking1 lander separa ted from its orbiter and touched downsuccessfully in eastern Chryse Planit ia on 20 J uly1976. Viking 2 a lighted near the cra ter Mie in UtopiaPlanit ia on 3 September 1976.

The first color images from the Viking 1 lander showedcinnamon-red dir t , gray rocks, and a blue sky. The skycolor turned out to be a processing er ror based on pre-conceived not ions of what a sky should look like. Whenthe images were corrected, Mars’ sky turned duskypink with wind-borne dust .6

The Vikings confirmed the old not ion tha t Mars is thesolar system planet most like Ear th , but only becausethe other planets are even more a lien and host ile. Ahuman dropped unprotected on Mars’ red sands wouldgasp painfully in the th in carbon dioxide a tmosphere,lose consciousness in seconds, and per ish with in twominu tes. Una t t enua ted sola r u lt r aviolet r adia t ionwould blacken the corpse, for Mars has no ozone layer.The body would freeze rapidly, then mummify as thethin , parched a tmosphere leeched away it s moisture.

By the t ime the Vikings landed, a lmost no one believedany longer tha t mult icellu lar living th ings could existon Mars. They held out hope, however, for hardy single-celled bacter ia . On 28 J uly 1976, the Viking 1 landerscooped dir t from the top few cent imeters of Mars’ sur-face and dist r ibuted it among three exobiology detec-tors and two spect rometers. The inst ruments returnedident ica l equivocal readings—strong posit ive responsesthat ta iled off, weak posit ive responses tha t could notbe duplica ted in the same sample, and, most puzzling,an absence of any organic compounds the inst rumentswere designed to detect .

Viking 1 and Viking 2 each scooped addit ional samples—even pushing aside a rock to sample underneath—and

repeated the tests several t imes with similar equivocalresults. Most scient ists in terpreted the Viking resultsas indica t ive of react ive soil chemist ry produced byult raviolet radia t ion in teract ions with Mart ian dir t ,not of life. The reactive chemistry probably destroys anyorganic molecules.7

Improved cameras on the Viking orbiters, meanwhile,added deta il to Mariner 9’s Mars map. They imagedpolygonal pa t terns on the smooth nor thern pla insresembling those formed by permafrost in Ear th’sArct ic regions. Some cra ters—Gusev, for example—looked to be filled in by sediments and had wallsbreached by sinuous channels. Perhaps they once heldice-clad lakes.

The Viking images a lso revealed hundreds of r iver-sizebr a n ch in g ch a n n els—ca lled “va lley n et wor ks”—inaddit ion to the la rge outflow channels seen in Mariner9 images. Though some were probably shaped by slow-ly melt ing subsurface ice, others appeared too finelybranched to be the result of anything other than sur-face runoff from ra in or melt ing snow. Ironica lly, mostof the finely branched channels occurred in the south-ern hemisphere, the area tha t reminded people in the1960s of Ear th’s dead Moon. The flyby Mariners mighthave glimpsed channels among the Moonlike cra tershad their cameras had bet ter resolut ion.

Low pressure and tempera ture make free-standingwater impossible on Mars today. The channels in theoldest par t of Mars, the cra tered southern h ighlands,seem to point to a t ime long ago when Mars had adense, warm atmosphere. Perhaps Mars was clementenough for a sufficient ly long per iod of t ime for life toform and leave fossils.8

The Viking landers and orbiters were gra t ifyingly long-lived. The Viking 1 orbiter funct ioned unt il 7 August1980. Together with the Viking 2 orbiter, it returnedmore than 51,500 images, mapping 97 percent of thesurface a t 300-meter resolut ion. Though required toopera te for only 90 days, the Viking 1 lander, the lastsurvivor of the four vehicles, returned data for morethan six years. The durable robot explorer fina lly brokecontact with Ear th on 13 November 1982.9

Viking was a t remendous success, but it had been wide-ly billed as a mission to seek Mart ian life. The incon-clusive Viking exobiology results and negat ive in ter -



preta t ion placed on them helped dampen public enthu-siasm for Mars explora t ion for a decade. Yet Vikingsh owed Ma r s t o be em in en t ly wor t h explor in g.Moreover, Viking revealed abundant resources tha tmight be used to explore it .

Living off the Land

Dur ing the per iod tha t Mar iner 9 and the Vikingsrevea led Mars t o be a r ich dest ina t ion for explorer s,a lmost no Mars expedit ion plann ing occu r r ed in sideor ou t side NASA. The Agency was preoccupied withdeveloping the Space Shu t t le, and Mars planner sindependen t of NASA—who wou ld make many con -t r ibu t ions du r ing the 1980s—were not yet a ct ive insign ifican t number s.

Papers on In-Situ Resource Ut iliza t ion (ISRU) wereamong the first signs of re-awakening in terest in pilot -ed Mars mission planning. ISRU is an old concept , da t -ing on Ear th to prehistory. ISRU can be defined asusing the resources of a place to assist in it s explo-ra t ion—the phrase “living off the land” is essent ia llysynonymous. In the context of space explora t ion, ISRUenables spacecraft weight minimizat ion. If a spacecraftcan, for example, collect propellants a t it s dest ina t ion,those propellants need not be t ranspor ted a t grea texpense from Ear th’s surface. In the 1960s, ISRU wasstudied largely in hopes of providing life-suppor t con-sumables. By the 1980s, the propellant product ionpotent ia l of ISRU predominated.

NASA fir st formally considered ISRU in 1962, when itset u p t h e Wor k in g Gr ou p on E xt r a t er r est r ia lResources (WGER). The WGER, which met th roughoutthe 1960s, focused on lunar resources, not Mar t ian .This was because more da ta were ava ilable on lunarresource poten t ia l, and because lunar resource usewas, in the Apollo era , poten t ia lly more relevant toNASA’s act ivit ies.10

The UMPIRE study (1963-1964) recommended apply-ing ISRU to establish and mainta in a Mars base dur-ing long conjunct ion-class surface stays. Doing th iswould, of course, demand more data on what resourceswere available on Mars. NASA Ma r sh a ll’s UMP IREsu m m a r y r epor t s t a t ed t h a t “[t ]h is in for m a t ion ,wh et h er it is obt a in ed by u n m a n n ed pr obes or bymanned [flyby or orbiter] reconnaissance missions, would

make such a base possible,” making the “ ‘cost effect ive-n ess’ of Ma r s explor a t ion . . . m u ch m or e r ea son a blet h a n [for ] t h e sh or t excu r sion s.”11

Fifteen years a fter UMPIRE, the Vikings a t last pro-duced the in -situ da ta set required for ser ious consid-era t ion of Mars ISRU. The fir st effor t to assess thepoten t ia l of Mar t ian propellan t product ion based onViking da ta spun off a 1977-78 NASA J PL study of anautomated Mars sample-return mission proposed as afollow-on to the Viking program. Louis Fr iedmanheaded the study, which was in it ia lly inspired byPresident Gera ld Ford’s apparen t ly casua l ment ion ofa possible “Viking 3” mission soon a fter the successfu lViking 1 landing.12 Rober t Ash , an Old DominionUniversity professor working a t J PL, and J PL sta ffersWilliam Dowler and Giu lio Varsi published theirresu lt s in the J u ly-August 1978 issue of the refereedjourna l Acta Astronaut ica .13

They examined th ree propellan t combina t ions. Liqu idca rbon monoxide and liqu id oxygen , they found, wereeasy to produce from Mar t ian a tmospher ic ca rbondioxide, bu t they rejected th is combina t ion because itproduced on ly 30 percen t a s much th rust a s liqu idh ydr ogen /liqu id oxygen . E lect r olysis (split t in g) ofMar t ian wa ter cou ld produce hydrogen /oxygen , bu tthey rejected th is combina t ion because heavy, energy-hungry cooling systems were necessa ry to keep thehydrogen liqu id, thus nega t ing the weigh t -reduct ionadvan tage of in -situ propellan t manufactu re.

Liquid methane/liquid oxygen const itu ted a good com-promise, they found, because it yields 80 percent ofhydrogen/oxygen’s thrust , yet methane remains liquidat h igher tempera tures, and thus is easier to store. TheMa r t ia n pr opella n t fa ct or y wou ld m a n u fa ct u r emethane using a chemical react ion discovered in 1897by French chemist Paul Sabat ier. In the Sabat ier re-act ion, carbon dioxide is combined with hydrogen in thepresence of a n ickel or ru thenium cata lyst to producewater and methane. The manufacture of methane andoxygen on Mars would begin with elect rolysis ofMart ian water. The resultant oxygen would be storedand the hydrogen reacted with carbon dioxide fromMars’ a tmosphere using the Sabat ier process. Themethane would be stored and the water elect rolyzed tocont inue the propellant product ion process.





Ash, Dowler, and Varsi est imated tha t launching a one-kilogram sample of Mart ian soil direct to Ear th wouldneed 3.8 metr ic tons of methane/oxygen, while launch-ing a piloted ascent vehicle in to Mars orbit would need13.9 metr ic tons. These are la rge quant it ies of propel-lant , so conjunct ion-class t ra jector ies with Mars sur-face stay-t imes of a t least 400 days would be necessaryto provide enough t ime for propellant manufacture.

Benton Clark, with Mart in Mariet ta (Viking’s pr imecon t r actor ) in Denver, published the fir st paper sexplor ing the life-suppor t implica t ions of the Vikingresults. His 1978 paper ent it led “The Viking Results—The Case for Man on Mars” pointed out tha t every kilo-gram of food, water, or oxygen tha t had to be shippedfrom Ear th meant tha t a kilogram of science equip-ment , shelter st ructure, or ascent rocket propellantcould not be sent .14 Clark est imated tha t supplies for a10-person, 1,000-day conjunct ion-class Mars expedit ionwould weigh 58 metr ic tons, or about “one hundredt imes the mass of the crew-members themselves.” Theexpedit ion could, however, reduce supply weight , there-by either reducing spacecraft weight or increasingweight available for other items, by ext ract ing waterfrom Mart ian dir t and split t ing oxygen from Mart ianatmospher ic carbon dioxide dur ing it s 400-day Marssurface stay.

Clark wrote that Mars offered many other ISRU possi-bilit ies, but that they probably could not be exploitedunt il a long-term Mars base was established. This wasbecause they required st ructures, processing equip-ment , or quant it ies of power unlikely to be available toear ly expedit ions. Crop growth using the “extremely

salty” Mart ian soil, for example, would probably have toawait availability of equipment for “pre-processing . . . toeliminate toxic components.”15

The Vikings’ r obot ic scoops ba r ely scr a t ched t heMart ian surface, yet they found useful mater ia ls suchas silicon, ca lcium, chlor ine, iron, and t itanium. Clarkpointed out tha t these could supply a Mars base withcemen t , gla ss, meta ls, ha lides, and su lfu r ic a cid.Carbon from atmospher ic carbon dioxide could serveclever Mart ians as a foundat ion for building organiccompounds, the basis of plast ics, paper, and elastomers.Hydrogen peroxide made from water could serve aspowerful fuel for rockets, rovers, and powered equip-ment such as dr ills.

Dur ing the 1980s, the Mars ISRU concept genera tedpapers by many authors, as well as in it ia l exper imen-ta t ion .16 Rober t Ash, for example, developed exper imen-ta l Mars ISRU hardware a t Old Dominion Universitywith modest funding suppor t from NASA Langley17 andfrom a non-government space advocacy group, ThePlanetary Society.18 That a pr iva te organiza t ion wouldfund such work was significant .

Before ISRU could make a major impact , piloted Marsmission planning had to awaken more fu lly from itsdecade-long post -Apollo slumber. Post -Apollo Marsplanning occurred in it ia lly outside officia l NASA aus-pices. This const itu ted a sea-change in Mars plan-ning—up to the 1970s, vir tua lly a ll Mars planning wasgovernment-or iginated. In the 1980s, as will be seen inthe coming chapters, individuals and organiza t ionsoutside the government took on a cent ra l, shaping role.

We didn’t know all of the people who fina lly didspeak . . . unt il they ca lled us! Somehow theyheard about the conference, through the flyerswe sent around and from word of mouth , andt h ey volu n t eer ed. It r ea lly wa s a Ma r sUnderground! (Chr istopher McKay, 1981)1

Columbia

Columbia , the first Space Shut t le, lifted off from Pad39A at Kennedy Space Center on 12 April 1981, withCommander J ohn Young and Pilot Rober t Cr ippen onboard for a two-day test flight . Near ly 12 years before,the Apollo 11 CSM Columbia had left the same padatop a Saturn V a t the star t of the first Moon landingmission. For Shut t le flights, the twin Complex 39 padswere t r immed back and heavily modified. DesignatedSTS-1, it was the first U.S. piloted space flight since thejoint United Sta tes-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz mission in J uly1975.

At launch , the 2,050-met r ic-ton Shut t le “stack” con-sisted of the delta -winged orbiter Columbia and twin45.4-m et er-lon g Solid Rocket Boost er s (SRBs)a t tached to a 47.4-meter-long expendable Externa lTank (ET). Columbia measured 37.2 meters long witha wingspan of 23.8 meters. Seconds before plannedliftoff, the th ree Space Shut t le Main Engines (SSMEs)in the orbiter ’s t a il ign ited in rapid sequence, drawingliqu id hydrogen and liqu id oxygen propellan ts fromthe ET. Then , a t T-0, the two SRBs lit up. Unlike theSa turn V, which climbed slowly dur ing fir st -stageopera t ion , Columbia leapt from the launch pad. Alsounlike the Sa turn V engines, the SRBs could not beturned off once they ign ited, making abor t impossibleunt il they exhausted their propellan ts and separa ted.This was not considered a major r isk—SRBs, usedsince the 1950s, were considered a mature technology.

Two minutes into STS-1, the SRBs separated and fellinto the Atlantic for recovery and reuse. Columbia’sSSMEs, the world’s first reusable large rocket engines,continued pushing the orbiter and ET toward space.Eight and one-half minutes after launch, the SSMEsshut down and the ET separated. Young and Crippenfired Columbia’s twin Orbiter Maneuvering System(OMS) engines to complete orbital insertion while the ETtumbled and reentered, then opened the long doors cov-ering Columbia’s 18.3-meter by 4.6-meter payload bay.

The payload bay was t he orbit er ’s r a ison d’êt re.Maximum payload to low-Ear th orbit was about 30metr ic tons, though center of gravity and landingweight const ra in ts rest r icted th is to some degree. Thepayload bay could carry sa tellites for release in to orbitor a European-built pressur ized labora tory modulecalled Spacelab. The Space Shut t le orbiter was a lso theonly space vehicle tha t could rendezvous with a sa tel-lite and capture it for repair or return to Ear th—itcould return about 15 metr ic tons to Ear th in it s pay-load bay. NASA hoped to use the Space Shut t le tolaunch components for an Ear th-orbit ing space sta t iona n d ot h er veh icles, su ch a s a er obr a kin g Or bit a lTransfer Vehicles (OTVs) based a t the sta t ion .

On 14 April Young and Crippen fired Columbia’s OMSengines for about two minutes to begin reent ry. TheSTS-1 reent ry had a lmost nothing in common with pre-vious piloted reent r ies. Columbia’s heat sh ield did notabla te—that is, burn away—to protect it from the fr ic-t ion heat of reent ry. Instead, in the in terest of reusabil-ity, Columbia relied on more than 24,000 individuallymilled spun-glass t iles to shield it s a luminum skin .

After a pa ir of close-t imed sonic booms—they wouldbecome a Space Shut t le t rademark—Columbia glidedto a touchdown on the wide dry lake bed a t EdwardsAir Force Base, California . Future landings wouldoccur on a runway seven kilometers from the Complex39 Shut t le pads a t KSC.2

NASA hera lded the fligh t as the sta r t of a new era ofrout ine, inexpensive space access tha t might spawnindust ry off Ear th . An ebullien t Young told repor ters,“We’re not rea lly too fa r—the human race isn’t—fromgoing to the sta rs.”3

The Case for Mars

Th e Ma r s bu ffs wh o wer e ga t h er ed in Bou lder,Colorado, for the first Case for Mars conference, justtwo weeks after the first Shut t le flight , would have set -t led for NASA’s set t ing it s sights on Mars—never mindthe stars. Fueled by the Viking discover ies, would-beMars explorers dared look beyond the Space Shut t le.They hoped that Mars ship propellants and componentsmight soon be manifested as Shut t le payloads. Theyalso saw in the Shut t le and in the Space Stat ionProgram (expected soon to follow) sources of hardware


Chapter 7: The Case for Mars

for Mars ship par ts, much as planners in the 1960s envi-sioned using Apollo hardware for piloted Mars flybys.

The 1981 Case for Mars conference provided the firstpublic forum for Mars planning since the 1960s. Theconference crysta llized around an informal seminarbased on NASA’s 1976 study The Habitability of Mars,organ ized by Chr istopher McKay, a University ofColorado a t Boulder ast ro-geophysics Ph.D. candidate.The seminar brought together Mars enthusiasts fromBou lder a n d a r ou n d t h e cou n t r y. Th e “Ma r sUnderground,” as they light -hear tedly ca lled them-selves, decided in the spr ing of 1980 tha t the t ime wasr ipe for a conference on Mars explora t ion.4

The Case for Mars conference drew it s name from thet it le of Benton Clark’s 1978 Mars ISRU paper (seechapter 6). Clark took par t in the conference, a longwith about 300 other engineers, scient ists, and enthu-siasts.5 It was the largest ga ther ing of would-be Marsexplorers since the 1963 Symposium on the MannedExplora t ion of Mars.

The conference was in par t a bra in-storming session—an oppor tunity to take stock of ideas on how to exploreMars. Among the concepts presented was S. FredSinger’s “PH-D Proposal,” which drew upon Shut t le-rela ted technology expected to exist in 1990.6 Singer’sscenar io had staying power—he was st ill wr it ing aboutit in the spr ing of 2000.7

Singer’s $10-billion expedit ion would use Deimos, Mars’outer moon, as a base of operat ions for explor ing theMart ian system. It was similar to the 1960s pilotedflyby and orbiter missions in how it minimized space-craft weight . None of the six to eight ast ronauts wouldland on Mars, though a sample-return lander wouldbring up a “grab sample” from the planet and two astro-nauts would visit Phobos, Mars’ inner moon. The astro-nauts would remote-control between 10 and 20 Marssurface rovers during their two-to-six-month stay in theMart ian system. At Deimos’ orbita l distance, round-tr ipradio t ravel t ime would be only one-fifth of a second.

Two ast ronauts would be “medical scient ists” whowould study human react ions to weight lessness, radia-t ion , and isola t ion throughout the expedit ion . Th eywou ld m in im ize r isk t o t h e cr ew fr om t h ese lon g-duration space flight hazards by continually monitoring

their health; data they gathered would also minimize riskfor future Mars landing expeditions.

Sin ger ’s expedit ion wou ld r ely on sola r-elect r icthrusters, using elect r icity from a large solar ar ray toion ize a n d elect r ost a t ica lly expel a r gon ga s. Asdescr ibed in chapter 2, elect r ic propulsion thrustersproduce constant low-thrust accelera t ion while usingvery lit t le propellant . Singer assumed tha t the solararray would be available in h igh-Ear th orbit in 1990 aspar t of a pre-exist ing Shut t le-launched cislunar infra-st ructure. The cost of the solar ar ray was thus notincluded in Singer’s expedit ion cost est imate.

At the star t of the PH-D Proposal expedit ion, theunpiloted solar-electr ic propulsion system would spiralout from Earth, slowly gaining speed. Several weekslater, as it was about to escape Earth orbit , the pilotedPhobos-Deimos craft would catch up, using chemicalrockets, and dock. This technique minimized r isk tocrew by reducing the amount of t ime they had to spendin weight lessness and by speeding them through theVan Allen Radiat ion Belts. The solar-electr ic propulsionsystem would accelerate the spacecraft unt il expedit ionmid-point ; then its thrusters would be turned to point inthe direct ion of t ravel. The spacecraft would then decel-erate unt il it was captured into orbit by Mars’ gravity.

The 1990-91 target launch date would a llow Singer’sexpedit ion to take advantage of a Venus flyby oppor tu-nity to ga in speed and change course without usingpropellant . Tota l expedit ion dura t ion would be “some-thing less than two years.” Elect r ic propulsion plusVenus flyby plus postponing the piloted Mars landingunt il a la ter expedit ion would reduce spacecraft weighta t Ear th-orbit depar ture to about 300 tons.

The Planetary Society

In 1983, The P laneta ry Society, a non-profit spaceadvocacy organ iza t ion with abou t 100,000 members,commissioned the most deta iled piloted Mars missionstudy since 1971. The organ iza t ion did th is because,a s Society presiden t Car l Sagan and execu t ive direc-tor Lou is Fr iedman wrote in their foreword to thestudy repor t , “since Apollo, there have been , in theUnited Sta tes a t least , a lmost no ser ious studies ofmanned (or womanned) voyages to other wor lds,despit e the fact tha t enormous t echnologica l advances



have been made since those ea r ly luna r landings.”8

Wr it in g in t h e Societ y’s m em ber m a ga zin e, ThePlanetary Repor t , Fr iedman expla ined tha t “we fund-ed [the study] because it is impor tan t to have solidtechn ica l evidence to back us in our advocacy of newgoa ls . . . .”9 The n ine-month study, “a labor of love”per formed a t a “ba rga in basement pr ice” by ScienceApplica t ions In terna t iona l Corpora t ion (SAIC), wascompleted in September 1984.10

SAIC’s Mars mission design resembled MSC’s 1963F lyby-Ren dezvou s m ode. E igh t een Spa ce Sh u t t lelaunches would deliver more than 160 metr ic tons ofspacecraft components to Ear th orbit . The four-personcr ew wou ld t r avel t o Ma r s in a 121-m et r ic-t onOutbound Vehicle consist ing of four “sub-vehicles.”These were the 38-metr ic-ton In terplanetary Vehicle,the 19-metr ic-ton Mars Orbiter, the 54-metr ic-ton MarsLander, and the 10-metr ic-ton Mars Depar ture Vehicle.

The In terplanetary Vehicle, which would provide one-quar ter of Ear th’s gravity by spinning three t imes eachminute, would include pressur ized crew modules basedon Spacelab modules. The Mars Orbiter, the MarsDepar ture Vehicle, and the conica l, two-stage MarsLander were together designated the Mars Explora t ionVehicle (MEV). The MEV would include a 54-meter-diameter aerobrake. The crew would return from Marsin the 43-metr ic-ton Ear th Return Vehicle (ERV),which resembled the In terplanetary Vehicle except inthat it would include a conica l 4.4-metr ic-ton Ear th-return capsule nested in a 13-meter-diameter aero-brake. Of these vehicles, only the MEV would have toslow down and enter Mars orbit . This, plus extensiveuse of aerobraking, would reduce the amount of propel-lant required to carry out SAIC’s Mars expedit ion ,which in turn would reduce spacecraft weight .

The unpiloted ERV would depar t Ear th orbit on 5 J une2003, using three large OTVs stacked together, eachcarrying over 27 metr ic tons of propellants. The SAICteam assumed tha t reusable space-based OTVs wouldbe available in Ear th orbit as par t of NASA’s SpaceSta t ion Program. The expense of developing, launching,and opera t ing the OTVs was thus not counted in thecost of the expedit ion . OTV 1 would fire it s engines a tper igee, increasing it s apogee distance, then separa te.OTV 2 would repeat th is procedure. OTV 3’s per igeeburn would place the ERV on course for Mars. Thisser ies of maneuvers would require about six hours.

The crew would depar t Ear th in the Outbound Vehicleten days la ter, on 15 J une 2003. Because it was near lythree t imes heavier than the ERV, the OutboundVehicle would need per igee burns by seven OTVs overabout two days to achieve a Mars-bound t ra jectory.

On 24 December 2003, the crew would near Mars inthe Outbound Vehicle, board and undock the MEV, anda er obr a ke in t o Ma r s or bit . Th e a ba n don edInterplanetary Vehicle would fly past Mars in to solarorbit . Three of the four crew would en ter the MarsLander and descend to the sur face, which they wouldexplore using a pressur ized rover. On 23 J anuary2004, a fter a month on Mars, the sur face crew wouldlift off in the Mars Lander ascent stage with 400 kilo-grams of rock samples to rejoin their colleague aboardthe Mars Orbiter.

The ERV, meanwhile, would approach Mars on a flybytra jectory. The crew would board the Mars Depar tureVehicle, abandon the Mars Lander ascent stage andMars Orbiter, and leave Mars orbit in pursuit of theERV. Rendezvous and docking would occur while theERV was outbound from Mars. Fr iedman noted tha t“[b]ecause the orbit doesn’t close around Mars, the crewhas only a chance a t one precise t ime, to rendezvouswith the return vehicle. Although th is is r isky, SAICanalysis found it acceptable compared to other missionr isks. (However, some of us a t The Planetary Societywonder if the crew will feel the same way!)”11

E igh teen months la t er, on 5 J une 2006, the crewwould board the Ear th -retu rn capsu le and sepa ra tefrom the ERV. They would aerobrake in Ea r th ’sa tmosphere wh ile t he abandoned ERV flew pastEar th in to sola r orbit .

The SAIC team est ima ted the cost of their Mars expe-dit ion a t $38.5 billion in 1984 dolla r s, of which $14.3billion would be spen t on Mars spacecra ft ha rdware,$2 billion would pay for Shu t t le launches, and $18.5billion would be spen t on opera t ions. Fr iedman poin t -ed ou t tha t , over a decade, th is cost averaged abou t $4billion a n n u a lly, or a bou t 60 per cen t of NASA’sapproximately $7-billion FY 1984 budget .12



Space Station

Tradit ionally, space sta t ions have been envisioned ashaving mult iple funct ions, not least of which was as anassembly and servicing base—a spacepor t—for space-craft , including those bound for Mars. In 1978, as SpaceShu t t le developmen t moved in to it s fina l st ages,NASA’s J ohnson Space Center (J SC) (as MSC wasrenamed in 1973) began planning a Shut t le-launchedmodular space sta t ion ca lled the Space Opera t ionsCenter (SOC). A space shipyard, the SOC was the mostimpor tant sta t ion concept in the years 1978 through1982—the per iod immedia tely before ga ining approvalfor a sta t ion became a rea list ic goal for NASA.13

An in t er n a l NASA pr esen t a t ion in May 1981—on em on t h a ft er STS-1—descr ibed t h e SOC a s t h e cen -t r a l elem en t of a “spa ce oper a t ion s syst em ” t h a twou ld in clu de t h e Spa ce Sh u t t le, OTVs for m ovin gobject s a ssem bled a t t h e SOC t o or bit s beyon d t h eSh u t t le’s a lt it u de lim it , a n d Ma n n ed OTVs fort r a n spor t in g a st r on a u t s on sa t ellit e ser vice ca lls.14 AJ SC pr ess r elea se in ea r ly 1982 r efer r ed t o t h e SOCa s a “spa ce ba se a n d m a r sh a lin g ya r d for la r ge a n dcom plex pa yloa ds” pr ovid in g “ga r a ge spa ce forr eu sa ble cr yogen ic s t a ges.”15

After h is first year in office, dur ing which NASA tookdeep cuts, President Ronald Reagan came to see thepolit ica l benefit s of being ident ified with a successfulspace program. On 4 J uly 1982, Columbia returnedfrom space a t the end of mission STS-4. Reagan was onhand amid flu t ter ing American flags to declare theShut t le opera t ional. He spoke of establishing a morepermanent presence in space, but withheld a clearmandate to build a space sta t ion unt il h is 25 J anuary1984 Sta te of the Union address. When he did, heemphasized it s labora tory funct ion:

We can follow our dreams to distant stars, liv-ing and working in space for peaceful economicand scient ific ga in . Tonight I am direct ingNASA to develop a permanent ly manned SpaceSta t ion and to do it with in a decade. The SpaceSta t ion would permit quantum leaps in ourresearch in science, communicat ions, in meta lsand in life-saving medicines which can only bemanufactured in space . . . .16

The lab funct ion was emphasized par t ly to keep theSta t ion’s est imated cost as close to $8 billion as possi-ble.17 As we have seen, Mars planners ear ly in the1980s assumed tha t OTVs and other Ear th-orbit infra-st ructure applicable to Mars explora t ion would soonbecome available. With the spacepor t role de-empha-sized and the lab role moved to the fore, the just ifica-t ion for OTVs was largely removed, and the ability toassemble other Ear th-orbit infrast ructure, such asSinger’s solar ar ray, was made forfeit . Assembling theSpace Sta t ion it self would provide some exper iencewith applica t ion to Mars ship assembly. However, itwould provide lit t le exper ience with handling tankageand propellants in space, both crucia l to building aMars ship.

Soviets to Mars

In the ear ly 1980s, such NASA advanced planning asexisted focused more on the Moon than on Mars. Thereviva l in NASA Mars in terest owes much to geologistand Apollo 17 Moonwalker Harr ison Schmit t , and tothe Agency’s lunar base studies, which had neverreceded to the same degree as it s Mars studies.Schmit t was concerned about an on-going Soviet spacebuildup, which saw long stays by cosmonauts aboardSalyut space sta t ions and development of a Sovietshut t le and heavy-lift rocket , as well as plans for ambi-t ious robot ic Mars missions.18 Schmit t a lso concent ra t -ed on Mars because he had asked ch ildren , the fu turespace explorers, about return ing to the Moon andfound tha t they were not in terested because peoplehad a lready been there.19

Schmit t had a t tempted to promote Mars explora t ion inthe la t e 1970s while serving a s Republican U.S.Senator from New Mexico. Following Viking’s success,he had put forward a bill ca lling for the U.S. to developthe capability to establish a set t lement on Mars by2010. His “Chronicles Plan” excited momentary in ter -est in President J immy Car ter ’s White House, inducingNASA Administ ra tor Rober t Frosch to act iva te a smallNASA study team. The team’s J uly 1978 workshop a tWallops Island, Virginia , produced nothing new. In fact ,the consensus was tha t “past work [from the 1960s]should not be updated unless ser ious considera t ion isbeing given to conduct ing a manned Mars mission pr iorto the year 2000.”20 In shor t , NASA was too busy work-ing on the Space Shut t le in 1978 to th ink about Mars.




Schmit t renewed his Mars effor ts in 1983 by contact ingPaul Keaton of LANL dur ing a meet ing held in the run-up to the 1984 Lunar Bases and Space Act ivit ies of the21st Century conference, held a t the Nat ional Academyof Sciences in Washington, DC.21 As seen in Chapter 5,LANL was involved in space flight before NASA wascrea ted through it s work on nuclear rockets. At thelunar base conference, Schmit t presented a paper onhis “Mars 2000 Millennium Project ,” which he hopedwould “mobilize the energies and imagina t ions ofyoung people who are a lready looking beyond Ear thorbit and the [M]oon.”22 He a lso made contact withNASA engineers and scient ists in terested in explor ingMars as well as the Moon.23

Schmit t then pressed for a study to give the Presidentthe opt ion to send humans to Mars should he desire torespond to the Soviet buildup. LANL par tnered withNASA to conduct the Manned Mars Mission (MMM)study dur ing 1984 and 1985. The effor t culminated inthe join t NASA-LANL MMM workshop a t NASAMarshall (10-14 J une 1985).24 The workshop publishedthree volumes of proceedings in 1986.25

Especia lly notewor thy, given Schmit t ’s pr imary ra t ion-a le for the MMM workshop, was a J SC plan for a pilot -ed Mars flyby based on technology expected to exist inthe 1990s as par t of the Space Sta t ion Program. Thisa imed a t counter ing a possible Soviet piloted Marsflyby mission .

In Apr il 1985, a t Schmit t ’s request , the CIA preparedan analysis of possible Soviet space moves. The ana ly-sis cited “[p]ublic comments in 1982 by the SovietS[cien ce] & T[ech n ology] At t a ch é a ssign ed t oWashington and in 1984 by the President of the SovietAca dem y of Scien ce,” wh ich su ggest ed t h a t “t h eSoviet s have confidence in their ability to conduct sucha mission .” The CIA then predicted tha t “ . . . they willchoose a one-year flyby as their fir st step.”26

The analysis cited current and fu ture indica tors point -ing to Soviet piloted Mars explora t ion. Th ese in clu dedcon t in u in g wor k on a h eavy-lift r ocket “ca pa ble ofpla cin g in t o low-ea r t h or bit a bou t five t im es t h epayloa d of t h e pr esen t la r gest Soviet spa ce la u n chveh icle, t h er eby sign ifica n t ly r edu cin g t h e n u m berof la u n ch veh icles r equ ir ed.”27 The “st rongest currentindica tor,” however, was “the long-dura t ion stays inspace by cosmonauts” aboard Salyut space sta t ions.Potent ia l fu ture indica tors included “a cosmonaut stayin low-ear th orbit of one year dura t ion . . . [and] spacetests of a nuclear propulsion system . . . .”28 The CIAguessed tha t the first Soviet Mars flyby might occur asear ly as 1992, in t ime for the 500th anniversary ofColumbus’s ar r iva l in the Americas.29

The J SC flyby plan for counter ing this possible Sovietmove was prepared by Barney Roberts, who performedlunar base studies in the J SC Engineering Directorate.30

Roberts’ year-long Mars flyby mission would begin withorbita l assembly at the Space Stat ion. Shut t les woulddeliver two expendable st rap-on propellant tanks andan 18-ton Mission Module to the Stat ion. The la t terwould dock with a 6-ton Command Module (not to beconfused with the Apollo CM) and two 5.75-ton OTVsassumed to be in space already as par t of the SpaceSta t ion Program. Shut t le-der ived heavy-lift rocketswould then deliver 221 tons of liquid hydrogen/liquidoxygen propellants. The propellants would be loadedinto the st rap-on and OTV tanks just pr ior to departurefor Mars. Spacecraft weight a t Earth-orbit departurewould come to 358 tons.


F igu r e 18—In 1985, NASA’s J oh n son Spa ce Cen t erresponded to suspected Soviet Mars plans by proposing aU.S. Ma rs flyby using Space St a t ion and luna r ba se ha rd-ware then planned for the 1990s. Here the flyby spacecraftorbit s Ear th before set t ing out for Ma rs. (“Concept for aMa n n ed Ma r s F lyby,” Ba rney Rober t s, Ma n n ed Ma r sMissions: Working Group Paper s, NASA M002, N AS A/LosAlamos Na t iona l Labora tor ies, Huntsville, Ala ba m a /LosAlamos, New Mexico, J une 1986, Vol. 1, p. 210.)


At the proper t ime, the OTV engines would ignite andburn for about one hour to put the flyby craft on coursefor Mars. This would empty the st rap-on tanks, butRober ts advised reta in ing them to provide addit ionalmeteoroid and radia t ion shielding for the crew mod-ules. After a six-month Ear th-Mars t ransfer, the flybyspacecraft would spend two and one-half hours with inabout 20,000 miles of Mars. Closest approach wouldoccur 160 naut ica l miles above the Mart ian surfacewith the flyby craft moving a t 5 miles per second.

As Earth grew from a br ight star to a distant disk, theastronauts would discard the st rap-on tanks, thenundock one OTV and redock it to the Command Module.They would enter the Command Module and discardthe Mission Module and the second OTV. The OTV/Command Module combination would slow to a manage-able reentry speed using the OTV’s engines, aerobrake toEarth-orbital speed, then dock at the Space Station.

Rober ts found (as had planners in the 1960s) tha tEar th return was the most problemat ica l phase of theflyby mission because the OTV would hit Ear th’sa tmosphere a t 55,000 feet per second, producing fr ic-

t ion heat ing beyond the planned limits of the OTV heatshields. In addit ion , the crew would exper ience “exorbi-tant” decelera t ion levels after spending a year inweight lessness.

In the 1960s, planners proposed a Venus flyby to reducereentry speed without using propellant , but Rober tsdid not ment ion th is possibility. He proposed instead toslow the OTV and Command Module to 35,000 feet persecond using the former’s engines. Adding th is burnwould near ly double spacecraft weight a t Ear th-orbitdepar ture. Rober ts ca lcula ted tha t , assuming the SpaceShut t le-der ived heavy-lift rocket could deliver cargo toEar th orbit a t a cost of $500 per pound, Ear th-brakingpropellant would add $250 million to mission costs.31

Interplanetary Infrastructure

Some Mars planners envisioned the NASA SpaceSta t ion in low-Ear th orbit as merely the first in a ser iesof sta t ions in logica l places serving as Mars t rans-por ta t ion infrast ructure, much like t ra ils, canals, ra il-


F igu r e 19—Du r in g r et u r n t o E a r t h t h e flyby spacecra ftdisca r ds em pt y pr opella n t t a n ks, r evea lin g cylin dr ica lCom m a n d a n d Mission Modu les bet ween t win a lm on d-sh a ped Or bit a l Tra nsfer Veh icles. (“Concept for a MannedMa rs F lyby,” Barney Rober t s, Manned Mars Missions:Working Group Papers, NASA M002, N ASA/Los AlamosNat iona l Labora tor ies, Huntsville, Ala ba m a /Los Alamos,New Mexico, J une 1986, Vol. 1, p. 210.)

Figure 20—The flyby crew prepares to aerobrake in Earth’satmosphere. As Ear th grows from a br ight star to a disk, theyundock the Command Module and one Orbita l TransferVehicle, abandoning the second Orbita l Transfer Vehicle andtheir home for the previous year, the Mission Module.(“Concept for a Manned Mars F lyby,” Barney Rober ts,Manned Mars Missions: Working Group Papers, NASAM002, N ASA/Los Alamos Nat ional Laborator ies, Huntsville,Ala ba m a /Los Alamos, New Mexico, J une 1986, Vol. 1, p. 213.)

ways, and coaling sta t ions formed t ranspor ta t ion infra-st ructure in bygone days. They looked ahead to solar-orbit ing space sta t ions, known as cyclers, t raveling aregular pa th between Ear th and Mars, and to space-por ts a t the Lagrange gravita t ional equilibr ium points.Apollo 11 Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin, the secondman on the Moon, described cyclers in a popular-audiencearticle in Air & Space Smithsonian magazine in 1989:

Like an oceanliner on a regular t rade route, theCycler would glide perpetually along its beauti-fully predictable orbit , arr iving and depart ingwith clock-like regularity. By plying the solarsystem’s gravitat ional “trade winds” it will carrymankind on the next great age of explorat ion. . . . For roughly the same cost as gett inghumans safely to Mars via conventional expend-able rocketry (because the problems to be solvedwould be largely the same), the Cycler systemwould provide a reusable infrastructure for trav-el between Earth and Mars far into the future.32

In the 1960s, Massachusetts Institute of Technology pro-fessor Walter Hollister and others studied “periodic”orbits related to Crocco flyby orbits but indefinitelyrepeating. A space station in such an orbit would cycle“forever” between Earth and the target planet . InJanuary 1971, Hollister and his student, Charles Rall,described an Earth-Mars transport system in which atleast four cycling periodic-orbit stations would operatesimultaneously, permit t ing oppor tun it ies every 26months for 6-month transfers between Earth and Mars.33

As the large per iodic-orbit sta t ion flew past Ear th orMars, small “rendezvous shut t le vehicles” would raceout to meet it and drop off crews and supplies for theinterplanetary t ransfer. After severa l Mars voyages,the cycler approach would yield a dramat ic reduct ion inspacecraft mass over the MOR mission mode becausethe cycler would only need to burn propellants to leaveEar th orbit once; after tha t , only the small shut t leswould need to burn propellants to speed up and slowdown a t Ear th and Mars.

The Case for Mars II conference (10-14 J uly 1984)included a workshop tha t planned “a permanent Marsresearch base using year 2000 technology” as a “pre-cursor to eventual coloniza t ion.” The Case for Mars IIworkshop took advantage of the long-term weight -min imiza t ion inheren t in cyclers and Mars ISRU. The

Boulder Center for Science and Policy published a J PL-funded repor t on the workshop results in Apr il 1986.34

The Case for Mars had begun to ga ther st eam.Pa r t icipa n t s in t h e secon d con fer en ce in clu dedHarr ison Schmit t with a paper on his Mars 2000 proj-ect , Benton Clark, and Chr istopher McKay, who hadearned his Ph.D. and gone to work a t NASA Ames.Former NASA Administ ra tor Tom Paine presented at imeline of Mars explora t ion spanning 1985 to 2085. Itpredicted, among other th ings, a lunar popula t ion inthe thousands in the 2025-2035 decade and a Mart ianpopula t ion of 50,000 in the 2055-2065 decade.35 BarneyRober ts, Michael Duke, and lunar scient ist WendellMendell presented a paper ca lled “Lunar Base: AStepping Stone to Mars,”36 while NASA Space Sta t ionmanager Humboldt Mandell presented a paper ca lled“Space Sta t ion: The First Step.”37

In the Case for Mars II plan, the cycler’s Earth-Mars leglasted six months, followed by a Mars-Earth leg last ing20 to 30 months. Each crew would spend two years onMars, and new crews would leave Earth every two years.The first crew would leave Earth in 2007 and return in2012; the second crew would depart in 2009 and returnin 2014; and so on. This schedule would require at leasttwo cyclers. As Hollister and Rall proposed, small CrewShutt le vehicles would t ransfer crews to and from thepassing cycler. The Crew Shut t les were envisioned astwo-stage biconic vehicles designed for aerobraking atEarth and Mars. Their proposed shape was der ivedfrom ballist ic missile warhead research.

A heavy-lift rocket capable of launching a t least 75metr ic tons, possibly based on Shut t le hardware, wouldplace cycler components, some based on Shut t le andSpace Sta t ion hardware, in to Ear th orbit for assembly.The 1984 Case for Mars plan ca lled for cycler assemblyat the low-Ear th orbit Space Sta t ion; in a subsequentversion, a dedica ted assembly facility was proposed.The first Mars expedit ion would require 24 heavy-liftrocket launches and 20 Shut t le launches.

ISRU would supply the Case for Mars II base withmany consumables, including propellan t . “Mars isabundant ly endowed with a ll the resources necessaryto susta in life,” the repor t sta ted, adding tha t “propel-lant product ion on the surface of Mars is cr it ica l toreducing the cost of the program” because it “reducesthe Ear th launch weight by a lmost an order of magni-




tude.”38 Each Crew Shut t le would require 150 tons ofMars ISRU-manufactu red ca rbon monoxide/oxygenpropellant to ca tch up with the passing Ear th-boundcycler. The Case for Mars II workshop proposed tha t anautomated probe should test ISRU propellant produc-t ion on Mars before the Mars base program began.

Lagrangia

Like the cycler concepts, the notion of sit ing infrastruc-ture at the Lagrange points dates to the 1960s. Its theo-ret ical roots, however, date to 1772. In that year, Frenchmathematician J oseph Lagrange noted that gravitat ion-al equilibrium points exist in isolated two-body systems.

Lagrange poin t s exist in space—for example, in t hetwo-body Ea r th -Moon syst em. In t heory, an objectplaced a t one of t hese poin t s will r ema in a s if nest ingin a lit t le cup of space-t ime. In pract ice, Lagrangepoin t s in space a r e unst able or quasi-st able becauseplanet s and moons do not exist a s isola t ed two-bodysyst ems. In t he ca se of t he Ea r th -Moon syst em, theSu n ’s gr a vit a t ion a l pu ll in t r odu ces in s t a bilit y.Object s placed a t t he Ea r th -Moon Lagrange poin t st h u s t en d t o m ove in “h a lo or bit s” a r ou n d t h eLagrange poin t and r equ ir e modest st a t ion keepingto avoid even tua l eject ion .

Rober t Farquhar, an engineer a t NASA’s GoddardSpace Flight Center in Greenbelt , Maryland, firstwrote about using the Lagrange equilibr ium points ofthe Ear th-Moon system in the la te 1960s.39 For theNASA MMM workshop in J une 1985, Farquhar teamedu p wit h David Du n h a m of Com pu t er Scien cesCorpora t ion to propose using Lagrange points as “step-ping stones” for Mars explora t ion.40

Farquhar and Dunham envisioned a large, reusableInterplanetary Shut t le Vehicle (ISV) in halo orbit aboutthe quasi-stable Earth-Sun Lagrange 1 point , 1.5 mil-lion kilometers in toward the Sun. A Mars t ransportspacecraft parked there would be gravita t ionally boundto Earth much more weakly than if parked in low-Earthorbit . A mere propulsive burp would suffice to nudge theISV out of halo orbit ; then gravity-assist swingbys of theMoon and Earth would place it on course for Mars withlit t le addit ional propellant expenditure. This meant , ofcourse, that the amount of propellant that would needto be launched from Earth was minimized. To save even

more propellant , the ISV might park at the Mars-SunLagrange 1 point , about 1 million kilometers Sunwardfrom Mars, and send the crew to the Mart ian surfaceusing small shut t le vehicles.

Fa rquha r and Dunham poin t ed ou t t ha t an au toma t -ed spacecra ft had a lr eady left Ea r th -Sun Lagrange 1on an in t erplanet a ry t r a jectory. The In t erna t iona lSun-Ea r th Explorer-3 spacecra ft had en t er ed Ea r th -Sun Lagrange 1 ha lo orbit on 20 November 1978.Aft er complet ing it s pr imary mission it was maneu-vered du r ing 1984 th rough a ser ies of Ea r th andMoon swingbys t o place it on cou r se for CometGiacobinn i-Zinner. Fa rquha r supervised the effor t .The maneuver s consumed less t han 75 kilograms ofpr opella n t . Ren a m ed t h e In t er n a t ion a l Com etE xplor er, t h e spa cecr a ft su ccessfu lly flew pa s tGiacobinn i-Zinner, 73 million kilometer s from Ea r th ,on 11 September 1985.

Paul Keaton elabora ted on Farquhar and Dunham’sMMM paper in a “tu tor ia l” paper published in August1985. He wrote tha t “[a]n evolut ionary manned spaceprogram will put outposts a long routes with economic,scient ific, and polit ica l impor tance” to serve as “‘fillingsta t ions’ for [making and] stor ing rocket fuel” and“transpor ta t ion depots for connect ing with flights toother dest ina t ions.”41

The first outpost would, of course, be NASA’s plannedSpace Sta t ion in low-Ear th orbit , where Ear th’s mag-net ic field would help protect t ravelers from galact iccosmic rays and solar fla re radia t ion, and medicalresearchers would learn about the effects of long-termweight lessness on the human body. Keaton then lookedbeyond Ear th orbit for the next outpost site. He pro-posed placing it in ha lo orbit a round the Ear th-MoonLagrange 2 point , 64,500 kilometers behind the Moon,or a t Farquhar’s Ear th-Sun Lagrange 1 site. He wrote,

[f]or the set t lement of space, a Lagrange equi-libr ium point between the Sun and Ear th hasthe near ly ideal physica l character ist ics of at ranspor ta t ion depot . . . . Lagrange point ha loorbits a re the present standard by which anyalternat ive concept for a t ranspor ta t ion depotmust be gauged.42

Cyclers and Lagrange poin t spacepor t s—infrast ruc-ture spanning wor lds—imply la rge-sca le permanent




space opera t ions and long-term commitment to bu ild-ing space civiliza t ion . Such grandiose visions a re notwidely sha red ou t side of a subset of the small com-

munity of would-be Mars explorer s, a s will be seen inthe next chapter.

Mars is the wor ld next door, the nearest planeton which human explorers could safely land.Although it is somet imes as warm as a NewEngland October, Mars is a chilly place, so coldthat some of it s th in carbon dioxide a tmospherefreezes out a t the winter pole. There are pinkskies, fields of bou lders, sand dunes, vastext in ct volca n oes t h a t dwa r f a n yt h in g onEar th , a grea t canyon tha t would cross most ofthe United Sta tes, sandstorms tha t somet imesreach half the speed of sound . . . hundreds ofancient r iver va lleys . . . and many other mys-ter ies. (The Mars Declara t ion, 1987)1

National Commission on Space

Late 1984, when the Space Shut t le was opera t ionaland Space Sta t ion development was underway, seemedan auspicious t ime to begin char t ing a course for NASAto follow after Space Sta t ion complet ion in the ear ly1990s. Congress mandated tha t President Reagan cre-a te an independent commission to sor t through thepossibilit ies a n d pr ovide r ecom m en da t ion s. Th eNat ional Commission on Space (NCOS) was launchedofficia lly on 29 March 1985 with the goal of bluepr in t -ing the next 20 years of the civilian space program. TheNCOS was to present results to the White House andCongress following a one-year study.

Rea ga n t a pped Tom Pa in e, NASA Adm in ist r a t orfr om 1968 t o 1970, t o h ea d t h e NCOS. Fou r t een com -m ission er s join ed Pa in e. Th ey in clu ded su ch lu m i-n a r ies a s Neil Ar m st r on g, t h e fir st h u m a n t o wa lk ont h e Moon ; Ch u ck Yea ger, t h e fir st h u m a n t o br ea kt h e sou n d ba r r ier ; for m er U n it ed N a t ion sAm ba ssa dor J ea n e Kir kpa t r ick ; Spa ce Sh u t t le a st r o-n a u t Ka t h y Su lliva n ; a n d r et ir ed Air For ce Gen er a lBer n a r d Sch r iever. La u r el Wilken in g, a pla n et a r yscien t is t a n d Vice P r ovost of t h e Un iver sit y ofAr izon a , wa s Vice Ch a ir.

Non-vot ing NCOS members included representa t ivesfrom both par t ies of Congress and the Depar tments ofSta te, Commerce, Agriculture, and Transpor ta t ion , aswell as the Nat ional Science Foundat ion and the WhiteHouse Office of Science and Technology Policy. In addi-t ion to the inputs provided by it s members, the NCOSheld public forums and solicited writ ten contr ibut ionsfrom academe, business, and the genera l public.

The result was Pioneering the Space Frontier , a glossyrepor t billed as “an excit ing vision of our next fiftyyears in space.”2 It was the first in a ser ies of h igh-pro-file space repor ts produced in the Reagan/Bush years.

Paine’s a t t itude had not changed much since h is t imeas NASA Administ ra tor. He st ill saw it as h is job tochallenge Americans to take on the solar system. TheNCOS repor t ’s expansive vision bore Paine’s unmistak-able stamp; in fact , it bore a resemblance to Paine’st imeline from the Case for Mars II. Pa ine looked to anexpanding 21st -cen tu ry economy with “free societ ieson new wor lds” and “Amer ican leadersh ip on the newfron t ier.”

Events caught up with the NCOS exercise, however. Onthe chilly Flor ida morning of 28 J anuary 1986, withmuch of t he Commission ’s work complet e, SpaceShut t le Challenger exploded 73 seconds in to missionSTS-51L, killing seven ast ronauts and grounding theremaining three Shut t le orbiters. The immedia te causeof the accident was fa ilure of a sea l in one of theShut t le’s twin SRBs.

The Challenger accident threw the giddy opt imism ofPaine’s NCOS report into sharp relief. It was a wake-upcall. The Space Shut t le would not , could not , provide thekind of low-cost , rout ine space access envisioned duringthe 1970s. “The myth of an economic Shut t le” was la idbare.3 The basic tool for establishing space infrastruc-ture was found wanting, forcing many of the infrastruc-ture elements envisioned by Mars planners in the ear ly1980s into some indefinite post-Shut t le future.

The accident contributed to NASA’s decision to redesignthe Space Station in mid-1986. After more than two yearsof studies, NASA had unveiled its station design in early1986. Called the Dual Keel, it was primarily a space lab-oratory, but included a large rectangular truss whichmight eventually hold hangars, assembly equipment, anda propellant depot for Moon and Mars spacecraft . Therectangular truss was, however, adopted primarily to pro-vide attachment points for anticipated user payloads,with space-facing payloads on the top and Earth-facingpayloads on the bottom.4

Following Challenger , the Dual Keel design came to beseen as too ambit ious. The rectangular t russ wasdeferred to a fu ture Phase II of sta t ion assembly. PhaseI would consist of a single st ra ight t russ holding solar


Chapter 8: Challengers

arrays and a cluster of pressur ized modules. Designerssought , however, to include software “scars” and hard-ware “hooks” in the Phase I design to permit eventualexpansion to the fu ll Dual Keel configura t ion.5

From the Mars explorers’ point of view, the accidentdemonst ra ted tha t the Space Shut t le could not be usedto launch Mars ships. It had been felt by many beforeChallenger that the Shut t le would have to be supple-mented by a heavy-lift rocket if piloted flight beyondlow-Ear th orbit was to be a credible NASA goal, but itbecame patent ly obvious to most everyone on tha t coldday in J anuary 1986.

Paine’s repor t was crammed full of new vehicles andinterplanetary infrast ructure based largely on SAICand Eagle Engineer ing studies. The NCOS called fornew cargo and passenger launch vehicles to replace theSpace Shut t le by 1999 and 2000, respect ively. Thesewere components of a “Highway to Space” that wouldinclude the in it ia l Ear th-orbita l Space Sta t ion (1992), aspace-based OTV (1998), and an in it ia l Ear th-orbita lspacepor t (1998). This segued in to a “Bridge BetweenWor lds” tha t would include a single-stage-to-orbitspace plane, a Moon base with facilit ies for mininglunar oxygen, cyclers and Lagrange point sta t ions,nuclear-elect r ic space freighters, and, by 2026, a Marsbase resembling the one put forward a t the Case forMars II workshop (1984).

The NCOS program would cost about $700 billionbetween 1995 and 2020. This cost would, Paine wrote,be paid through increases in NASA funding keepingpace with projected increases in U.S. GNP of 2.4 per-cent per year. NASA funding in 1986 was about $10 bil-lion , or less than 1 percent of GNP. According to therepor t , if NASA funding remained near 1 percent ofGNP, it would increase to $20 billion in 2000 and to $35billion in 2020. For the near-term, the repor t urged tha tthe new technology development share of NASA’s budg-et be ra ised from 2 percent to 6 percent .

The NCOS turned over it s repor t to the Reagan WhiteHouse in March 1986, two months after the Challengeraccident . Paine went public with the repor t even beforepresent ing it to the White House by giving a draft toAvia t ion Week & Space Technology m a ga zin e.6

Unusually, the repor t was a lso published as a t radepaperback and sold in bookshops.

Paine presented the NCOS repor t formally to PresidentReagan and the Senate and House Space Commit teeson 22 J uly 1986. It urged the White House to direct theNASA Administ ra tor to respond by 31 December 1986with genera l long-range and specific shor t -range imple-menta t ion plans. Paine summed up the NCOS repor tthe next day a t the NASA Mars Conference, underwayat the Nat ional Academy of Sciences to commemoratethe tenth anniversary of Viking 1’s landing. He told theassembled scient ists and engineers tha t Reagan hadassured him that the Commission’s recommendat ionswould be accepted.7

Th e r epor t ’s con clu sion a ssu m ed—cor r ect ly—t h a tPa ine’s vision would be seen as grandiose, and tookpa ins to defend it . As he had done in the 1969 SpaceTask Group repor t , Pa ine descr ibed the t echnologica lprogress made in the past in an effor t to demonst ra tethe progress tha t cou ld be made in coming decades.

Is ou r expa n sive view of Am er ica ’s fu t u r er ea lis t ic? Ar e t h e t ech n ica l a dva n ces wepr oject a ch ieva ble? Will people a ccept t h er isk s a n d d iscom for t s t o wor k on ot h erwor lds? We believe t h a t t h e a n swer t o a llt h r ee qu est ion s is “Yes!” Few Am er ica n s int h e ea r ly days of t h e Air Age ever expect ed t ofly t h e At la n t ic. . . yet n ea r ly 75,000 peoplen ow fly t h e At la n t ic da ily . . . . I t is equ a llydifficu lt for Am er ica n s t h is ea r ly in t h eSpa ce Age t o visu a lize t h e 21st -cen t u r y t ech -n ologies t h a t will en a ble t h e aver a ge cit izent o soa r in t o or bit a t low cost , t o fly t o n ewwor lds beyon d E a r t h , a n d t o work and live ont h e spa ce fr on t ier in closed-ecology bios-ph er es u s in g r obot ica lly-pr ocessed loca lr esou rces . . . . We shou ld . . . emphasize t ha t :The Commission is not prophesying; it isdescr ibing wha t t he Un it ed St a t es can makehappen th rough vigorous leader sh ip in pio-neer ing the space fron t ier.8

The NCOS plan was not so much a plan for guidingNASA’s fu ture as an evocat ion of the pioneer ing spir itwh ich Pa in e felt wa s fla ggin g in 20t h -cen t u r yAmericans. The romant ic a t t ract ion to pioneer ing hasin fact a lways been a rare th ing. Those afflicted by itfrequent ly feel grea t zea l, which blinds them to the facttha t they are rar it ies—that others, while frequent ly




sympathet ic to their vision, do not place as h igh a pr i-or ity as they do upon making it rea l.

The NCOS report was not well received, primarilybecause the Challenger accident had made clear thatNASA was in no posit ion to tackle such an expansive, all-encompassing plan. But it was also seen as too general,with too many proposals. In la te August 1986, formerPresident ia l Science Advisor George Keywor th , whohad been a non-vot ing NCOS member, sa id the repor thad for feited impact by put t ing forward proposa ls“tha t st retch a ll the way from China to New York.”9 Ata t ime when NASA was grounded and st ruggling toadapt it s programs to the Shut t le’s revea led shor tcom-ings, the NCOS discussed topics as wide-ranging asself-r eplica t in g spa ce fa ct or ies, t h e In t er n a t ion a lSpace Year, and the Big Bang. Arguably, a ll wereimpor tan t to NASA’s fu ture missions, bu t presen t ingthem in a single repor t merely made the view forwardseem more clouded.

The Reagan White House quiet ly shelved the NCOSreport ; as Paine complained in an Aviat ion Week &Space Technology opinion piece in September 1987,“[T]he mandated president ia l response to the commis-sion has been delayed.”10 It is hard to fault the spir it ofPaine’s report . But the Agency’s challenge in 1986 wasto recover from the Challenger accident . If a plan forNASA’s future in space was to be drawn up, it wouldhave to a t tempt to take into account the realit ies of U.S.space flight in the mid-1980s. Such a plan was not longin coming, thanks to heightened public interest inNASA’s act ivit ies following the Challenger accident ,widespread concern that NASA had no long-term direc-t ion, and on-going effor ts by Mars advocates.

The Ride Report

Sally Ride was a member of the 1978 ast ronaut class,the first selected for Space Shut t le flights; in 1983 shebecame the first American woman in space. She flew onthe Shut t le twice and sa t on the Rogers Commissioninvest iga t ing the Challenger accident before J amesFletcher, in h is second st in t as NASA Administ ra tor,appointed her as h is Specia l Assistant for St ra tegicPlanning (18 August 1986) and charged her withprepar ing a new bluepr in t for NASA’s fu ture. She wasassisted by a 10-member panel and a small staff. Theresult of her 11-month study was a slim repor t ent it ledLeadersh ip and America’s Future in Space.

Avia t ion Week & Space Technology repor ted in it ia lresistance inside NASA to releasing Ride’s repor t . Themagazine quoted an unnamed NASA manager whosaid the agency was “afra id of being cr it icized by theOffice of Management and Budget .” The repor t ’s franktone may a lso have contr ibuted to NASA’s reluctance.In the end, Agency managers relented and published2,000 copies in August 1987.11

On 22 J u ly 1987, Ride t est ified to the HouseSubcommittee on Space Science and Applicat ions. Shetold the Subcommittee that the “civilian space programfaces a dilemma, aspir ing toward the visions of theNational Commission on Space, but faced with the real-it ies of the Rogers Commission report .”12 Ride explainedthat she had at tempted to reconcile “two fundamental,potentially inconsistent views.” “Many people,” she said,believed that “NASA should adopt a major visionarygoal. They argue that this would galvanize support , focusNASA programs, and generate excitement.” Others, Ridestated, maintained that NASA was “already overcom-mitted for the 1990s”—that it would be “struggling tooperate the Space Shutt le and build the Space Stat ion,and could not handle another major program.”13

While Paine’s NCOS repor t urged rapid implementa-t ion of an expansive vision, Ride’s repor t out lined fourmore limited leadership in it ia t ives “as a basis for dis-cussion .” She expla ined tha t her repor t was “notin tended to culminate in a select ion of one in it ia t iveand eliminat ion of the other three, but ra ther to pro-vide concrete examples which could ca ta lyze and focusthe discussion of the goals and object ives of the civilspace program, and of NASA effor ts required to pursuethem.”14

Ride thus devia ted from the pat tern Paine had estab-lished in the STG repor t and cont inued in the NCOSrepor t ; she did not propose a single “master plan .” Inher congressional test imony she expla ined her guidingpr inciple: “goals must be carefully chosen to be consis-tent with the nat ional in terest and . . . NASA capabili-t ies. It is not appropr ia te for NASA to set the goals ofthe civilian space program. But NASA should lead thediscussion . . . , present opt ions, and be prepared tom a ke r ecom m en da t ion s.”15 Ride’s fou r Lea der sh ipInit ia t ives were as follows:

• Mission to Planet Ear th : “a program thatwould use the perspect ive afforded from spaceto study . . . our home planet on a global sca le.”


• Solar system explora t ion using robots.

• Outpost on the Moon: an “. . . evolut ionary, notrevolut ionary . . . program that would build on.. . the legacy of the Apollo Program . . . to con-t inue explora t ion, to establish a permanent sci-ent ific outpost , and to begin prospect ing theMoon’s resources.”

• Humans to Mars: “a ser ies of round t r ips toland on the surface of Mars, leading to theeventual establishment of a permanent base.”The Mars mission, Ride asser ted, should “notbe another Apollo—a one-shot foray or a polit -ica l stunt .”16

None of Ride’s four in it ia t ives necessar ily depended onthe others. Her “a t tempt to crysta llize our vision of thespace program in the year 2000” in fact represented apar t ia l break from the space sta t ion-Moon-Mars pro-gression tha t had typified most NASA advanced plan-ning.17 Ride’s approach caused confusion. For example,Avia t ion Week & Space Technology magazine and manynewspapers incorrect ly repor ted tha t she had ca lled fora Moon base as a precursor to a piloted Mars mission.In fact , her repor t sta ted tha t the Moon was “notabsolutely necessary” as a “stepping stone” to Mars.18, 19

Th is reflected the in fluence of a NASA AdvisoryCouncil Task Force led by Apollo 11 ast ronaut MichaelCollins. “I th ink it is a mistake to consider the [M]oonas a necessary stepping stone to Mars,” Collins toldAvia t ion Week & Space Technology in J uly. “It will notget suppor t polit ica lly, or from the U.S. public, whichthinks we’ve ‘a lready done the [M]oon.’”20 Ride person-a lly favored the Moon-Mars progression, however ; shewrote tha t it “cer ta in ly makes sense to ga in exper ience,exper t ise, and confidence near Ear th first .”21

In common with the sta t ion-Moon-Mars progression,Ride’s in it ia t ives a ll included NASA’s Space Sta t ion.This was a ground rule established by Fletcher—notsurpr isingly, since the Space Sta t ion Program hadbegun only three years before and was fiercely defend-ed by NASA.22 As expla ined ear lier, in Challenger’saftermath , Space Sta t ion had become a two-phase pro-gram. Ride pointed out tha t a decision on NASA’sfuture course would impact the Phase II configura t ion.She wrote tha t a “key quest ion for the not -too-distantfu ture is ‘how should the Space Sta t ion evolve?’” and

noted tha t Space Sta t ion evolut ion workshops in 1985and 1986 had found tha t “a labora tory in space fea tur-ing long-term access to the microgravity environmentmight not be compat ible with an opera t ional assemblyand checkout facility [of the type envisioned to suppor tMoon and Mars explora t ion], as const ruct ion opera-t ions could disturb the scient ific environment .”23

Like the NCOS report , Ride’s report called for NASA toincrease its efforts to develop advanced space technologyfor explora t ion missions. She told the HouseSubcommittee that “the future of our space program liesin careful select ion and dedicated pursuit of a coherentcivil space strategy, and the health of our current spaceprogram lies in determined development of technologiesrequired to implement that strategy.”24 Ride’s report rec-ommended Project Pathfinder, a program to developtechnologies that had been identified by a panel of NASAengineers as crucial to future space programs. Theseincluded aerobraking, automated rendezvous and dock-ing, and advanced chemical propulsion. “Until advancedtechnology programs like Pathfinder are init iated” wroteRide, “the excit ing goals of human explorat ion willalways remain 10 to 20 years in the future.”25

On 1 J une 1987, Fletcher had crea ted the NASAHeadquar ter s Office of Explora t ion , with Ride asAct in g Assist a n t Adm in ist r a t or for E xplor a t ion ,responsible for coordinat ing missions to “expand thehuman presence beyond Ear th .” In expla in ing th ismove, Fletcher sa id tha t “[t ]here are considerable—even urgent—demands for a major in it ia t ive to reener-gize America’s space program . . . th is office is a step inresponding to tha t demand.”26 In her repor t , Ride wrotethat “[e]stablishment of the Office of Explora t ion wasan impor tant first step. Adequate suppor t of the Officewill be equally impor tant .” She noted tha t there was“some concern tha t the office was crea ted only to pla-ca te cr it ics, not to provide a ser ious focus for explo-ra t ion. Studies rela t ing to human explora t ion of theMoon or Mars current ly command only about 0.03 per-cent of NASA’s budget . . . th is is not enough . . . .”27

Ride targeted the first Mars landing for 2005. Herrepor t pointed out , however, tha t “NASA’s availableresources were st ra ined to the limit flying nine Shut t leflights in one year.” “This suggests,” it concluded, “thatwe should . . . proceed a t a more delibera te (but st illaggressive) pace, and a llow the first human landing to



occur in 2010. This spreads the investment over alonger per iod.”28

SAIC began designing the Mars mission in Ride’srepor t in J anuary 1987 and completed it s study for theNASA H ea dqu a r t er s Office of E xplor a t ion inNovember 1987.29 J ohn Niehoff, the study’s Pr incipal Invest iga tor, was the “Humans to Mars In it ia t iveAdvocate” for the Ride Repor t . He had a lso worked onThe Planetary Society’s 1984 Mars study (see Chapter7). Niehoff’s team proposed a three-par t Mars explo-ra t ion st ra tegy:

• 1990s: Robot ic missions, including a globalmapper and a sample-return mission, would“address key quest ions about exobiology andobta in ground-t ru th engineer ing data .” Thisper iod would a lso see research aboard theSpace Sta t ion in to the effects of prolongedweight lessness on ast ronaut health , and devel-opment of “heavy-lift launch vehicles, h ighenergy orbita l t ransfer stages, and large-sca leaerobrakes.”

• 2000s: Piloted missions with round-t r ip t imesof about one year, stay-t imes near Mars of 30 to45 days, and Mars surface excursions of 10 to20 days were the pr imary emphasis of theSAIC study. These missions would explorepotent ia l outpost sites and build up in terplan-etary flight exper ience. The one-year t r ip-t imewas designed to r educe crew exposure toweight lessness and radia t ion.

• After 2010: “A piloted base on Mars . . . a grea tnat ional adventure which would require ourcommitment to an endur ing goal and it s sup-por t ing science, technology, and infrast ructurefor many decades.”30

A large amount of energy would be required to get theship to Mars and back in about a year, which in turnwould demand a prohibit ively large amount of propel-lant . With an in tent to reduce the number of heavy-liftrocket launches needed to mount the expedit ion , SAICadopted a split /spr in t mission mode based on a designdeveloped by students from the University of Texas andTexas A&M University. This had a one-way, automatedcargo vehicle leaving Ear th ahead of the piloted spr in t



Figure 21—Science Applica t ions In terna t iona l Corpora t ion developed it s Mars mission plan for NASA dur ing 1987. The pilot -ed spacecra ft (shown here in cu taway) would reach Mars with empty propellan t t anks and dock with a wait ing au tomatedca rgo sh ip to fill up for the t r ip home—a controversia l depar tu re from past Mars plans. (P iloted Spr in t Missions to Mars,Repor t No. SAIC-87/1908, Study No. 1-120-449-M26, Science Applica t ions In terna t iona l Corpora t ion , Schaumburg, Illinois,November 1987, p. 9.)

vehicle on a low-energy t ra jectory. The cargo vehiclewould carry Ear th-return propellants for the pilotedship. To some th is was worr isome—if the spr in t space-craft could not rendezvous and dock with the cargovehicle, the crew would become st randed a t Mars withno propellants for return to Ear th .31

In phase 1 of SAIC’s four-phase Mars mission, sevenheavy-lift rockets would launch par ts for the cargo

vehicle and a reusable OTV, propellants, and cargo in toorbit near the Space Sta t ion. The OTV and cargo vehi-cle together would measure 30.5 meters long and weigh58.8 metr ic tons fu lly fueled. In addit ion to Ear th-return propellants for the piloted spr in t vehicle, the23.9-metr ic-ton cargo vehicle would carry the Mars lan-der and scient ific equipment .

According to SAIC’s t imetable, on 9 J une 2003 the OTVwould push the cargo ship onto a minimum-energy

Ma rs t r a jectory, t hen sepa ra t e a nd a erobra ke inEar th’s a tmosphere to return to the Space Sta t ion forreuse. The cargo ship would aerobrake in to Mars orbiton 29 December 2003.

Phase 2 would star t one year after phase 1. Eightheavy-lift launch vehicles would place propellants andcomponents for the piloted spr in t vehicle and a secondOTV into Ear th orbit near the space sta t ion . The OTVused to launch the cargo vehicle would be combinedwith the new OTV and the spr in t vehicle to crea te a73.9-metr ic-ton, 47.5-meter-long stack. The spr in t vehi-cle a lone would weigh 19.4 metr ic tons fu lly fueled.

SAIC’s spr int vehicle design was based on a 24.4-meter-diameter saucer-shaped aerobrake. Four pressurizedliving modules housing six explorers nest led within thesaucer. Twin restar table rocket engines drew propellantfrom spherical liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanksmounted on top of the living modules. A docking tunnelstar ted at the conical ERV mounted on the aerobrake’sinner surface, passed through a “bridge” tunnel linkingthe modules, and protruded beyond the twin enginebells. The thick-walled ERV doubled as the ship’s radia-t ion shelter.

The spr in t vehicle would leave Ear th on 21 November2004. The first OTV would accelera te the spr in t sh ipand second OTV, separa te, and aerobrake in Ear th’sa tmosphere for return to the Space Sta t ion. The secondOTV would a lso accelera te the spr in t sh ip and returnto the sta t ion . The OTVs could be reused for fu turespr in t /split Mars expedit ions. The spr in t vehicle wouldthen fire it s own rockets br iefly to complete inser t iononto a low-energy t rans-Mars t ra jectory. A six-montht r ip to Mars would be possible, but Niehoff’s teamadvocated an eight -month t ra jectory tha t would a llowa Mars flyby and abor t to Ear th if the cargo ship wait -ing in Mars orbit with the piloted ship’s Ear th-returnpropellant fa iled dur ing the crew’s flight to Mars. Anabor t would have the Mars crew back on Ear th on 5J anuary 2006. Assuming no abor t became necessary,the spr in t sh ip would aerobrake in to Mars orbit on 3J uly 2005.32

In phase 3, the spr in t spacecraft would dock with thecargo ship in Mars orbit . Three ast ronauts would boardthe two-stage lander, undock, and land on Mars for 10to 20 days. The crew in orbit , meanwhile, would per-form scient ific research, eject the spr in t sh ip’s Mars



Figure 22—Two Orbit a l Transfer Vehicles would push theScience Applica t ion s In t er n a t ion a l Cor por a t ion pilot edMa rs sh ip ou t of Ear th orbit . The company assumed tha tOrbit a l Transfer Vehicles would be bu ilt for non-Mars pro-grams in t ime to suppor t it s expedit ion , sla ted to reach Marsin 2005. (P iloted Spr in t Missions to Mars, Repor t No. SAIC-87/1908, Study No. 1-120-449-M26, Science Applica t ionsIn terna t iona l Corpora t ion , Schaumburg, Illinois, November1987, p. 27.)

aerobrake, and t ransfer Ear th-return propellant fromthe cargo vehicle. The lander crew would then return toMars orbit in the ascent stage. On 2 August 2005, thespr in t vehicle would fire it s engines for a h igh-energyfive-month spr in t return to Ear th .

Phase 4 would begin a few days before Ear th ar r iva l(15 J anuary 2006 for a nominal mission). The ast ro-nauts would enter the ERV and separa te from thespr in t spacecraft . The ERV would aerobrake in to Ear thorbit while the abandoned spr in t sh ip entered solarorbit . A sta t ion-based OTV would recover the ERV;then a Space Shut t le would return the crew to Ear th .

On 26 May 1987, NASA had announced tha t , a fter fin-ishing her study, Ride would leave NASA to becomeScience Fellow in the Stanford University Center forInternat ional Secur ity and Arms Control.33 In August ,J ohn Aaron took over the Office of Explora t ion. Studiesbegun in J anuary 1987 to suppor t the Ride repor tbecame the basis for piloted explora t ion “case studies”in FY 1988. These examined a mission to Phobos, aMars landing mission, a lunar observatory, and a lunaroutpost -to-Mars evolut ionary program. All commencedwith assembly of the Phase I Space Sta t ion.34

Mar t in Mariet ta became the Office of Explora t ion’s defacto explora t ion study contractor. On 15 May 1987,NASA Marshall had awarded the $1.4-million MarsTranspor ta t ion and Facility Infrast ructure Study con-t ract to the company, with SAIC in “an impor tant team-ing role,” and Life Systems and Eagle Engineer ing assubcontractors.35 The in it ia l contract focus was in keep-ing with Marshall’s propulsion emphasis; as in theEMPIRE days, the Hun t sville Cen ter an t icipa t eddeveloping new rockets for Mars.

However, because it was the only Mars-rela ted NASAcontract when the Office of Explora t ion was estab-lished, it became a mechanism for funding more gener-a l Mars-rela ted studies. The contract , which lastedunt il 30 April 1990, underwent 500 percent growth asnew study areas were grafted on. By the t ime it ended,Mart in Mariet ta had genera ted near ly 3,000 pages ofrepor ts. Though Mart in Mariet ta lost the contract toBoeing when it was recompeted in la te 1989, it servedto crea te an inst itu t ional exper t ise base for Mart inMa r iet t a st u dies du r in g t h e Spa ce E xplor a t ionInit ia t ive (1989–93).36

Opposition

NASA star ted as an inst rument of Cold War compet i-t ion with the Soviet Union. In the 1970s, having wonthe race to the Moon, NASA was par t ly reapplied as aninst rument of in ternat ional détente. The 1972 SpaceCoopera t ion Agreement ca lled for the Apollo-SoyuzTest Project and other coopera t ive space act ivit ies. ASoviet Soyuz spacecraft docked in Ear th orbit withAmerica’s last Apollo spacecraft in J uly 1975. When theagreement was renewed in 1977, it included plans for aU. S. Shut t le docking with a Soviet Salyut space sta-t ion . By 1980, h owever, t h e Soviet in va sion ofAfghanistan had undermined détente, ending vir tua llya ll ta lks on piloted space coopera t ion.37

In 1982, the Reagan White House let the SpaceCoopera t ion Agreement lapse to protest cont inuedSoviet involvement in Afghanistan and mar t ia l law inPoland. In the first major step toward renewed cooper-a t ion, Senator Spark Matsunaga (Democrat -Hawaii)sponsored legisla t ion ca lling for renewal of the SpaceCooper a t ion Agr eem en t . Con gr ess pa ssed t h eMatsunaga resolut ion, and President Reagan signed itin to law in October 1984.38

On 11 March 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became theSoviet Union’s new leader. He set about implement inga raft of new reform policies. Making them work meantdiver t ing resources from Cold War confronta t ion todomest ic product ion. A char ismat ic leader represent inga new genera t ion of Soviet polit icians, he encouragedmany in the West by working to thaw rela t ions with theUnited Sta tes.

Against this background, The Planetary Society part-nered with the influential AIAA to hold the Steps to Marsconference in Washington, DC, on the tenth anniversaryof Apollo-Soyuz. NASA Administrator J ames Beggs wason hand to hear Carl Sagan and others promote a jointUnited States-Soviet Mars expedition.

Sally Ride had writ ten of the difficulty of reconcilingvisionary and conservat ive space goals. The PlanetarySociety Mars proposal fell in to the former ca tegory.Unlike some visionary goals, however, it proposed giv-ing Mars explora t ion a polit ica l purpose, just as Apollolunar explora t ion had a polit ica l funct ion in the 1960s.Beggs endorsed U.S.-Soviet space coopera t ion, but cau-



t ioned tha t “when you get down to the n it ty-gr it ty ofworking out deta ils, it ’s not so easy.”39

The U.S. and the Soviet Union renegot ia ted a newSpace Coopera t ion Agreement in November 1986.Unlike it s predecessors in 1972 and 1977, it conta inedno provision for coopera t ive piloted missions. A monthla ter, Sagan published a prescient editor ia l in Avia t ionWeek & Space Technology. The Cornell Universityast ronomer asked, “What if somet ime in the next fewyears a genera l st ra tegic set t lement with the SovietUnion is achieved . . . ? What if the level of milita ry pro-curement . . . began to decline?” Sagan believed tha t“[I]t [was] now feasible to in it ia te a systemat ic programof explora t ion and discovery on the planet Mars . . .culminat ing in the first human footfa lls on anotherplanet” a t a cost “no grea ter than a major st ra tegicweapons system, and if shared by two or more nat ions,st ill less.” He added tha t Mars was “a human adventureof h igh order, able to excite and inspire the most prom-ising young people.”40

The U.S. and the Soviet Union renewed the SpaceCoopera t ion Agreement in Apr il 1987. Emboldened,The Planetary Society circula ted The Mars Declara t ionwidely in la te 1987. Declara t ion signator ies includedformer NASA Administ ra tors and Apollo-era officia ls,ast ronauts, Nobel laurea tes, actors, authors, polit i-cians, university presidents and chancellors, profes-sors, pundits, composers, ar t ist s, and others. It ca lledfor a join t U.S.-Soviet expedit ion to serve as a model forsuperpower coopera t ion in tackling problems on Ear th ,and it ca lled Mars a “scient ific bonanza” that could pro-vide “a coherent focus and sense of purpose to a dispir -ited NASA” in the wake of the Challenger accident .41

Mars, the Declara t ion cont inued, would give the U.S.Space Sta t ion a “cr isp and unambiguous purpose” as anassembly point for Mars ships and as a labora tory forresearch in to long-dura t ion space flight . PlanetarySociety vice president and former J PL director BruceMurray was outspoken on th is point . Reitera t ing whatGeorge Low and Nixon’s PSAC had sta ted in the ear ly1970s, he told the AIAA in J anuary 1988 tha t “the pr in-cipal logic for the [S]ta t ion is in the context of a Marsgoal.”42

Meanwhile, the “future indica tors” the CIA had listedfor Harr ison Schmit t in 1985 had begun to occur. On 15May 1987, the Soviet Union launched the first Energia

rocket , the most powerful to leave Ear th since the U.S.scrapped the Saturn V. Energia funct ioned perfect ly,though it s 80-met r ic-ton Polyus payload fa iled toach ieve orbit . On 21 December 1988, cosmonautsVladimir Titov and Musa Manarov returned to Ear thafter a record 365-day stay aboard the Mir space sta-t ion—long enough to have performed a one-year pilot -ed Mars flyby.

Mikhail Gorbachev first publicly ca lled for a join t U.S.-Soviet Mars mission as Titov and Manarov boardedMir in December 1987. He told the Washington Postand Newsweek before the May 1988 Moscow summittha t he would “offer to President Reagan coopera t ion inthe organiza t ion of a join t flight to Mars. That would beworthy of the Soviet and American people.”43 On 24May 1988, Pravda carr ied an ar t icle by Soviet spaceflight leaders Yur i Semyonov, Leonid Gorshkov, andVladimir Glushko ca lling for a join t Mars mission.44

Lit t le progress was made toward Mars a t the MoscowSummit , but major st r ides were taken toward endingthe Cold War. Time magazine’s cover for 18 J uly 1988showed a Viking photo of Mars with U.S. and Sovietflags and the legend “Onward to Mars.”

Ha lfway th rough Titov and Manarov’s yea r-long st ayon Mir (7 J u ly 1988), the Soviet Phobos 1 Mars probelift ed off from Ba ikonur Cosmodrome on a P rotonrocket . Phobos 2 lift ed off on 12 J u ly. The twin probesfea tu red involvement by more than a dozen coun t r ies,including the United Sta tes. They were designed toorbit Mars and explore their namesake moon Phobos.After rendezvous with the pockmarked lit t le moon,they would drop a “hopper” rover and a small lander.

In ret rospect , however, the probes were the Soviet Marsprogram in minia ture—they got off to a t r iumphantstar t , then sput tered. On 31 August 1988, opera tors a tthe Flight Control Center in Kalin ingrad, near Moscow,sent the Phobos 1 Mars spacecraft an er roneous radiocommand tha t caused it to lose a t t itude control andturn it s solar ar rays away from the Sun. Starved forpower, Phobos 1 fa iled just two months in to it s 200-dayflight to Mars. Phobos 2 reached Mars orbit on 29J anuary 1989. The spacecraft returned useful da ta onMars and Phobos; however, it fa iled in la te March as itneared the long-ant icipa ted Phobos rendezvous.

At 6.5 metr ic tons each, the Phobos probes were theheaviest Mars probes ever to leave Ear th orbit . They




took advantage of the minimum-energy launch oppor-tunity associa ted with the September 1988 Mars oppo-sit ion , the best since 1971.

Mars glowed br ight orange-red in Ear th’s skies as theSpace Shut t le Discovery was rolled to it s F lor idalaunch pad for the first Shut t le flight since Challenger .On 29 September 1988, as Ear th over took Mars in it sorbit and pulled ahead, Discovery lifted off on the 26thflight of the Space Shut t le Program. The four-day, five-crew STS-26 flight ended a 33-month hia tus in U.S.piloted space flight—the longest since the 1975-1981Shut t le development per iod. By the t ime STS-27launched in December, Mars was fading fast and theU.S. Space Shut t le was no longer the wor ld’s on lyreusable piloted spacecraft . The second Energia rocket

had launched on 15 November 1988 with a Buranshut t le on it s back for an unpiloted test fligh t .

The Mars plann ing community, t hough st ill sma lland with few r esou rces, was in fermen t . New leader -sh ip in t he Soviet Un ion , the expanding Soviet spaceprogram, and the t hawing of U.S.-Soviet r ela t ions,coupled with Amer ica ’s r etu rn t o pilot ed space fligh tand growing public awareness of Mars, seemed to cr e-a t e an oppor tun ity. As will be seen in t he next chap-t er, newly elect ed P residen t George Bush wou ld t akeup the man t le of P residen t Kennedy and decla r e forMars. Though a fa ilu r e, h is in it ia t ive wou ld not bewithou t sign ifican t r esu lt s.


The study and programmat ic a ssessmen tdescr ibed . . . have shown that the [Space]Explora t ion In it ia t ive is indeed a fea sibleapproach to achieving the President’s goal . . . .The last half of the 20th century and the firsthalf of the 21st century will a lmost cer ta inly beremembered as the era when humans broke thebonds that bound them to Earth and set for thon a journey into space . . . . Histor ians will fur-ther note that the journey to expand the humanpresence into the solar system began in earneston J uly 20, 1989, the 20th anniversary of theApollo 11 landing. (The 90-Day Study, 1989)1

Space Wraith

Viewed as a space program, as it was in tended to be,the Space Explora t ion In it ia t ive (SEI) was a fa ilure.Viewed as an “idea genera tor” for Mars explora t ionplanning, however, SEI was a success—some conceptsit fostered dramat ica lly reshaped subsequent planningeffor ts.2 It was a lso successful as a pa inful but neces-sary growth process. SEI relieved NASA of weighty h is-tor ica l baggage. It weaned la rge segments of theAgency from its fa ith in the efficacy of KennedyesquePresident ia l proclamat ions, and it fur ther weakenedthe pull the sta t ion-Moon-Mars progression exer ted onsenior NASA managers, a process tha t had first seenhigh-level expression a t NASA in the 1987 Ride repor t .

Like Apollo before it , the decision to launch SEI hadmore to do with non-space policy than with it s sta tedspace flight a ims. SEI and Apollo were, however, dia-met r ica l opposit es in most other r espect s. Apollooccurred a t the Cold War’s height , while SEI occurredat it s end. Apollo a imed a t displaying American tech-nologica l prowess to counter Soviet space successes,while SEI a imed in par t to provide new tasks fordefense-or iented government agencies and contractorsas the Soviet threa t receded. Apollo was greeted withpublic enthusiasm, while SEI was forgot ten even as itbegan. Finally, Apollo accomplished both it s polit ica land space flight goals, while SEI accomplished neither.

The concept of a big Apollo-style space in it ia t ive was inthe a ir in the la te 1980s. In la te 1987 and ear ly 1988,the Reagan Administ ra t ion considered and rejected a“Kennedy-style declara t ion” calling for a Moon base ora man on Mars. White House staffers expla ined tha t

they had lacked informat ion adequate to make a “tech-nica lly and fisca lly responsible decision.”3 The WhiteHouse opted instead for it s Nat ional Space Policy(February 1988) and for giving NASA’s Space Sta t ion aname—Freedom (J u ly 1988). More impor tan t ly, itrequested $100 million in FY 1989 to star t NASA’sPa t h fin der t ech n ology developm en t pr ogr a m . Th eAgency had asked for $120 million . In December 1987,a Nat ional Research Council repor t est imated tha tNASA would have to spend $1 billion a year on tech-nology development for severa l years to make up forpast neglect . Despite th is finding, the funding requestwas poor ly received in Congress—not a propit ious signfor big new in it ia t ives.4

Ear ly in h is Administ ra t ion , President George Bush re-established the Nat ional Space Council and put h isVice President , Dan Quayle, in charge. On 31 May1989, Bush directed NASA to prepare for a President ia ldecision on America’s fu ture in space by proposing aspace goal with visible milestones achievable ear ly inthe 21st century. The direct ive was sa id to have or igi-n a t ed wit h OMB dir ect or Rich a r d Da r m a n a n dQuayle’s advisors.5 NASA Administ ra tor Richard Truly,Assist an t Admin ist r a tor for Explora t ion FranklinMart in , and J SC director Aaron Cohen br iefed Quaylein J une.

Bush revealed what they had told Quayle and launchedthe SEI on the steps of the Nat ional Air and SpaceMuseum on 20 J uly 1989, the 20th anniversary of theApollo 11 Moon landing. Bush told h is audience,

Spa ce is t h e in esca pa ble ch a llen ge . . . . Wem u st com m it ou r selves t o a fu t u r e wh er eAm er ica n s a n d cit izen s of a ll n a t ion s willlive a n d wor k in spa ce . . . . In 1961 it t ook acr is is—t h e spa ce r a ce—t o speed t h in gs u p.Today we don ’t h ave a cr is is. We h ave a noppor t u n it y. To seize t h is oppor t u n it y, I’mn ot pr oposin g a 10-yea r pla n like Apollo. I’mpr oposin g a lon g-r a n ge, con t in u in g com m it -m en t . F ir st , for t h e com in g deca de—for t h e1990s—Spa ce St a t ion Freedom , ou r cr it ica ln ext s t ep in a ll ou r spa ce en deavor s. An dn ext —for t h e n ew cen t u r y—ba ck t o t h eMoon . Ba ck t o t h e fu t u r e. An d t h is t im e,ba ck t o s t ay. An d t h en , a jou r n ey in t o t om or -r ow, a jou r n ey t o a n ot h er pla n et —a m a n n edm ission t o Ma r s . . . t oday I’m a sk in g . . . ou r


Chapter 9: Space Exploration Initiative

a ble Vice P r esiden t , Da n Qu ayle, t o lea d t h eN a t ion a l Spa ce Cou n cil in det er m in in gspecifica lly wh a t ’s n eeded . . . . Th e spa cecou n cil will r epor t ba ck t o m e a s soon a s pos-s ible wit h con cr et e r ecom m en da t ion s t och a r t a n ew a n d con t in u in g cou r se t o t h eMoon a n d Ma r s a n d beyon d.6

Aviat ion Week & Space Technology greeted the init iat ivewith skepticism and a pun, calling it a “space wraith.”“President Bush,” the magazine reported, “set forth along-term space plan without a budget and with no morethan a skeletal t imetable. He then called for morestudy.”7 The in it ia t ive was, moreover, “sprung” onCongress with lit t le “spadework” by either theAdministrat ion or by NASA.8 This helped ensure opposi-t ion. Congress sent the Bush White House a clear mes-sage by eliminating funds for the Pathfinder technologydevelopment program from the FY 1990 NASA budget .

On 26 J u ly, Tru ly and Mar t in br iefed NASA employ-ees on the Presiden t ’s ca ll. They ou t lined a “bu ildingblock approach to progressively more difficu lt humanm ission s.”9 The proposa l, a r et r ead of t he 1960sIn tegra ted Program Plan , ignored the less expansivea lterna t ive program approach la id ou t by Sa lly Ride in1987. Ride’s report was based on conservative projectionsof NASA’s future resources, but the Truly and Martinplan took it for granted that resources for a large, Apollo-style program would automatically follow the President’sKennedyesque proclamation.10

Truly and Mart in la id out the following t imetable:

• 1995-2000: Space Sta t ion Freedom opera t ional;robot ic precursor spacecraft explore the Moon

• 2001-2010: Lunar outpost ; robot ic precursors explore Mars

• Post -2010: Mars expedit ion

The Moon and Mars goa ls wou ld give “dir ect ion andfocus” to Space St a t ion Freedom, Tru ly and Mar t inst a t ed, wh ile t he luna r ou tpost wou ld give Amer icana st r on a u t s exper ien ce in livin g a n d wor k in g ona n ot h er wor ld befor e con fr on t in g Ma r s’ gr ea t erdemands. The Moon’s proximity to Ear th (“a three-daytr ip”) and scient ific va lue made it an a t t ract ive waysta t ion on the road to Mars. For it s par t , Mars was

SEI’s u lt imate goal because it had “in t r igued humansfor centur ies,” was “scient ifica lly excit ing” and “themost Ear th-like planet ,” and because it had resourcesto suppor t human life. St r iving for Mars would “cementlong-term U.S. leadership in space” by providing a“challenging focus for [the] space program.”

Truly and Mart in told NASA civil servants tha t Bush’scall was “a major inst itu t ional challenge for NASA”that would “require rest ructure of [the] [A]gency.”NASA would seek to add staff and facilit ies and wouldst reamline it s procurement system.

The 90-Day Study

The task of turning NASA’s SEI plan in to a repor t forQuayle’s Nat ional Space Council fell to an in ternalNASA team led by Aaron Cohen. He had 90 days tocomplete h is study, which star ted on 4 August 1989.The schedule was sa id to have been dr iven in par t byBush’s desire to have an SEI implementa t ion plan inhand for h is Sta te of the Union speech in ear ly 1990. InSeptember, Truly sa id tha t Cohen’s study involved 160managers from across the Agency, of whom 100 wereba sed a t J SC. Ma r k Cr a ig, J SC Lu n a r-Ma r sExplora t ion Program Office manager, headed the J SCstudy team.11 On 2 November 1989, Truly passedCohen’s repor t to President Bush.

Cohen’s repor t conta ined five “reference approaches”that followed “the President’s st ra tegy: First , SpaceSta t ion Freedom, and next back to the Moon, and thena journey to Mars.”There was, of course, nothing new tothis approach. In common with the 1969 Space TaskGroup repor t , the reference approaches were in fact oneapproach with mult iple t imetables for carrying it out ,not a range of a lternate plans. NASA seemed to be say-ing tha t there was only one way to explore the Moonand Mars.

Approach A emphasized “ba lance and speed.” SpaceSta t ion Freedom assembly would be completed in1997, two to th ree years ahead of the complet ion da teplanned a t the t ime Cohen’s repor t was released.Ast ronauts would return to the Moon in 2001 and per -manent ly sta ff a lunar ou tpost the following year. By2010 the ou tpost would produce 60 tons of oxygen peryear. In 2016, four ast ronauts would t ravel to Mars ina t ransfer vehicle using lunar oxygen propellan t and



would spend 30 days on the sur face. The year 2018would see the fir st 600-day tour-of-duty in a perma-nent Mars ou tpost .

Cohen’s Approach B a imed for the “ear liest possiblelanding on Mars.” The lunar and Mars act ivit ies out -lined in Approach A would occur simultaneously,requir ing more spending in the 2000-2010 decade. Thefirst Mars expedit ion would occur in 2011.

Approach C st rove for “reduced logist ic suppor t fromEarth”—that is, increased reliance on ISRU. Lunaroxygen product ion would thus begin in 2005, ear lierthan in Approach A.

Approach D was to pick Approach A, B, or C, then slipa ll da tes two to three years to a llow Space Sta t ionFreedom complet ion in 1999 or 2000. Americans wouldreturn to the Moon in 2004.

Approach E a ssumed tha t t he U.S. wou ld under t akeBush ’s in it ia t ive, bu t on a “r educed sca le.” Freedomwould be complet ed a s schedu led in 1999 or 2000,and Amer icans wou ld r etu rn t o t he Moon in 2004.The luna r ou tpost wou ld be complet ed in 2012, andast ronau t s wou ld spend 30 days on Mars in 2016. A60-day Mars st ay wou ld occu r in 2018, followed by a90-day st ay in 2022. The Mars ou tpost wou ld be act i-va t ed in 2027.

Cohen’s repor t ca lled for new heavy-lift rockets basedon Space Shut t le hardware or on the Pentagon’sAdvanced Launch System. The largest would place upto 140 metr ic tons in to orbit and have a launch shroudup to 15 meters wide—large enough to cover reusableaerobrake heat sh ields.

To su ppor t t h e Bu sh in it ia t ive, Spa ce S t a t ionFreedom wou ld evolve fr om la b t o spa cepor t t h r ou ghfou r con figu r a t ion s. F ir st , t h e ba selin e sin gle t r u sswou ld be expa n ded t o in clu de t h e ver t ica l lower keelt r u sses a n d lower boom t r u ss of t h e Du a l Keeldesign . Th e secon d con figu r a t ion saw t h e a ddit ion ofa lu n a r spa cecr a ft h a n ga r a n d a secon d h a bit a t ionm odu le t o h ou se fou r-per son cr ews en r ou t e t o t h eMoon . Th e cr ew r ost er wou ld r ise t o 12 in t h e t h ir dcon figu r a t ion t o su ppor t lu n a r spa cecr a ft ser vicin ga n d in cr ea sed life scien ces r esea r ch a n d Freedomm a in t en a n ce. Th e fou r t h con figu r a t ion wou ld see t h e

a ddit ion of t h e Du a l Keel u pper t r u sses a n d in st a l-la t ion of a Ma r s spa cecr a ft a ssem bly fa cilit y.

Th e r epor t ca lled for in cr ea sed civil ser vice h ir in ga n d n ew bu dget pr ocesses wit h in NASA, bu t itin clu ded n o cost est im a t es. A J SC t ea m led byH u m boldt Ma n dell per for m ed a cost a n a lysis a n dpr epa r ed a cost sect ion , bu t it wa s st r icken a n d m ostcopies sh r edded by Tr u ly’s or der beca u se t h e cost sa r r ived a t wer e deem ed polit ica lly u n a ccept a ble.12

Cost in for m a t ion wa s lea ked fr om t h e Na t ion a lSpa ce Cou n cil, h owever, so su ppr essin g t h e costda t a m er ely st ym ied in for m ed discu ssion .13 SE I’scr it ics seized on t h e h igh est lea ked cost est im a t eswit h ou t con sider a t ion of t h e cu sh ion t h ey con t a in edbeca u se t h ey la cked com plet e in for m a t ion —or, ift h ey h a d a ccess t o t h e det a ils of t h e cost est im a t e,t h ey cou ld sa fely ign or e t h em beca u se t h ey wer e n otpu blicly ava ila ble.

According to Mandell, The 90-Day Study plan “wasover-costed by a considerable amount .”14 The st r ickencost est imates included a 55 percent reserve—”ana llowance incorpora t ing both t he cost est ima t inguncer ta in t ies for individua l developments (i.e., project -level reserves) and a llowances for changes in scope(i.e., program-level reserves).”15 The in it ia l cost of apermanent Moon base using Approach A and includingthe 55 percent “cush ion” would be $100 billion in con-stan t 1991 dolla rs between 1991 and 2001. The Marsexpedit ion wou ld cost an addit iona l $158 billionbetween 1991 and 2016 based on the same st ipu la -t ions. Thus, ach ieving the let ter of Bush’s speech—areturn to the Moon to stay and a mission to Mars—would cost a tota l of $258 billion , of which 55 percent($141 billion) was cush ion .16

Con t inu ing opera t ions wou ld, of cou r se, add to SEI’scost . In Approach A, opera t ing the luna r ba se from2001 to 2025 wou ld cost $208 billion , wh ile opera t inga Mars ou tpost from 2017 to 2025 wou ld cost $75 bil-lion . Thus t he SEI program cost for Approach A for 34yea r s, from 1991 to 2025, including opera t ions and a55 percen t cush ion , wou ld come to $541 billion .17

The cost summary had NASA’s annual budget climbingfrom about $13 billion in 1990 to about $35 billion in2007 for Approach A. At it s peak, about ha lf would beallot ted to Moon and Mars programs, meaning tha t the



average annual cost for Moon and Mars would be about$15 billion per year.18

A Quick Study

The 90-Day Study plan was NASA’s officia l proposal foraccomplishing SEI, but it was not the only SEI plan putforward by the Agency. In the summer of 1989, anOffice of Explora t ion task force under Ivan Bekey per-formed a “quick study . . . with analysis suppor t byMart in Mariet ta” which, it cla imed, “defined a muchmore pract ica l Mars program . . . by vir tue of reducingthe sca le of opera t ions through judicious choices andinvent ion of a new launch vehicle concept .”19 Focused onMars and relying heavily on Mars ISRU for propellantproduct ion, it appears in ret rospect as a premonit ion ofpiloted Mars planning in the 1990s.

The study was based on Martin Marietta work performedunder the Marshall Transportation Infrastructure con-tract, as well as on the Phobos and Mars Case Studies.Bekey’s task force briefed Truly on its proposal in thesummer of 1989, but it had lit t le obvious influence on The90-Day Study.20 Bekey presented the concept at the 40thInternat ional Ast ronaut ica l Federa t ion Congress inMalaga, Spain, in October 1989, just before Truly sentCohen’s report to President Bush.

The Bekey task force proposed tha t ast ronauts go firstto Phobos. There they would set up an ISRU propellantplant for making propellants from Phobos mater ia ls,which are believed to be water-r ich . Bekey’s group a lsoproposed to minimize impact on Space Sta t ion Freedomby using heavy-lift launch vehicles to launch a fewlarge components ra ther than resor t ing to on-orbitassembly of many small components. Mission ra tewould be kept low to reduce spending ra te. The pilotedMars expedit ion would be preceded in the 1990s by a“prepara tory program” including automated precur-sors, technology development , and biomedical research.The Moon played no mandatory role in Bekey’s pro-posed Mars program.

Bekey’s t a sk force found tha t , a ssuming an opposi-t ion-class t r a jectory with a Venus flyby for the in it ia lPhobos expedit ion and a con junct ion-class t r a jectoryfor t he Ma r s la nding expedit ions, t he ma ximumspacecra ft mass a t Ea r th -orbit depar tu re for a Phobosexpedit ion was simila r to the min imum mass for a

Mars landing expedit ion—about 700 tons. Therefore,the shor t Phobos mission in 2004 cou ld act a s a“shakedown cru ise” for the Mars landing missionspacecra ft design , helping to min imize r isk to thecrew dur ing the longer landing missions.

Th r ee a st r on a u t s wou ld t r avel t o P h obos wit h ap ilot ed Ma r s la n der, wh ich wou ld t ou ch downu n pilot ed on Ma r s t o a ct a s a ba cku p h a bit a t for t h e2007 Ma r s la n din g expedit ion cr ew. Th e 2004 cr ewwou ld spen d a m on t h a t P h obos, du r in g wh ich t h eywou ld dem on st r a t e a n a u t om a t ed ISRU pilot pla n t .

Three expedit ions would then t ravel to Mars’ surface toset up infrast ructure for a Mars outpost . Five ast ro-nauts would launch to Mars in 2007, land near thebackup habita t from the 2004 mission, and spend ayear on the surface. On the next expedit ion , five ast ro-nauts would set up the first ha lf of a propellant pro-du ct ion fa cilit y on P h obos a n d la n d on Ma r s.Expedit ion 4 would set up the remainder of the propel-lant plant , “readying the Mars infrast ructure for a sus-ta ined ser ies of visit s” that would establish a perma-nent outpost on Mars.

The t a sk force Phobos/Mars spacecra ft design consist -ed of a la rge dish -shaped aerobrake with twin SpaceSta t ion Freedom-der ived cylindr ica l habit a t s. Thespacecra ft would rely on t ether s to crea te a r t ificia lgravity; the a st ronau t s would reel ou t the habit a tmodules from the aerobrake, then rota te the a ssem-blage end over end to produce a r t ificia l gravity.

Bekey proposed launching Mars ship components andpropellant on Shut t le-der ived Shut t le-Z rockets, whichwould include th ree or fou r Space Shu t t le MainEngines (SSMEs), a st rengthened External Tank, andtwo Solid Rocket Boosters. Shut t le-Z would use exist ingKennedy Space Center Shut t le facilit ies and cost aboutthe same per launch as the Shut t le, “but with 4-6 t imesthe payload.”28

By using the Mars t r ansfer st age as the Shu t t le-Zth ird st age, up to 164 tons cou ld be placed in low-Ear th orbit . Th is wou ld permit t he Phobos/Marsspacecra ft to be fu lly a ssembled with “a t most” twoShut t le-Z launches. Three Shu t t le-Z launches wouldrefuel the Mars t r ansfer st age in orbit . A simila r con-cept was proposed in the 1971 MSC PMRG study. Thecrew would then board the sh ip from a Space Shu t t le



orbit er and fir e the refueled t r ansfer st age to leaveEar th orbit for Mars.

The Bekey task force est imated tha t the tota l weightlaunched per year to carry out it s Mars program wouldbe about ha lf tha t needed to carry out the split -spr in tmission plan defined by SAIC for the 1987 Ride Repor t .Bekey’s admit tedly opt imist ic preliminary cost est i-mate was $40 billion for two landings on Mars.20

The Great Exploration

Alternat ives to The 90-Day Study also surfaced outsideNASA. In mid-September, a t about the t ime Cohen pre-sented his in it ia l br iefing on his study to the Nat ionalSpa ce Cou n cil, Lawr en ce Liver m or e Na t ion a lLabora tory (LLNL) engineers, led by Lowell Wood,br iefed Quayle on their Great Explora t ion plan forSEI.21 LLNL, which was opera ted by the University ofCalifornia under contract to the U.S. Depar tment ofEnergy, was associa ted with design and test of nuclearweapons, as well as research in to advanced par t iclebeam and laser weapon systems.

The Livermore plan was not well received by NASA,which saw it as an effor t to invade it s ter r itory.22 Themeaning of the “oppor tunity” Bush ment ioned in h is 20J uly speech thus seemed clear—SEI was to be anoppor tunity for the nat ional labora tor ies to expandtheir ba iliwick. According to some par t icipants, onepurpose of SEI was to provide work for Federa l govern-ment agencies and cont ractors suffer ing cut -backsbecause the Cold War was ending. Cohen’s study had,in fact , taken in to account the need to provide tasks fororganiza t ions such as the Army Corps of Engineers andthe Depar tment of Energy labs.23 NASA’s understand-ing was, however, tha t NASA would be in charge.24

LLNL’s Grea t Explora t ion plan drew on it s 1985Columbus lunar and 1988 Olympia Mars studies.25, 26

Wood and his colleagues expla ined tha t their planrespected “contemporary polit ico-economic rea lit ies,”which would not tolera te a $400-billion space programlast ing three decades. Their plan , they cla imed, wouldrequire a decade and cost only $40 billion .27

The Livermore team called for “manned space explo-ra t ion as though it were a profit -seeking enterpr ise”with “swift explora t ion, set t lement and infrast ructure

crea t ion.” “Each step,” they expla ined, would leave“major opera t iona l legacies—and commitments” sothat “Lunar and Mart ian Bases, once manned, neverneed be unmanned thereafter.” They a lso ca lled forextensive use of off-the-shelf technology to launch andoutfit infla table st ructures (“community-sized spacesu it s”), in clu din g a n E a r t h -or bit a l st a t ion , “Ga sSta t ion” propellant depots, and Moon and Mars surfacebases.28

The Grea t Explora t ion program would commence inmid-1992, when a single Titan VI or HL Delta rocketwould launch a 50-met r ic-ton folded Ear th Sta t ion andGas Sta t ion payload with an Apollo CM on top. Thesta t ions would deploy and infla te au tomat ica lly inorbit under the crew’s supervision . The Ear th Sta t ionwould consist of seven 15-meter-long sausage-shapedmodules a r ranged end to end. It would rota te end overend four t imes each minute to crea te a r t ificia l gravitytha t would vary from deck to deck over the length ofthe sta t ion , thus providing crews with lunar andMar t ian gravity exper ience. The Gas Sta t ion woulduse sola r power to elect rolyze water in to liqu id hydro-gen/liqu id oxygen spacecraft propellan ts. Water wouldbe launched by compet ing companies and purchasedby the government from the lowest bidder.

In la te 1994, a single rocket would launch a 70-metr ic-ton folded Lunar Base with an Apollo CM-based Ear thReturn Module on top. The Lunar Base would refuel a tthe Gas Sta t ion, fly to the Moon, and infla te on the sur-face. The ast ronauts would live in Spar tan condit ions,with crew rota t ion every 18 months. A lunar surfacefuel factory and lunar-orbit Gas Sta t ion would beestablished when the second crew arr ived in la te 1996.

The 70-metr ic-ton Mars Expedit ion ship would belaunched in la te 1996, infla ted in Ear th orbit , and refu-eled a t the Gas Sta t ion. It would then fly to Mars orbitand visit Phobos or Deimos before landing on Mars.The Mars Base would infla te on the surface, and thefirst crew would move in for a 399-day stay. They wouldmine Mart ian water to manufacture propellants for arocket -powered hopper.

The plan was innovat ive, but could it work? NASAmanagers and engineers thought not . The nat ional lab-ora tor ies, however, had suppor ters in the White Houseand on the Nat ional Space Council, among them Vice




President Quayle. They held up the LLNL proposal asa good example of “innovat ive th inking.”29

Faced with two r iva l plans for ca r rying ou t h is in it ia -t ive, in December Bush asked the Na t iona l Resea rchCouncil (NRC) to examine the studies. H . GuyfordStever, science advisor to P residen t s Nixon and Forda n d a for m er Dir ect or of t h e Na t ion a l Scien ceFounda t ion , cha ired the NRC’s Commit t ee on HumanExplora t ion of Space. Among it s 14 members wereApollo 10 ast ronau t Thomas Sta fford and (un t il h isdea th on 31 J anuary 1990) Apollo program managerSamuel Ph illips.

Th e St ever Com m it t ee r epor t , u n veiled on 7 Ma r ch1990, st a t ed t h a t t h e LLNL a ppr oa ch en t a iled “r ela -t ively h igh r isk” a n d u n der est im a t ed “t h e m a n ypr a ct ica l a n d difficu lt en gin eer in g a n d oper a t ion a lch a llen ges” of explor in g spa ce.30 Th e r epor t t h r ewcold wa t er on t h e pu sh t o give SE I over t o t h en a t ion a l la bor a t or ies by st a t in g t h a t “NASA h a s t h eor ga n iza t ion a l exper t ise a n d dem on st r a t ed ca pa bil-it y t o con du ct h u m a n spa ce explor a t ion . . . . Toa t t em pt t o r eplica t e su ch exper t ise elsewh er e wou ldbe cost ly a n d t im e-con su m in g.”31

The Stever Commit tee a lso poin ted out a basic t ru thapplicable to a ll la rge space project s: tha t the “pace a twhich the in it ia t ive should proceed, while clear lyinfluenced by scien t ific and technica l considera t ions, isinheren t ly determined by socia l and polit ica l decision-making processes in which non-technica l const ra in t s,such as the susta inable level of resource commitmentand acceptable level of r isk[,] a re paramount .”32 Inot h er wor ds, policy m a ker s bor e a s m u ch r espon si-bilit y for set t in g SE I’s pa ce, pr ice t a g, a n d ch a n cesfor even t u a l su ccess a s t h e en gin eer s, a n d t h eywou ld h ave t o m a ke fir m decision s befor e t h e en gi-n eer s cou ld pla n effect ively a n d pr oceed.

The St ever Commit t ee t hen ca lled for more studies,st a t ing tha t “the [N]a t ion is a t a very ea r ly st age inthe developmen t” of it s Moon and Mars plans (t h isdespit e t he many studies per formed in side and ou t -side NASA over t he decades). “None of t he ana lysesto da te—The 90-Day Study, The Grea t Explora t ion ,or, indeed, th is r epor t—shou ld be r ega rded a s provid-ing more t han a fr amework for fu r ther discussion ,in n ova t ion , a n d deba t e,”33 it s t a t ed, t h en a dded t h a t“ . . . t he even tua l choice of mission a r ch it ectu re willincorpora t e t he ideas from a va r iety of concept s, some

tha t now exist and other s t ha t will a r ise in t he fu tu re. . . . The va r iety of concept s shou ld be r ega rded a s a‘menu’ of oppor tun it ies.”34

In la te February, a week before the Stever Commit teerepor t was publicly released, President Bush directedthat NASA should be the “pr incipal implementaryagency” for SEI, with the Depar tments of Defense andEnergy in “major roles.”35 Within a week of the repor t ’srelease, President Bush followed it s advice and ca lledfor more study. He asked tha t a t least two substant ia l-ly different reference architectures for SEI be producedover the next severa l years.

Idea collect ion for the Stever Commit tee’s “menu” hadbegun in mid-J anuary 1990, when the AerospaceIndust r ies Associa t ion, an organiza t ion represent ingaerospace contractors, had met to star t a process ofgather ing ideas to turn over to NASA. The Agency’sOffice of Aeronaut ics and Space Technology served asad hoc coordinator for th is effor t .36 NASA also enlistedRand Corpora t ion to manage a campaign to solicitideas from indust ry, universit ies, na t ional labs, and thegenera l public. NASA Administ ra tor Truly led a U.S.Government in teragency effor t . This broad gather ing ofideas became known as the SEI Outreach Program.

Ideas collected through the Outreach Program were tobe reviewed by an independent SEI Synthesis Group,which would then issue a repor t . The Synthesis Groupapproach had been recommended by the AerospaceIndust r ies Associa t ion in Apr il. On 16 May 1990,Congress agreed to provide $4.55 million for theOutreach Program, but not without a pr ice. NASA hadto agree tha t it would release no SEI-rela ted contractsto indust ry unt il 1991. As one congressional stafferexpla ined, th is deferment was designed “to avoid ra is-ing expecta t ions in the pr iva te sector, given the incred-ible [Federa l] budget rest ra in ts.” The Agency a lsoagreed to defer $5 million in in ternal NASA study workunt il 5 August 1990.37 On 31 May, Truly in t roduced TomStafford as Synthesis Group chair.

Paul Bia lla , NASA Programs Manager for Genera lDynamics, expressed well the skept icism many inindust ry felt toward the SEI Outreach Program. “Forthe most par t , our ideas have a lready been shared withNASA,” he told Space News. “Throwing the door open toeveryone is simply going to delay the process.”38


A Political Liability

Th e Ou t r ea ch P r ogr a m wa s SE I’s m ost fa r-r ea ch in gcon t r ibu t ion t o Ma r s expedit ion pla n n in g, for itcom piled a la r ge body of idea s for h ow t o sen dh u m a n s t o Ma r s. In t er m s of im plem en t in g SE I,h owever, t h e Ou t r ea ch P r ogr a m a m ou n t ed t o am ea n s of a llowin g t h e a bor t ive in it ia t ive t o fa de qu i-et ly a ft er it h a d becom e a n obviou s polit ica l lia bili-t y for t h e Bu sh Adm in ist r a t ion .

E ven a s t h e Ou t r ea ch P r ogr a m bega n , SE I wa s m or -t a lly wou n ded. Th e Bu sh Adm in ist r a t ion ’s NASAbu dget r equ est for F Y 1991 wa s $15.1 billion , a 23per cen t in cr ea se over F Y 1990. Th is in clu ded $216m illion t o s t a r t SE I. Two days of NASA bu dget h ea r -in gs in m id-Ma r ch 1990 sh owed, h owever, t h a t t h eMoon a n d Ma r s in it ia t ive en joyed a lm ost n o su ppor tin Con gr ess. By t h e su m m er of 1990, it wa s wr itla r ge—n o m a t t er wh a t good idea s t h e Ou t r ea chP r ogr a m m igh t pr odu ce, SE I st ood a lm ost n o ch a n ceof ga in in g con gr ession a l su ppor t .

It was a two-par t problem. On the one hand, theDemocrat -controlled Congress was not eager to handthe Republican Bush Administ ra t ion any victor ies,especia lly after it had cast it s 1988 President ia l candi-date, Michael Dukakis, as a spend-thr ift Democrat .39

More impor tant ly, however, the la te 1980s and ear ly1990s were marked by an enormous Federa l debt—$3tr illion in 1990—and annual budget deficit s. Budgetproblems a lone made it unlikely tha t a new space in i-t ia t ive would be well received, even if it didn’t have arumored pr ice tag of ha lf a t r illion dollars.

On fisca l grounds, SEI opposit ion was bipar t isan . BillGreen (Republican-New York), a member of the HouseAppropr ia t ions Commit tee, sa id, “[G]iven the currentbudget situa t ion, I would not ant icipa te a significantstar t on Mars in the near fu ture.”40 Rober t Traxler(Dem ocr a t -Mich iga n ), ch a ir of t h e H ou seSubcommit tee on Housing and Urban Developmentand Independent Agencies, summed it up succinct ly:“Basica lly, we don’t have the money.”41

On 1 May 1990, President Bush ca lled congressionalleaders to the White House to lobby for SEI. RichardDarman sought to declare NASA’s proposed budgetincrease exempt from mandatory cuts imposed byGramm-Rudman deficit r educt ion legisla t ion , and

Bush proposed tha t aerospace technology cuts shouldcome from the Defense budget , not from NASA.42 Thecongressional response was quick in coming. On 3 May1990, Senator Alber t Gore (Democrat -Tennessee), chairof the NASA Author iza t ion Panel, told h is fellow legis-la tors tha t “before discussing a mission to Mars, theAdminist ra t ion needs a mission to rea lity.”43

Bush used his 11 May commencement address a t TexasA&M University to signal SEI’s impor tance to h isadmin ist ra t ion . His speech was h istor ic—in it hebecame the first U.S. President to set a ta rget da te foran American expedit ion to Mars. “I am pleased toannounce a new age of explora t ion,” he told the crowd,“with not only a goal but a lso a t imetable: I believe tha tbefore America celebra tes the 50th anniversary of it slanding on the Moon [in 2019], the American flagshould be planted on Mars.”44

Congress, however, handed Bush his first clear defea tin mid-J une, when a House panel eliminated a ll fundsfor SEI from the FY 1991 NASA budget . On 20 J uneBush declared tha t he would fight for h is Moon andMars program. His Admin ist r a t ion had, he sa id,“matched rhetor ic with resources.”The fu ll House elim-inated a ll SEI funds a t the end of J une.45

On top of issues of par ty and finance were badly t imedNASA problems not direct ly rela ted to SEI. Thesera ised inevitable quest ions about the desirability ofcommit t ing the Agency to a major new in it ia t ive whenit appeared it could not handle what it a lready had. Inla te J une, NASA announced tha t the $1.5-billionHubble Space Telescope, launched in to orbit on 24 April1990, was rendered myopic by an improper ly manufac-tured mirror. At the same t ime, the Shut t le fleet wasgrounded by persistent hydrogen fuel leaks. The threeorbiters sa t on the ground for five months while NASAengineers st ruggled with the problem.

On the first anniversary of Bush’s SEI speech, a NASApanel headed by former ast ronaut and spacewalkerWilliam Fisher announced tha t Space Sta t ion Freedomwould need 6,200 hours of maintenance spacewalksbefore it was permanent ly staffed and 3,700 hours ofmaintenance spacewalks each year thereafter. Thiswould cut deeply in to t ime available for researchaboard the orbit ing space labora tory.46 The FisherPanel’s findings helped lead to a new round of sta t ionredesign in 1990 and 1991. In an effor t to reduce cost



and complexity, the potent ia l for Phase II expansion tothe Dual Keel design was eliminated, a long with theopt ion for hangars, fueling facilit ies, and other Moon-and Mars-rela ted systems.47

Space Sta t ion Freedom thus lost vir tua lly a ll hope ofbeing useful for Mars t ranspor ta t ion . It remainedimportant , however, as a place to ga ther da ta on thebiomedical effects of long-dura t ion space flight as par tof effor ts to minimize r isk to fu ture Mars crews. Notcoincidenta lly, Mars plans tha t ignored the Sta t ion,except to say tha t they did not in tend to use it , beganto prolifera te. NASA internal planning, however, con-t inued to place Space Sta t ion Freedom—or some futuresta t ion—squarely on the path to Mars.

In October, House and Senate conferees agreed to anFY 1991 NASA budget of $13.9 billion . While th is con-st itu ted an increase of $1.8 billion over NASA’s FY1990 budget , it included no funds for SEI. Bush bowedto the inevitable and signed the appropr ia t ion in to law.

A New Initiative

By the fa ll of 1990, the course of piloted space flightover the next decade was taking shape. Bush had men-t ioned in ternat ional space coopera t ion in h is speech of20 J uly 1989. SEI, however, st ressed U.S. space leader-ship, which implied compet it ion with the Soviet Union.The Soviets had built up an impressive space infra-st ructure in the 1970s and 1980s. By 1990, however,with economic and polit ica l reforms underway in theircountry, they could no longer afford to use it .

As ea r ly a s March 1990, Bush had directed theNat ional Space Council to pursue space coopera t ionwith the Soviets in an effor t to encourage and suppor tMikhail Gorbachev’s on-going reforms. On 8 J uly 1990,Bush agreed to let U. S. commercia l sa tellites fly onSoviet rockets. On 25 J uly 1990, the United Sta tes andSoviet Union agreed to fly a NASA Mission to PlanetEar th inst rument on a Soviet sa tellite scheduled forlaunch in 1991. In October 1990, Quayle told repor terstha t “we are in ser ious discussions with the SovietUnion” on flying an American ast ronaut on Mir and aSoviet cosmonaut on the Shut t le.48

Yuri Semyonov, director of NPO Energia, the leadingSoviet astronautics design bureau, promoted joint U.S.-

Soviet piloted Mars explorat ion at space conferences inMontreal in 1990 and Houston in 1991.49 Would-be Marsexplorers saw in this an opportunity. At the Case forMars IV conference in J une 1990, for example, BentonClark suggested using the Energia heavy-lift rocket totransport Mars spacecraft propellants to orbit . “Use ofthe Soviet booster would,” he declared, “make thedependency between the cooperat ing countries simpleand straightforward.”50 This represented a dramatic shiftfrom the early 1980s, when Harrison Schmitt pushed forthe LANL/NASA Manned Mars Missions study to helpcounter Soviet Mars moves.

In J u ly 1990, Semyonov and Leon id Gorshkov, head ofEnergia ’s orbit a l st a t ions depar tment , published ana r t icle on Energia ’s Mars plans in the Soviet popu la r-audience publica t ion Science in the USSR.51 The con-figura t ion of the Mars spacecra ft depended, theywrote, on the choice of “powerplan t .” They rejectedchemica l propulsion , saying tha t an a ll-chemica l Marssh ip would weigh upwards of 2,000 met r ic tons a tEar th-orbit depar ture. A nuclea r-therma l rocket Marssh ip wou ld weigh abou t 800 met r ic t ons. More prom-ising, however, were sola r-elect r ic or nuclea r-elect r icpropu lsion syst ems wh ich cou ld r educe sh ip mass t obetween 350 and 400 met r ic t ons.

Semyonov and Gorshkov wrote tha t Soviet “aerospacetechnology is advanced enough to make a mission toMars a rea lity,” then summar ized exist ing Soviet capa-bilit ies. In addit ion to the Energia rocket (“capable ofloft ing in to Ear th orbit whole sect ions of a spacecraftfor fina l assembly”), the Soviet Union had “per fectedthe au tomat ic docking procedures for pu t t ing togethera spacecraft from sect ions in orbit” through more than50 fligh ts of au tomated Progress freigh ters to spacesta t ions. Semyonov and Gorshkov cla imed tha t “[m]ostof the problems tha t would be faced by a crew on a longvoyage to Mars in zero-gravity have been resolved”through 20 years of Soviet space sta t ion fligh ts “in anenvironment very simila r, if not iden t ica l, to tha t of aMars mission .” Fina lly, they repor ted tha t “elect r ic . . .engines of the required parameters have been flaw-lessly per forming on Ear th .”52

In 1991, Energia released a Mars expedit ion repor treflect ing “the expediency to take in to account . . .wor ld public opin ion , which [is] aga inst the launch ofnuclear power”—an aversion reinforced by the SovietUnion’s own Apr il 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor



meltdown.53 NP O E n er gia ’s 355-m et r ic-t on sola r-elect r ic Ma r s spa cecr a ft wou ld r ea ch E a r t h or bit insect ion s s t r a pped t o t h e sides of five E n er gia h eavy-lift r ocket s. The designers envisioned a pa ir of 40,000-square-meter sola r panels supplying 7.6 megawat t s ofelect r icity a t Ear th’s distance from the Sun and 3.5megawat t s a t Mars.

The crew sect ion of Energia’s Mars ship design includ-ed two cylindr ica l modules linked end to end. The largeliving module would conta in a “vitamin greenhouse”and individual cabins for four cosmonauts. Water tankswould surround the cabins to shield them from radia-t ion . Over the course of the expedit ion the water wouldbe gradually consumed and replaced by “waste br icks.”An a ir lock for spacewalks and elect r ic motors for point -ing the solar ar rays would separa te the living modulefrom a smaller control/labora tory module. The space-craft ’s lith ium-propellant elect r ic propulsion systemwould be housed in twin modules a t tached to the sidesof the control/lab module.

According to the repor t , Soviet designers had studiedcon ica l piloted Mars landers ou twardly simila r to theNAR MEM from 1969 to 1971.54 Their 1991 MarsLanding Veh icle was, however, a cylinder with a con i-ca l forward sect ion , a shape selected in pa r t because itfit with in the Energia rocket ’s payload envelope. Thetwo-person lander ’s cylindr ica l sect ion would housean ascen t st age with a docking un it on top. The 60-met r ic-ton Mars Landing Veh icle would land hor izon-ta lly. The cosmonau t s would live in the lander ’s for -ward cone while on the Mar t ian su r face. After a weekon Mars, the cosmonau t s would blast off in the a scen tst age to r ejoin their comrades aboard the orbit ingMars sh ip.

At journey’s end, the crew would separa te from theMars sh ip in the 10-met r ic-ton Ear th Return Vehicle,a conica l reen t ry module resembling the Apollo CM.The Ear th Return Vehicle was designed for land land-ing—like the Soyuz space sta t ion t ranspor t , it wouldinclude solid-fueled soft -landing rocket s under it sabla t ive hea t sh ield.

Bush and Gorbachev formally agreed a t their J u ly1991 summit meet ing to fly an Amer ican ast ronau t toMir and a Soviet cosmonau t on the Space Shu t t le.Less than two weeks la t er, in August 1991, communistha rdliner s launched an abor t ive coup d’eta t aga inst

Gor ba ch ev, t r igger in g t h e colla pse of t h e SovietUnion . The following summer, Bush confirmed theJ u ly 1991 cooper a t ion a gr eem en t s wit h Ru ssia nPresiden t Bor is Yelt sin . The fir st Russian cosmonau t sa r r ived in Houston for Space Shu t t le fligh t t r a in ing inNovember 1992.

Spa ce cooper a t ion expa n ded dr a m a t ica lly u n derPresident William Clin ton beginning in 1993. SpaceSta t ion Freedom was redesigned as the In ternat ionalSpace Sta t ion, which incorpora ted Russian hardwareor iginally built for the Soviet Mir-2 space sta t ion .Mars-rela ted coopera t ion, however, remained small inscale. For example, NASA Lewis researchers workedwith Russian engineers on elect r ic thrusters.

America at the Threshold

The SEI Synthesis Group released its repor t Americaat the Threshold in May 1991.55 The repor t , thoughwrit ten a t a t ime when U. S.-Soviet space coopera t ionwas becoming increasingly impor tant to NASA’s fu ture,conta ined lit t le on coopera t ion. The Synthesis Grouprepor t was the last in the ser ies of h igh-profile docu-ments proposing fu ture direct ions for NASA that hadbegun with the Nat ional Commission on Space repor tin 1986.

Stafford headed a group of 22 exper ts from NASA andt h e Depa r t m en t s of E n er gy, Defen se, a n dTranspor ta t ion . They included ret ired J SC directorChr istopher Kraft and ret ired J SC engineer ing directorMaxime Faget . Rober t Seamans, ret ired from topNASA, Air Force, and Depar tment of Energy posts, wasStafford’s co-chair. They set up shop with a staff of 40in Crysta l City, Virginia , just outside Washington, DC.

The SEI Outreach Program provided the SynthesisGroup with about 500 inputs from the 44,000-memberAIAA. The Aerospace Industr ies Associat ion, mean-while, organized corporate briefings. These included apresentat ion by Martin Mariet ta featuring the MarsDirect plan. NASA took out newspaper advert isementsaround the country and set up toll-free telephone num-bers to receive ideas from the public. About 900 conceptswere submit t ed to Rand Corpora t ion by ea r lySeptember. The national laboratories turned over theirideas during September. All told, the Synthesis Grouphad about 2,000 inputs in hand in late September.56



The Synthesis Group was to submit at least two conceptsbased on these inputs to Truly, who would forward themto the National Space Council. A two-year NASA studywould follow, during which the Agency would at tempt toidentify crit ical technologies needed to carry out the con-cepts proposed by the Synthesis Group.

In J une 1991, the Group distr ibuted 40,000 copies of itscolorful report , emblazoned with the U. S. PresidentialSeal, to industry, educators, government agencies, andinternational organizations. The report outlined fourSEI architectures. In all of them, the ult imate goal waslanding Americans on Mars. The Moon would serve as arehearsal stage; nuclear systems would push spacecraftand power bases; and heavy-lift rockets would blasteverything into orbit . Including nuclear propulsion was,as in the 1960s, in part a concession to Los Alamos,which had begun stumping for SEI nuclear systems asearly as February 1990.57

In none of the architectures was Space Stat ion Freedoman element of Mars transportat ion infrastructure. InSeptember, Aviat ion Week & Space Technology quotedStafford as saying, “I know when I went to the Moon . . .on Apollo 10, I did not have to stop at a space stat ion.”58

This was a radical departure from SEI’s ground rules. Itwas, in fact , a devia t ion from ground rules tha t hadguided Mars planning since the t ime of the ApolloMoon missions, when NASA had first began to push fora space sta t ion .

Stafford’s Architecture I emphasized Mars explorat ionbut would spend five years on the Moon first . In 2005, aheavy-lift rocket would launch an automated cargo lan-der/habitat to the Moon. A second heavy-lift rocketwould launch a crew of six to lunar orbit . Five astronautswould land on the Moon near the cargo lander; the sixthastronaut would mind the mothership in lunar orbit ,just as the CM Pilot had minded his craft during ApolloMoon landing missions. The surface crew would stay onthe Moon for 14 Earth days (one lunar daylight period).

In 2009-10, after four more heavy-lift rocket launchesand two more lunar expedit ions, a six-person Marsrehearsal crew would carry out a 300-day Mars expedi-t ion simulation in lunar orbit and on the Moon. Afterthat , the Moon would not be visited again.

In 2012, the n inth heavy-lift rocket of Synthesis GroupArchitecture I would launch the first nuclear rocket of

the program. It would push an automated cargo landerto Mars. The cargo lander would include a habita t iden-t ica l to tha t landed on the Moon. The first six-personMars crew would leave Ear th in 2014 on the tenthheavy-lift rocket . After a flight last ing approximately120 days, they would decelera te in to Mars orbit usingtheir nuclear-thermal rocket , separa te from the Marst ransfer habita t , and land near the 2012 cargo lander.The crew would spend 30 days test ing systems andexplor ing before returning to the t ransfer spacecraftand fir ing the nuclear rocket for return to Ear th . In thesame launch opportunity, the eleventh heavy-lift rocketof the program would launch a cargo lander for the 2016Mars expedit ion, which would spend 600 days on Mars.The report sta ted that Architecture I was conducive tomore rapid execut ion (first Mars landing in 2008) if pro-vided with “robust” funding.

Th e ot h er a r ch it ect u r es wer e gen er a lly sim ila r.Architecture II, “science emphasis for the Moon andMars,” was designed to character ize the Moon andMars scient ifica lly through wide-ranging explora t ionand visit s to mult iple scient ifica lly in terest ing landingsites. Architecture III, “Moon to stay and Mars explo-ra t ion,” emphasized a permanent lunar base. The basewould achieve 18-person permanent staffing in 2007. Atota l of 47 six-person piloted expedit ions would reachthe Moon between 2004 and 2020, and the first pilotedMars landing would occur as in Architecture I.

The Stafford Group noted tha t “space is a unique storeof resources: solar energy in unlimited amounts, mate-r ia ls in vast quant it ies from the Moon and Mars, gasesfrom the [M]ar t ian a tmosphere, and the vacuum andzero gravity of space it self”—hence Architecture IV,which emphasized “space resource u t iliza t ion.”59 LunarISRU would a im first for self-sufficiency; then it wouldexpor t to Ear th elect r icity and Helium-3 for fusionreactors. Mars ISRU would a im solely to provide self-sufficiency—the planet ’s grea ter distance would makeexpor ts to Ear th impract ica l, the repor t sta ted. TheMars rehearsa l on the Moon would take place asdescr ibed in Architecture I, and Mars expedit ionswould occur in 2016 and 2018. The second expedit ionwould establish an exper imenta l greenhouse. Bothexpedit ions would manufacture propellants for theirrovers from Mart ian a ir.

The repor t made organiza t iona l recommendat ions forcar rying out it s program. It ca lled upon NASA to




establish “a long range st ra tegic plan for the [N]a t ion’scivil spa ce pr ogr a m wit h t h e Spa ce E xplor a t ionIn it ia t ive as it s cen terpiece,” and asked PresidentBush to “establish a Nat iona l Program Office byExecut ive order.” In addit ion , it advoca ted advancedtechnology development programs.60

The SEI Synthesis Group had produced a cut -pr ice ver-sion of The 90-Day Study—a disappoint ing outcome,given the magnitude of the Outreach Program. FewAmericans took not ice of America at the Threshold, and

few of it s recommendat ions were implemented. SEIfunding fared no bet ter in FY 1992 and FY 1993 thanin the previous two years. The planned two-year follow-up study of cr it ica l technologies did not take place.

NASA disbanded the Headquar ters Explora t ion Officein la te 1992. The J SC Explora t ion Directora te closeddown a few months la ter.61 The poor ly a t tended Case forMars V conference in May 1993 became SEI’s wake. Bythe beginning of 1994, Mars planning across NASAthreatened to slip back in to it s post -Apollo slumber.


Recen t developm en t s in t h e explor a t ion ofMa r s h ave ser ved t o focu s a t t en t ion on cea ga in on t h e possibilit ies for h u m a n explo-r a t ion of t h a t pla n et . Th e u n pr eceden t edin t er est sh own in t h e r ecen t ly pu blish ed evi-den ce poin t in g t o pa st life on Ma r s a n d in t h eMa r s Pa t h fin der m iss ion in d ica t es t h a texplor a t ion of ou r sola r sys t em h a s n otbecom e so com m on pla ce t h a t t h e pu blic ca n -n ot becom e su r pr ised a n d fa scin a t ed by t h ediscover ies bein g m a de. An d t h ese even t sh ave a lso r ek in dled t h e qu est ion s n ot ofwh et h er, bu t wh en will h u m a n s join t h er obot s in explor in g Ma r s. (Ken t J oost en ,Rya n Sch a efer, a n d St eph en H offm a n , 1997)1

Mars Direct

Like the STG, NCOS, and The 90-Day Study teamsbefore it , the SEI Synthesis Group opted for a “brute-force” approach to piloted Mars explora t ion requir ingsuch big-t icket items as heavy-lift rockets tha t dwarfedthe old Saturn V, nuclear-thermal propulsion, and alunar outpost . As has been seen, th is approach hasnever ga ined much suppor t . Proposing it repeatedlyover the past 30 years has succeeded mainly in ingra in-ing the belief tha t Mars explora t ion must be exorbi-tant ly expensive (more expensive than a small war, forexample) and needs decades to ach ieve it s goa l.Subsequent NASA Mars plans have sought to applytechnologies new and old to reduce cost and t ighten theschedule. They have begun the slow process of expung-ing the percept ion tha t a Mars mission must be con-ducted in a cost ly way.

Since 1992, NASA has based most of it s Mars plans onthe Mars Direct concept developed in 1990 by Mar t inMar iet ta . Mars Direct or igina ted in Mar t in Mar iet ta -sponsored effor t s to develop SEI concepts. The planhas had staying power in par t because it is an appea l-ingly clever synthesis of concepts with respectablepedigrees. Mars Direct employs ISRU, aerobraking, asplit mission architecture, a tether for ar t ificia l gravity,and a conjunct ion-class mission plan—all concepts tha tdate from the 1960s or ear lier. Mars Direct was influ-enced by the Case for Mars conferences, the RideRepor t , and the NASA Explora t ion Office Studies, aswell as ISRU research conducted by Rober t Ash ,Benton Clark, and others.2

Mars Direct has a lso had staying power since 1990because one of it s authors, engineer Rober t Zubr in , hasremained it s zea lous champion. On April 20, 1990,Zubr in and co-author David Baker unveiled their planto NASA engineers ga thered a t NASA Marshall.3 MarsDirect went public a t a Nat ional Space Society confer-ence in Anaheim, California , in J une 1990. It fir streceived widespread a t t en t ion a week la ter, a fterZubr in presented it a t the Case for Mars IV conferencein Boulder, Colorado.4

In August 1990 the AIAA magazine Aerospace Americacarr ied a non-technica l descr ipt ion of Mars Direct cap-tur ing Zubr in’s promot ional style.5 It asked,

Can the United Sta tes send humans to Marsdur ing the presen t decade? Absolu tely. Wehave developed vehicle designs and a missiona r ch it ect u r e t h a t ca n m a ke t h is possible.Moreover, the plan we propose is not merely a“flags and footpr in t s” one-shot expedit ion , butwould put in to place immedia tely an economi-ca l method of Ear th-to-Mars t ranspor ta t ion ,vehicles for long-range sur face explora t ion ,and funct iona l bases tha t could evolve in to amost ly self-sufficien t Mars set t lement .6

Zubr in and Baker had the fir st Mar s Dir ect expedi-t ion beginn ing in December 1996 with t he launch ofa Shu t t le-der ived heavy-lift r ocket from the KennedySpace Cen ter. The rocket , wh ich Zubr in and Bakerdubbed Ares, wou ld consist of a modified Shu t t leExterna l Tank, two Advanced Solid Rocket Boost er s,and fou r Space Shu t t le Ma in Engines moun ted on theExterna l Tank’s under side. A liqu id hydrogen /liqu idoxygen upper st age and an unpilot ed Mars ca rgo lan -der covered by a st r eamlined sh roud sa t on top of t heExterna l Tank. The 40-ton ca rgo lander included anaerobraking hea t sh ield, descen t st age, Ea r th -Retu rnVeh icle, In -Situ Resource Ut iliza t ion propellan t fac-tory, 5.8 t ons of liqu id hydrogen feedstock for propel-lan t manufactu re, and a 100-kilowa t t nuclea r r eactoron a robot t ruck. The lander was, t hey wrote, “ligh tenough for t he boost er upper st age t o project itdir ect ly on to a six-mon th t r ansfer orbit t o Mars with -ou t any r efueling or a ssembly in Ea r th orbit ”—hencethe name Mars Dir ect .7

The cargo lander would aerobrake in Mars’ atmosphereand land. After touchdown, the robot truck bearing the


Chapter 10: Design Reference Mission

reactor would trundle away to a natural depression orone created using explosives. It would lower the reactorinto the crater—the crater rim would shield the landingsite from radiation—then would run cables back to thelander. The reactor would activate, powering compressorswhich would draw in Martian air to manufacture propel-lant. Manufacturing propellants on Mars would helpminimize the weight of propellants that had to beshipped from Earth.

The propellan t factory would use the Saba t ier processfir st proposed for use on Mars in 1978 by Rober t Ash ,William Dowler, and Giu lio Varsi. Liquid hydrogenfeedstock would be exposed to Mar t ian carbon dioxidein the presence of a ca ta lyst , producing 37.7 tons ofmethane and water. The methane would be stored andthe water elect rolyzed to yield oxygen and more hydro-gen . The oxygen would then be stored and the hydro-gen recycled to manufacture more water and methane.Addit iona l oxygen would be manufactured by decom-posing carbon dioxide in to carbon monoxide and oxy-gen and vent ing the carbon monoxide. In a year, thepropellan t factory would manufacture 107 tons ofmethane and oxygen propellan ts. The piloted Marsspacecraft would not be launched unt il the au tomatedcargo sh ip fin ished manufactur ing the required pro-pellan ts, thereby reducing r isk to crew.

In J a n u a r y 1999—t h e n ext m in im u m -en er gy Ma r st r a n sfer oppor t u n it y—t wo m or e Ar es r ocket s wou ldlift off. On e wou ld ca r r y a ca r go la n der iden t ica l t ot h e on e a lr ea dy on Ma r s. Th e ot h er wou ld ca r r y a“m a n n ed spa cecr a ft lookin g som ewh a t like a gia n th ockey pu ck 27.5 f[ee]t in dia m et er a n d 16 f[ee]t t a ll”ba sed on Ma r t in Ma r iet t a design s developed for t h eNASA Office of E xplor a t ion .8 Th e t op floor wou ldcom pr ise livin g qu a r t er s for t h e fou r-per son cr ew,wh ile t h e bot t om floor wou ld be st u ffed wit h ca r goa n d equ ipm en t , in clu d in g a p r essu r ized r over.Zu br in a n d Ba ker est im a t ed t h e pilot ed spa cecr a ft ’sweigh t a t 38 t on s.

The upper st age would launch the “hockey puck”spacecra ft on course for Mars and sepa ra te, bu t thetwo would remain a t t ached by a 1,500-meter t ether.Th is a ssemblage would rota te once per minu te to pro-duce accelera t ion equa l to Mar t ian su r face gravity inthe piloted spacecra ft . A simila r ligh tweigh t a r t ificia lgravity concept was proposed by Rober t Sohn in

1964. Nea r Mars t he upper st age and t ether wou ld bedisca rded.

The piloted spacecraft would aerobrake in to Marsorbit , then land near the 1996 cargo lander. No par t ofthe ship would remain in orbit . Landing the ent ire crewon the surface would help minimize r isk. Once on Mars,the Mart ian a tmosphere would provide some radia t ionprotect ion, and the crew could use Mart ian dir t as addi-t ional sh ielding. They would a lso exper ience Mart iangravity. Though only a th ird as st rong as Ear th’s grav-ity, it seemed likely tha t even tha t small amount wouldbe preferable to a long weight less stay in Mars orbit .

As in the SAIC split -spr in t plan , the crew would haveto rendezvous a t Mars with propellants for their t r iphome. This was seen by some as increasing r isk. Unlikethe SAIC crew, however, the Mars Direct ast ronautswould have opt ions if they could not reach their Ear th-return propellants.

Baker and Zubr in pointed out tha t the crew had theirrover to dr ive to the 1996 cargo lander, though ideallythey would land with in walking distance. If some grosserror meant they landed more than 600 miles from the1996 cargo lander—beyond the range of their rover—they could command the cargo lander launched withthem in 1999 to land nearby. It would then manufac-ture propellant for their return to Ear th . If the 1999cargo lander fa iled, the Mars Direct ast ronauts wouldhave sufficient supplies to hold out unt il a relief expe-dit ion ar r ived in two years. Assuming tha t the crewlanded near the 1996 cargo lander as planned, the 1999cargo lander would set down 500 miles from the firstMars landing site and begin to make propellants forthe second Mars expedit ion , which would leave Ear thin 2001.

Eleven of the 107 tons of propellants manufactured bythe 1996 cargo lander would be set aside to power thepressurized rover. During their 500-day stay on Mars,the explorers would conduct long traverses—up to 600miles round-tr ip—thoroughly characterizing the regionaround their landing site. This impressive capabilitywould maximize science return by allowing the crew tosurvey large areas, though with some increased r isk. Ifthe rover broke down, the crew could become strandedbeyond hope of rescue, hundreds of kilometers from base.



At the end of the 500-day Mars stay, the ERV enginewould ignite, burning methane and oxygen propellantsmanufactured using the Mar t ian a tmosphere. Thesmall ERV spacecraft would use the cargo lander as alaunch pad to perform ascent and direct inser t ion ontoa t ra jectory to Ear th . After six weight less months inthe cramped ERV, the crew would reenter Ear th’sa tmosphere and perform a parachute landing. Thesmall ERV was considered by many to be a weak linkin the Mars Direct plan .

The 2001 expedit ion crew would land near the 1999cargo lander. If a ll went as planned, the 2001 cargo lan-der would land 500 miles away. The 2003 crew wouldland next to the 2001 cargo lander, while the 2003cargo lander would touch down 500 miles away for the2005 expedit ion , and so on. After severa l expedit ions, anetwork of bases would be established. “J ust as townsin the western U.S. grew up around for ts and outposts,”wrote Baker and Zubr in , “fu ture [M]ar t ian townswould spread out from some of these bases. As infor-mat ion returns about each site, fu ture missions mightreturn to the more hospitable ones and larger baseswould begin to form.”9

SEI’s Last Gasp

In SEI’s last days, the Stafford Synthesis Group repor tformed the basis of NASA’s Mars planning. From 1991to 1993, the Agency performed the First Lunar Outpost(FLO) study, which took as a point of depar ture thelunar elements of the Synthesis Group’s four architec-tures. In the summer of 1992, the NASA Headquar tersExplora t ion Office under Michael Gr iffin , the successorto the Office of Explora t ion first headed by Sally Ride,launched a NASA-wide study to determine how FLOmight find hardware commonality with a follow-onMars expedit ion , thereby reducing the costs of bothprograms.10

The Mars Explora t ion Study Team workshop held inAugust 1992 produced a plan con ta in ing elements ofboth Mars Direct and the Syn thesis Group Mars plan .It was br iefed to Gr iffin in September.11 The May 1993Mars Explora t ion Study Team workshop produced aMars expedit ion Design Reference Mission (DRM)with lit t le over t FLO commona lity beyond a commonheavy-lift rocket and ou twardly simila r veh icles forluna r and Mars a scen t . In fact , the DRM was modeled

on Mars Direct . Rober t Zubr in was an advisor to theMars Explora t ion Study Team in la t e 1992 and 1993.He br iefed Gr iffin on Mars Direct in J une 1992, thenbr iefed t h e J SC E xplor a t ion P r ogr a m Office inOctober 1992.12

Th e Ma r s E xplor a t ion St u dy Tea m DRM wa s r epor t -ed in a wor ksh op su m m a r y a n d in t ech n ica l pa per sin Sept em ber a n d Novem ber 1993.13, 14 I t in clu dedt h e followin g:

• no low-Ear th orbit opera t ions or assembly—that is, no reliance on a space sta t ion as a Marst ranspor ta t ion element ,

• no reliance on a lunar outpost or other lunaropera t ions,

• heavy-lift rocket capable of launching 240 tonsto low-Ear th orbit , 100 tons to Mars orbit , and60 tons to the Mart ian surface (more thantwice the capability of the Saturn V),

• shor t t ransit t imes to and from Mars and longMars surface stay t imes beginning with thefirst expedit ion (conjunct ion-class missions),

• six crewmembers to ensure adequate manpow-er and skills mix,

• ear ly reliance on Mars ISRU to minimizeweight launched to Mars, and

• common design for surface and t ransit habi-ta ts to reduce development cost .

The most significant difference between Mars Directand the Mars Explora t ion Study Team’s DRM was thedivision of the Mars Direct ERV funct ions between twovehicles. In the Mars Direct plan , the ERV lifted offfrom Mars a t the end of the surface mission and flewdirect ly to Ear th . In the judgment of many, however,the Mars Direct ERV was too small to house four ast ro-nauts dur ing a six-month return from Mars, let a lonethe DRM’s six ast ronauts.15 In the DRM, therefore, onlya small Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) would rely onISRU. The crew would use it to reach Mars orbit a t theend of their surface stay and dock with the orbit ingERV. The addit ion of a rendezvous and docking in Marsorbit was seen by some as increasing r isk to crew, but



there seemed to be lit t le a lternat ive if a rea list ica llylarge ERV was to be provided.

The September 2007 Mars t ransfer oppor tunity wasused for the study because it would be challenging interms of t ime and energy required for Mars t ransfer,not necessar ily because an expedit ion was planned fortha t t ime. The first expedit ion would begin with launchof three heavy-lift rockets, each bear ing one unmannedspacecraft and one nuclear propulsion upper stage. Thethree spacecraft were the cargo lander, the ERV orbiter,and an unmanned Habita t lander. They would weighbetween 60 and 75 tons each, a weight est imate con-sidered more rea list ic than the 30 to 40 tons quoted inMars Direct .

The ERV and Habita t designs were based on a commoncrew module design resembling the Mars Direct “hock-ey puck.” The cargo lander would carry the MAV, ISRUpropellant factory, and hydrogen feedstock, a long with40 tons of cargo, including the pressur ized rover. Allwould reach Mars dur ing August and September 2008.The ERV would aerobrake in to Mars orbit , while thecargo lander and Habita t would land on Mars. Thecargo lander would then set about manufactur ing 5.7tons of methane and 20.8 tons of oxygen for the MAVand a 600-day cache of life-suppor t consumables.

As in Mars Direct, the crew would follow during the nextMars launch opportunity 26 months later (October-November 2009), accompanied by unmanned vehiclessupporting the next expedition or providing backup forthose already on Mars. The explorers would land near the2007 cargo lander and Habitat . The Habitats would



Figure 23—NASA’s 1993 Mars mission plan: after landing onMars, the automated propellant factory manufactures liquidmethane and liquid oxygen propellants for the conical MarsAscent Vehicle it carr ies on top. (NASA Photo S93-50643)

F igu re 24—The crew Habit a t lands nea r t he propellan tfactory with empty propellan t t anks. Note wheels for mov-ing the Habit a t on the mar t ian su r face. (NASA P h ot o S93-050645)

Figure 25—Mars Base 1: the crew docks it s Habita t on thesur face with a second Habita t and begins a 600-day stay.They use a pressur ized rover (left ) to explore up to 500 kilo-meters from base. (NASA Photo S93-45582)

include wheels to allow the explorers to move themtogether so they could be linked using a pressurized tun-nel. The 2007 Habitat would also provide a backup pres-surized volume if the 2009 Habitat was damaged duringlanding and rendered uninhabitable.

The first Mars outpost thus established, the crewwould unpack the pressur ized rover from the 2007cargo lander. Dur ing their 600-day stay on Mars, thecrew would carry out severa l 10-day rover t raversesranging up to 500 kilometers from the outpost .

In October 2011, the 2009 crew would lift off from Marsin the 2007 MAV. They would dock in Mars orbit withthe 2007 ERV and fire it s twin liquid methane/liquidoxygen rocket engines to leave Mars orbit for Ear th ,reta in ing the MAV capsule. Near Ear th the explorers

would enter the MAV capsule and detach from theERV, which would sa il past Ear th in to solar orbit . Theywould then reenter Ear th’s a tmosphere and perform aparachute landing.

The Mars Explora t ion Study Team effor t was SEI’s lastgasp. Before it was completed, NASA had begun to dis-mant le it s formal Mars explora t ion planning organiza-t ion . The Headquar ters Explora t ion Office was abol-

ished in la te 1992. The J SC Explora t ion Directora te,crea ted soon after The 90-Day Study’s release, wast r immed back and re-crea ted as the J SC PlanetaryProjects Office.16

As the apparatus for piloted Mars planning withinNASA shrank, automated Mars explorat ion also suf-fered a cruel blow. Mars Observer, the first U.S. auto-mated Mars mission since the Vikings, had left Earth on25 September 1992. On 21 August 1993, three daysbefore planned Mars orbit arr ival, the spacecraft’s t rans-mitter was switched off as planned to protect it fromshocks during propellant system pressurizat ion. Contactwas never restored. An independent invest igation reportreleased in J anuary 1994 pointed to a propulsion systemrupture as the most probable cause of Mars Observer’sloss, the first post-launch failure of a U.S. planetaryexplorat ion mission since Surveyor 4 in 1967.17



Figure 26—Using the propellan t factory as a launch pa d,the Mars Ascent Vehicle blast s off burn ing propellan t s madefrom ter rest r ia l hydrogen and Mar t ian a tmospher ic ca rbondioxide. (NASA Photo S93-050644)

Figure 27—Mars Orbit Rendezvous: The Mars AscentVehicle docks with the Earth Return Vehicle in Mars orbit .The Earth Return Vehicle’s rocket engines would place thecrew on a six-month low-energy t ra jectory homeward. (NASAPhoto S93-27626)

NASA almost immediately announced plans to fly MarsObserver’s science instruments on an inexpensive Marsorbiter as soon as possible. This marked the genesis ofthe Mars Surveyor Program, which aimed to launchlow-cost automated spacecraft to Mars every 26 months,a t each minimum-energy launch opportunity.18

Refreshed Dreams

In 1994, the J SC Planetary Projects Office, NASA’s defacto focus for piloted Mars planning following aboli-t ion of the Headquar ters Explora t ion Office, was down-sized, then abolished. In Februa ry it became a branchof the J SC Sola r System Explora t ion Division , and inJ une it s r emain ing per sonnel were a ssigned to theJ SC Office of the Cura tor, where they explored low-cost opt ions for sending people to the Moon .19 TheCura tor ’s Office managed disposit ion of Apollo luna rsamples and meteor it es, including one meteor it e des-igna ted ALH 84001. Even as the P laneta ry Project sOffice was abolished, ALH 84001 was determined tohave or igina ted on Mars.

On 7 August 1996, NASA, Stanford University, andMcGill University scient ists led by NASA scient istDavid McKay announced tha t they had discovered pos-sible fossil microorganisms in Mart ian meteor ite ALH84001. In a NASA Headquar ters press conference, theMcKay team cited the evidence for past Mart ian life.This included the presence of complex carbon com-pounds resembling those produced when Ear th bacte-r ia die, magnet ite par t icles similar to those in someEar th bacter ia , and segmented fea tures on the sca le ofsome Ear th nanobacter ia . McKay told journalists,

There is not any one finding that leads us tobelieve that this is evidence of past life on Mars.Rather, it is a combinat ion of many things thatwe have found. They include Stanford’s detec-t ion of an apparent ly unique pat tern of organicmolecules, carbon compounds that are the basisof life. We also found several unusual mineralphases that are known products of pr imit ivemicroorganisms on Earth. Structures that couldbe microscopic fossils seem to support a ll of this.The rela t ionship of these things in terms oflocat ion—within a few hundred-thousandths ofan inch of each other—is the most compellingevidence.20

According to their ana lysis, the 1.9-kilogram rocksoaked in carbonate-r ich water conta in ing the possiblemicroorganisms 3.6 billion years ago. It lay in theMa r t ia n cr u st , sh ocked by t h e occa sion a l loca lupheaval, unt il an asteroid impact blasted it off Mars16 million years ago. After orbit ing the Sun severa l mil-lion t imes, ALH 84001 landed in Antarct ica 13,000years ago, where it was collected on 27 December 1984in the Allan Hills ice field.21

The McKay team’s discovery genera ted unprecedentedpublic enthusiasm for Mars, which in turn provided thecata lyst for reestablishment of the J SC Explora t ionOffice in November 1996. The new office, managed byDoug Cooke, was reconst itu ted as par t of the AdvancedDevelopm en t Office in t h e J SC E n gin eer in gDirectora te.22 Mars planners dusted off the 1993 DRMto serve as the point of depar ture for new planning.

At the same t ime, NASA Headquarters took an impor-tant step toward eventual piloted Mars explorat ion. On7 November 1996, Associate Administrator for SpaceFlight Wilbur Trafton, Associate Administrator for SpaceScience Wesley Huntress, and Associate Administratorfor Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applicat ionsArnauld Nicogossian signed a joint memorandum call-ing for NASA’s Human Explorat ion and Development ofSpace (HEDS) Enterprise and Space Science Enterpriseto work together toward landing humans on Mars.

They told J et Propulsion Labora tory director EdwardStone and J SC director George Abbey tha t “[r ]ecentdevelopments regarding Mars and the growing matur i-ty of rela ted programs lead us to believe tha t th is is ther ight t ime to fu lly in tegra te severa l a reas of robot ic andhuman Mars explora t ion study and planning.”23 TheAssocia te Administ ra tors then gave Stone and Abbeyunt il 1 February 1997, to produce “a proposal tha tNASA can br ing forward, after successful deploymentof the In ternat ional Space Sta t ion, for human explo-ra t ion missions beginning somet ime in the seconddecade of the next [21st ] century.”24

Trafton, Huntress, and Nicogossian a lso asked for “acredible approach to achieving affordable human Marsexplora t ion missions.” They defined “a credible cost” as“t h e a m ou n t cu r r en t ly spen t by NASA on t h eInternat ional Space Sta t ion”—that is, less than $2 bil-lion annually. This was a dramat ic reduct ion over the$15 billion per year proposed in the excised cost sect ion



of The 90-Day Study. They asked tha t Stone and Abbeyident ify “technology investments and developmentsthat could dramat ica lly decrease the cost of human androbot ic missions.”25

In March 1997, the HEDS and Space ScienceEnterprises agreed that the 2001 Mars Surveyor landershould include instruments and technology experimentssupport ing piloted Mars explorat ion. Among the plannedexperiments was a compact system for test ing ISRUpropellant manufacture on Mars. In a press conference,Huntress called it “the first t ime since the 1960s” that“NASA’s space science and human space flight programsare cooperat ing direct ly on the explorat ion of anotherplanetary body.” Trafton called the joint effort “a signthat NASA is acquiring the information that will beneeded for a national decision, perhaps in a decade or so,on whether or not to send humans to Mars.”26

In addit ion to sta t ing tha t NASA’s robot ic programwould complement it s piloted Mars flight planningeffor ts, the join t memorandum showed tha t , a t a h ighmanager ia l level, NASA had not abandoned it s plans toeventually send people to Mars despite SEI’s collapse.There was no firm t imetable for accomplishing thepiloted Mars mission and no President ia l declara t ion .Instead, there was a new philosophy—cont inuing low-level, low-cost planning, much of it in-house, and low-level Ear th-based technology research accompanied byeffor ts to use the exist ing low-cost robot ic explora t ionprogram to answer quest ions relevant to piloted explo-ra t ion. In shor t , the Agency accepted publicly for thefirst t ime tha t it might eventually send people to Marswithout recourse to a new large program—without anew Space Explora t ion In it ia t ive or Apollo program.This philosophy cont inues to guide NASA Mars plan-ning a t the t ime of th is wr it ing (mid-2000).

Success or fa ilure in the automated Mars program thusbecame success or fa ilure for piloted Mars planners.The joint human-robotic Mars effort received a boost on 4July 1997, when Mars Pathfinder successfully landed atAres Vallis, one of the large outwash channels first spot-ted by Mariner 9 in 1971 and 1972. Pathfinder, the firstU.S. Mars lander since the Vikings, dropped to the rock-strewn surface and bounced to a stop on airbags, thenopened petals to right itself and expose instruments andsolar cells. The technique was similar to the one theSoviets employed to land robots on the Moon in the 1960sand on Mars in the 1970s. The Sojourner rover—the first

automated rover to operate on another world since theSoviet Union’s Lunokhod 2 explored the Moon in 1972—crawled off its perch on one of Pathfinder’s petals andcrept about the landing area analyzing rock and dirt com-position. Sojourner and Pathfinder—the latter renamedthe Sagan Memorial Station—successfully completedtheir primary mission on 3 August.

As Mars Pathfinder bounced to a successful landing inAres Vallis, the glossy report Human Exploration ofMars: The Reference Mission of the NASA MarsExploration Study Team rolled off the presses.27 In addi-tion to a detailed description of the 1993 DRM, the July1997 document contained general recommendations onthe conduct of a piloted Mars program based on experi-ence gained through SEI and the Space Station program.

The repor t recommended tha t NASA set up “a MarsProgram Office . . . ear ly in the process.” It a lso pro-posed to avoid Space Sta t ion’s redesigns and delays byestablishing “a formal philosophica l and budgetaryagreement . . . as to the object ives and requirementsimposed on the mission before development is in it ia ted,and to agree to fund the project through to complet ion.”Finally, taking in to account the McKay team’s discov-ery, it ca lled for “adequate and acceptable human quar-ant ine and sample handling protocols ear ly in the Marsexplora t ion program” to protect Ear th and Mars frompossible biologica l contaminat ion.28

The J SC Explora t ion Office ca lled it s repor t “anotherchapter in the ongoing process of melding new andexist ing technologies, pract ica l opera t ions, fisca l rea li-ty, and common sense in to a feasible and viable humanmission to Mars,” adding tha t “th is is not the last chap-ter in the process, bu t [it ] marks a snapshot tha t willbe added to and improved upon by others in thefu ture.”29 In fact , by the t ime the repor t saw pr in t , thenext chapter was near ly complete.

Scrubbing the DRM

Subsequen t DRM evolu t ion focused on min imizingspacecra ft weigh t in an effor t to r educe est ima tedm ission cost . Th e sla n g t er m en gin eer s u sed t odescr ibe t h is pr ocess wa s “scr u bbin g.” Th e 1997“scrubbed” DRM went public in August 1997.30 It min-imized mass by reducing common Habita t diameter ;combin ing the funct ions of the pressure hu ll, aero-




brake hea t sh ield, and Ear th launch sh roud; andem ployin g ligh t weigh t com posit e s t r u ct u r es. Th enuclea r st ages for in ject ing the spacecra ft towardMars would be launched in to Ear th orbit withou tspacecra ft a t t ached, then docked with the spacecra ftin Ear th orbit . These st eps and other s a llowed plan-ners to elimina te the 1993 DRM’s la rge heavy-liftrocket , poten t ia lly the cost liest mission element .

To place the first crew on Mars, the 1997 DRM wouldrequire eight launches of a Shuttle-derived rocket ca-pable of boosting 85 tons into Earth orbit . In the firstlaunch opportunity, six of these rockets would launchpayloads—three nuclear propulsion stages and threeMars spacecraft (cargo lander, ERV, and unpilotedHabitat). Each spacecraft would dock with its nuclearstage in Earth orbit , then launch toward Mars. In thesecond launch opportunity, 26 months later, six moreShutt le-derived rockets would launch three nuclearstages and three spacecraft , including a Habitat landercontaining the crew. The spacecraft would dock with theirnuclear stages and launch toward Mars. The rest of themission plan closely resembled the 1993 DRM. To accom-plish the first expedition, the 1997 DRM would launch303 tons to Mars—75 tons less than the 1993 DRM.

The new DRM was on the st reet , and a few weeks la ter,a new automated spacecraft was orbit ing Mars. On 11September 1997, the Mars Global Surveyor orbiter, thefirst spacecraft in the Mars Surveyor Program, arr ivedin an ellipt ica l Mars orbit a fter a 10-month flight . MarsGlobal Surveyor carr ied backups of inst ruments lostwith Mars Observer in 1993. It commenced a ser ies ofpasses through Mars’ upper a tmosphere to reach alower, more circular Mars orbit without using propel-lants. A damaged solar a r ray threa tened to collapseunder the pressure of a tmospher ic drag, however, sothe aerocapture maneuvers had to be extended over ayear. Never theless, the spacecraft turned it s inst ru-ments toward Mars and began in it ia l observat ions.

Defining the Surface Mission

As Mars planner s sough t to min imize spacecra ftweight , it became clear tha t they would require moredata on the mission’s Mars surface payload. Plannershistor ica lly have spent lit t le t ime deta iling what ast ro-nauts would do once they landed on Mars. To begin theprocess of bet ter defin ing the 500-to-600-day Mars sur-face mission, veteran Moon and Mars planner Michael


Figu r e 29—Nu clea r st a ges in NASA’s 1997 Ma rs pla nin clu ded en gin es (left ) ba sed on r evived 1960s NE RVAtech n ology. (NASA P h ot o S97-07843)

Figure 28—NASA’s 1997 Mars plan proposed to reduceweight by using an aerobrake in tegra ted with the spacecrafthu ll and nuclea r rockets. These steps would help eliminateneed for a heavy-lift rocket, permit t ing a cheaper Shut t le-der ived launch system. (NASA Photo S97-07844)


Duke chaired a workshop held a t the Lunar andPlanetary Inst itu te in Houston on 4-5 October 1997.31

Wor ksh op pa r t icipa n t s divided in t o t wo wor kin ggroups. The Science and Resources group based it s dis-cussions on a “three-pronged approach” to Mars explo-ra t ion. Mars explorers would seek evidence of life or it sprecursors and a t tempt to understand Mars climatehistory. They would a lso act as prospectors, seekingwater, minera ls, energy, and other resources for sup-por t ing fu ture Mars set t lements. This three-prongedscience approach a lso guided the automated MarsSurveyor program.32

The Living and Working on Mars group looked a tchores the crew would need to per form dur ing theirMars st ay. These included in it ia l base setup, such asdeploying an in fla t able greenhouse, and base ma in-tenance, such as r idding a ir filt er s of ever-presen tu lt r a -fine Mar t ian dust . Ast r on a u t s on Ma r s wou lda lso h a r vest cr ops, ser vice t h eir spa ce su it s, a n dper for m less m u n da n e t a sks su ch a s explor in g t h esu r fa ce in t h e pr essu r ized r over a n d dr illin g deep insea r ch of Ma r t ia n m icr oor ga n ism s t h a t m igh t h idefa r ben ea t h t h e su r fa ce.

The workshop recommended tha t “a process and pro-gram be put in to place whereby a wide range of peoplecould contr ibute to the thought process.” The repor turged tha t students in par t icular be involved, because“their representa t ives will be the ones who are actual-ly to do th is explora t ion.”33

A New Concept

Meanwhile, engineers a t NASA Lewis studied usingsolar-elect r ic propulsion in the DRM to fur ther reducethe amount of weight tha t would have to be launchedinto orbit . In J anuary 1999, they proposed a novel con-cept using a Solar-Elect r ic Transfer Vehicle (SETV)which never left Ear th orbit , but which provided mostof the energy needed to launch the Mars vehicles fromEarth orbit toward Mars.34

The 1997 DRM required eight Shut t le-der ived rocketsfor the first Mars expedit ion . By contrast , the Lewissolar-elect r ic DRM required only five rockets. Removalof the backup Habita t lander—a decision taken byMa r s pla n n er s in t h e J SC E xplor a t ion P r ogr a m

Office—eliminated two heavy-lift rockets. Replacingthe four nuclear stages used to leave Ear th in the 1993and 1997 DRMs with the SETV and three smallexpendable chemical stages eliminated one more. Thissubst itu t ion a lso eliminated the cost of developing anuclea r rocket engine and the poten t ia l polit ica lheadaches of launching nuclear payloads.

The Lewis t eam envisioned a self-erect ing SETVweighing 123 tons and measur ing 194.6 meters acrossit s th in-film solar ar rays. The ar rays would provideelect r icity to two sets of Sta t ionary Plasma Thrusters(SPTs), a lso known as TAL (Thruster with AnodeLayer) or Hall thrusters, an elect r ic propulsion tech-nology pioneered by the Russians.

The SETV would need months to complete la rge orbitchanges. Because of th is, it would spend considerablet ime crossing through Ear th’s Van Allen Radia t ionBelts. This meant tha t the Lewis DRM vehicles wouldr equ ir e r a dia t ion -h a r den ed syst em s. Th e a u t h or sassumed tha t the SETV would be good for two missionsbeyond the Van Allen belts before radia t ion, tempera-ture ext remes, meteoroid impacts, and ult raviolet lightser iously degraded it s solar ar rays.


Figure 30—In 1998, NASA Lewis Research Center proposeda reusable Sola r-Elect r ic Transfer Vehicle (SETV) and cleveruse of orbita l mechanics to reduce Mars expedit ion mass.SE TV’s sola r panel spa rs would in fla te in orbit , spreading“wings” of sola r cell fabr ic. (NASA Photo S99-03585)

The SETV’s first mission would place one unpilotedcargo vehicle and one unpiloted ERV, each with a smallchemica l rocket stage, in to High-Energy Ellipt ica lParking Orbit (HEEPO) around the Ear th . The SETVwould star t in a near ly circular low-Ear th orbit andra ise it s apogee by opera t ing it s SPT thrusters only a tper igee. It would need from six to twelve months tora ise it s apogee to the proper HEEPO for Ear th-Marst ransfer. The fina l HEEPO apogee would be more than40,000 kilometers, making it very light ly bound byEar th’s gravity.

When Ear th , Mars, and the plane of the HEEPO wereproper ly a ligned for Ear th-Mars crossing, the SETVwould release the cargo lander, ERV, and small chemi-ca l stages. At next per igee the chemical stages wouldignite, pushing the spacecraft out of the HEEPO on apath tha t would in tersect Mars six months la ter. Afterreleasing the chemical stages and spacecraft , the SETVwould point it s SPTs in it s direct ion of mot ion andopera te them at per igee to return to a circular low-Ear th orbit .

The SETV’s second mission would place one Habita tlander with a small chemical stage in to HEEPO.Because the climb to HEEPO again would require up totwelve months and long per iods inside the Van AllenRadia t ion Belts, the Habita t lander would remainunpiloted unt il just before Ear th orbit depar ture. Asthe SETV climbed toward planned fina l HEEPOapogee, a small, chemical-propellant “taxi” carrying theMars crew would set out in pursuit . The crew wouldt ransfer to the Habita t lander, cast off the taxi, thensepara te the Habita t lander and chemical stage fromthe SETV. At the next per igee, the chemical stagewould ignite to place the first expedit ion crew on coursefor Mars. The remainder of the first Mars expedit ionwould occur as descr ibed in the 1997 scrubbed DRM,except for the absence of a backup Habita t lander.

In Februa ry 1999, soon a ft er the Lewis t eam madepublic their va r ia t ion on the 1997 DRM, Mars Globa lSurveyor ach ieved it s nomina l mapping orbit . At th iswr it ing, explora t ion and da ta in terpreta t ion a re on-going, bu t it is a lr eady clea r tha t the spacecra ft is r ev-olu t ion izing our understanding of Mars. By mid-2000,it s inst ruments had detected evidence tha t Mars oncehad a st rong planeta ry magnet ic field, a findingpoten t ia lly impor tan t for the ea r ly development of

Mar t ian life; tha t Mars’ pola r r egions once knewextensive glacier s; and tha t wa ter flowed on Mars’su r face recen t ly, and perhaps flows occasiona lly today,ca rving gu llies in cliffs and cra ter wa lls.

Not the Last Chapter

In May 1998, a small team of NASA and contractorspace suit engineers t raveled to sites in nor thernArizona where Apollo Moonwalkers had t ra ined threedecades before. They observed and assisted as a veter -an geologist wear ing a space suit performed geologica lfield work and set out simula ted scient ific inst rumentsin Mars-type set t ings—for example, on the r im ofMeteor Cra ter. The team conta ined cost by t ravelingfrom Houston to Arizona over land and by reusing aspa ce su it or igin a lly design ed for Spa ce St a t ionFreedom. In addit ion to ga ther ing data on space suitmobility to enable design of fu ture Mars space suits,the exercise permit ted veteran space suit engineerswho had par t icipa ted in the development of the Apollolunar space suits to pass on their exper ience to youngengineers who had been children, or not yet born , whenAmericans last walked on an a lien world.35

Michael Duke and the other organizers of the HumanExplora t ion and Development of Space-Univer sityPar tners (HEDS-UP) program had a similar mot ive.They sought to involve and inspire the next genera t ionof Mars planners, who might become the first genera-t ion of Mars explorers. In May 1998, the first HEDS-UP Annual Forum saw undergraduate and graduatedesign teams from seven universit ies across the UnitedSta tes present Mars design studies.36 Twice as manyuniversit ies sent enthusiast ic students to the 1999HEDS-UP Annual Forum.37

In the near ly ha lf-century since von Braun wowedAmericans with visions of Mars flight in Collier ’s mag-a zin e, ou r u n der st a n din g of Ma r s h a s st ea dilyimproved. We have progressed from hazy telescopicviews of Mars to pictures on the In ternet of Sojournerrear ing up on a flood-tossed Mart ian boulder. Plans forpiloted Mars explora t ion have matured in step with ourimproved vision. For example, no longer do plannersseek to br ing a ll necessit ies from Ear th , for now it isknown that Mars has useful resources.




The Mars planning concepts developed in the twilightyears of the second millennium form a launch pad forMars planners—and perhaps Mars explorers—at thedawn of the th ird. Current technologica l t rends—forexample, increasingly capable minia tur ized robots anddirect public engagement in Mars explora t ion throughthe In ternet—promise to reshape Mars planning.

Yet it should be remembered tha t ISRU, the concepttha t dominated Mars planning in the 1990s, dates fromthe 1960s and 1970s. This suggests tha t , in addit ion towhatever new revolut ions fu ture technologica l develop-ment br ings, other revolut ions might lie bur ied in thehistor ica l a rchives await ing the careful and imagina-t ive researcher. Fur ther, th is suggests tha t Mars plan-

ners should carefully preserve their work lest theydepr ive fu ture planners of useful concepts.

Young people now looking to Mars, such as the studentpar t icipants in the HEDS-UP program, should not haveto waste their t ime reinvent ing old concepts. Theyshould instead be able to study the old concepts andbuild new ones upon them. They should also be able tostudy the polit ical and social set t ings of the old con-cepts, so that they might bet ter navigate the “illogical”pit fa lls that can br ing down a technically logical Marsplan. Providing the next generat ion with the history ofMars planning helps hasten the day when humans willleave bootpr ints on the dusty red dunes of Mars.



AAP Apollo Applica t ions ProgramAAS American Astronaut ica l SocietyABMA Army Ballist ic Missile AgencyAEC Atomic Energy CommissionAIAA American Inst itu te of Ast ronaut ics and Aeronaut icsCIA Centra l In telligence AgencyCM Command ModuleCPS Chemical Propulsion StageCSM Command and Service ModuleDRM Design Reference MissionEMPIRE Early Manned Planetary-Interplanetary Roundtr ip Expedit ionsEOR Ear th-Orbit RendezvousERV Ear th-Return VehicleET External TankFLEM Flyby-Landing Excursion ModeFLO First Lunar OutpostFY Fisca l YearGNP Gross Nat ional ProductHEDS Human Explora t ion and Development SpaceHEDS-UP Human Explora t ion and Development Space—University Par tnersHEEPO High-Energy Ellipt ica l Parking OrbitIPP In tegra ted Program PlanISRU In-Situ Resource Ut iliza t ionISV In terplanetary Shut t le VehicleJ AG J oint Act ion GroupJ PL J et Propulsion Labora toryJ SC J ohnson Space CenterKSC Kennedy Space CenterLANL Los Alamos Nat ional Labora toryLLNL Lawrence Livermore Nat ional Labora toryLOR Lunar-Orbit RendezvousLSS Life Suppor t Sect ionM ManeuverMAV Mars Ascent VehicleMEM Mars Excursion ModuleMEV Mars Explora t ion Vehicle, Mars Excursion VehicleMMM Manned Mars MissionMOR Mars-Orbit RendezvousMSC Manned Spacecraft CenterMSSR Mars Surface Sample ReturnNACA Nat ional Advisory Commit tee for Aeronaut icsNAR North American RockwellNASA Nat ional Aeronaut ics and Space Administ ra t ionNCOS Nat ional Commission on SpaceNERVA Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Applica t ionNRC Nat ional Research CouncilNRDS Nuclear Rocket Development Sta t ionOMB Office of Management and BudgetOMS Orbiter Maneuver ing System

Acronyms


OMSF Office of Manned Space FlightOTV Orbita l Transfer VehiclePH-D Phobos-DeimosPM Propulsion ModulePMRG Planetary Missions Requirements GroupPPM Pr imary Propulsion ModulePSAC President’s Science Advisory Commit teeREM Roentgen Equivalent ManRIFT Reactor-In-Flight TestSAIC Science Applica t ions In ternat ional Corpora t ionSEI Space Explora t ion In it ia t iveSETV Solar-Elect r ic Transfer VehicleSM Service ModuleSNPO Space Nuclear Propulsion OfficeSOC Space Opera t ions CenterSPT Sta t ionary Plasma ThrustersSRB Solid Rocket BoosterSSME Space Shut t le Main EngineSTG Space Task GroupSTS Space Transpor ta t ion SystemTAL Thruster with Anode LayerUMPIRE Unfavorable Manned Planetary-Interplanetary Roundtr ip Expedit ionsWGER Working Group on Extra ter rest r ia l Resources

Acronyms


Preface

1. Edward Ezell, “Man on Mars: The Mission Tha t NASA Did Not F ly” (paper presen ted a t the Amer icanAssocia t ion for the Advancement of Science Annual Meet ing, Houston , Texas, 3-8 J anuary 1979), p. 24.

2. Readers seeking addit ional information on Mars planning are directed to the author’s Web site Romance toReality (h t t p://m em bers.aol.com/dsfpor t ree/explore.htm), which contains over 250 annotat ions of Moon andMars planning documents, with more added regular ly.

Chapter 1

1. Wernher von Braun with Cornelius Ryan , “Can We Get to Mars?” Collier’s (30 Apr il 1954), p. 23.

2. Freder ick Ordway and Mitchell Sharpe, The Rocket Team (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1979), p. 408.

3. Wernher von Braun , The Mars Project (Urbana , IL: University of Illinois Press, 1962).

4. Ibid ., p. 3.

5. Ibid ., p. 75.

6. Louise Crossley, Explore Antarctica (Cambr idge, England: Cambr idge University Press, 1995), p. 40.

7. Fred Whipple and Wernher von Braun , “Man on the Moon: The Explora t ion ,” Collier’s (25 October 1952),p. 44.

8. Wernher von Braun , “Crossing the Last Front ier,” Collier’s (22 March 1952): 24-29, 72.

9. Wernher von Braun , “Man on the Moon: The J ourney,” Collier’s (18 October 1952): 52-60; Whipple and vonBraun , “Man on the Moon: The Explora t ion ,” pp. 38-48.

10. Von Braun with Ryan , “Can We Get to Mars?” pp. 22-28.

11. Ibid ., pp. 26-27.

12. Willy Ley and Wernher von Braun , The Exploration of Mars (New York: Viking Press, 1956).

13. Ibid ., p. 85.

14. Ibid ., p. 98.

15. Ibid ., p. 157.

Chapter 2

1. J ohn F. Kennedy, “Excerpts from ‘Urgent Nat iona l Needs,’ ” Speech to a J oin t Session of Congress, 25 May1961, in J ohn Logsdon, gen . ed., with Linda Lear, J anelle Warren-Findlay, Ray Williamson, and DwayneDay, Exploring the Unknown: S elected Docum ents in the History of the U.S . Civil S pace Program , Volum e I:Organizing for Exploration (Washington , DC: NASA SP-4407, 1995), pp. 453-54.

Endnotes

Endnotes


2. Rober t Merr ifield, “A Histor ica l Note on the Genesis of Manned In terplaneta ry F ligh t ,” AAS Prepr in t 69-501 (paper presen ted a t the AAS 15th Annual Meet ing, 17-20 J une 1969), p. 7.

3. David S. F. Por t ree, N AS A’s Origins and the Dawn of the S pace Age (Washington , DC: NASA Monographsin Aerospace History #10, 1998), pp. 8-11.

4. Ezell, “Man on Mars,” pp. 5-6; see a lso Merr ifield, “A Histor ica l Note,” p. 8.

5. S. C. Himmel, J . F. Dugan , R. W. Luidens, and R. J. Weber, “A Study of Manned Nuclear-Rocket Missions toMars,” IAS Paper No. 61-49 (paper presen ted a t the 29th Annual Meet ing of the Inst itu te of AerospaceSciences, 23-25 J anuary 1961), p. 2.

6. Ibid ., p. 5.

7. Ibid ., p. 18.

8. Von Braun with Ryan , “Can We Get to Mars?” p. 24.

9. Himmel, et a l., “A Study of Manned Nuclear-Rocket Missions to Mars,” p. 35.

10. Ibid ., p. 24.

11. Ibid ., p. 30.

12. Ibid ., p. 33-34.

13. J ohn Logsdon, The Decision to Go to the Moon: Project Apollo and the N ational In terest (Cambr idge, MA:MIT Press, 1970), pp. 111-12.

14. Office of Program Planning and Evalua t ion , “The Long Range P lan of the Nat iona l Aeronaut ics andSpace Administ ra t ion ,” 16 December 1959, Logsdon, gen . ed., Exploring the Unknown , Vol. I, p. 404.

15. Ezell, “Man on Mars,” p. 8.

16. Ernst Stuhlinger, “Possibilit ies of E lect r ica l Space Ship Propulsion ,” Fr iedr ich Hecht , editor, Bericht überde V Internationalen Astronautischen Kongress (Oster reichen Gesellschaft fü r Welt raumforschung, Vienna ,Aust r ia , 1955).

17. “Mars and Beyond,” The Wonderful World of Disney t elevision program, 4 December 1957.

18. Por t ree, N AS A’s Origins, p. 12.

19. Ernst Stuhlinger and J oseph King, “Concept for a Manned Mars Expedit ion with Elect r ica lly PropelledVehicles,” Progress in Astronautics, Vol. 9 (San Diego: Univelt , Inc., 1963), pp. 647-64.

20. Ibid ., p. 658.

21. Ibid ., p. 648.

Endnotes


22. J ames Hansen , Enchanted Rendezvous: John C. Houbolt and the Genesis of the Lunar-Orbit RendezvousConcept (Washington , DC: NASA Monographs in Aerospace History #4, 1995).

Chapter 3

1. Rober t Sohn, “Summary of Manned Mars Mission Study,” Proceeding of the S ym posium on MannedPlanetary Missions: 1963/ 1964 S tatus (Mounta in View, CA: NASA TM X-53049, 1964), p. 151.

2. T. A. Heppenheimer, The S pace S huttle Decision: N AS A’s S earch for a Reusable S pace Vehicle (Washington ,DC: NASA, 1999), pp. 60-61.

3. “One-Year Explora t ion-Tr ip Ear th-Mars-Venus-Ear th ,” Gaetano A. Crocco, Rendicont i del VII CongressoIn ternanziona le Ast ronaut ico, Associazione Ita liana Razzi (paper presen ted a t the Seventh Congress ofthe In terna t iona l Ast ronaut ica l Federa t ion , Rome, Ita ly, 1956), pp. 227-252.

4. Ibid ., p. 239.

5. Maxime Faget and Paul Purser, “From Mercury to Mars,” Aeronautics & Aerospace Engineering (February1963): 27.

6. Ibid ., p. 24.

7. Aeronut ronic Division , Ford Motor Company, EMPIRE, A S tudy of Early Manned InterplanetaryExpeditions (Huntsville, AL: NASA CR-51709, 21 December 1962).

8. Lockheed Missiles & Space Company, Manned Interplanetary Mission S tudy (Lockheed Missiles andSpace Company, March 1963).

9. Genera l Dynamics Ast ronaut ics, A S tudy of Early Manned Interplanetary Missions Final S um m ary Report(San Diego, CA, Genera l Dynamics Ast ronaut ics, 31 J anuary 1963).

10. Aeronut ronic, p. 1-2.

11. Lockheed, p. xx.

12. Genera l Dynamics, p. 8-2.

13. Ibid ., pp. 8-92 - 8-122.

14. Ibid ., pp. 8-119 - 8-122.

15. David Hammock and Bruce J ackson , “Vehicle Design for Mars Landing and Return to Mars Orbit ,”George Morgentha ler, editor, Exploration of Mars (San Diego, CA: Univelt , Inc., 1964), pp. 174-95.

16. Raymond Wat t s, “Manned Explora t ion of Mars?” S ky & Telescope (August 1963): 63-67, 84.

17. Hammock and J ackson , “Vehicle Design for Mars Landing,” p. 175.

Endnotes


18. Franklin Dixon , “Summary Presenta t ion : Study of a Manned Mars Excursion Module,” Proceeding of theS ym posium on Manned Planetary Missions: 1963/ 1964 S tatus (Huntsville, AL: NASA TM X-53140, 1964),pp. 443-523.

19. Ibid ., p. 449.

20. Ibid ., p. 479.

21. Ibid ., p. 449.

22. Ibid ., p. 479.

23. J. N. Smith , Manned Mars Missions in the Unfavorable (1975-1985) Tim e Period: Executive S um m aryReport (Huntsville, AL: NASA TM X-53140, 1964).

24. Ibid ., p. 7.

25. Ibid ., pp. 11-12.

26. Sohn, “Summary of Manned Mars Mission Study,” pp. 149-219.

27. Ibid ., p. 156.

28. Ibid ., p. 170.

29. Ibid ., p. 165-166.

30. “Par t 17: Panel Discussion ,” Proceeding of the S ym posium on Manned Planetary Missions: 1963/ 1964S tatus (Huntsville, AL: NASA TM X-53140, 1964), pp. 748-749.

31. Ibid ., p. 751.

32. Ibid .

33. “Future Effor t s to St ress Apollo Hardware,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (16 November 1964): 48.


35. Ibid ., p. 12.

36. Harry Ruppe, Manned Planetary Reconnaissance Mission S tudy: Venus/ Mars Flyby (Huntsville, AL:NASA TM X-53205, 1965).

37. Ibid ., p. 53.

38. Ibid ., p. 7.

39. Ibid ., p. 8.

Endnotes


Chapter 4

1. Rober t Hotz, “New Era for NASA,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (7 August 1967): 17.

2. Samuel Glasstone, The Book of Mars (Washington , DC: NASA SP-179, 1968), pp. 76-91.

3. William Har tmann and Odell Raper, The N ew Mars: The Discoveries of Mariner 9 (Washington , DC: NASASP-337, 1974), pp. 6-11.

4. Edward Clin ton Ezell and Linda Neumann Ezell, On Mars: Exploration of the Red Planet, 1958-1978(Washington , DC: NASA 1984), pp. 74-82.

5. NASA, “A Repor t from Mar iner IV,” N AS A Facts 3 (1966): 1.

6. Ibid ., pp. 5-6; Oran Nicks, S um m ary of Mariner 4 Results (Washington , DC: NASA SP-130), p. 35.

7. Hal Taylor, “LBJ Wants Post -Apollo P lans,” Missiles and Rockets (4 May 1964); NASA, S um m ary Report:Future Program s Task Group, J anuary 1965, Logsdon, gen . ed., Exploring the Unknown , Vol. I, p. 473.

8. “Future Effor t to St ress Apollo Hardware,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (16 November 1964): 48-51.

9. “Scien t ist s Urge Pr ior ity for Mars Missions,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (23 November 1964): 26.

10. Merr ifield, “A Histor ica l Note,” p. 12; Astronautics and Aeronautics 1966 (Washington , DC: NASA SP-4007), p. 17.

11. Willa rd Wilks and Rex Pay, “Quest for Mar t ian Life Re-Emphasized,” Technology Week (6 J une 1966): 26-28.

12. Ezell and Ezell, On Mars, pp. 102-05.

13. Associa te Administ ra tor, Office of Space Science and Applica t ions to Director, Office of Space Science andApplica t ions, “Manned Planeta ry Missions P lanning Group,” 30 Apr il 1965.

14. Franklin Dixon , “Manned Planeta ry Mission Studies from 1962 to 1968,” IAA-89-729 (paper presen ted a tthe 40th Congress of the In terna t iona l Ast ronaut ica l Federa t ion , Malaga , Spa in , 7-12 October 1989), p. 9.


16. Merr ifield, “A Histor ica l Note,” p. 13.

17. P laneta ry J AG, Planetary Exploration Utilizing a Manned Flight S ystem (Washington , DC: NASA, 1966).

18. For example, see Rober t Sohn, “A Chance for an Ear ly Manned Mars Mission ,” Astronautics & Aeronautics(May 1965): 28-33.

19. Chief, NASA Kennedy Space Center Advanced Programs Office to Dist r ibu t ion , “Minutes of J oin t Act ionGroup Meet ing of J une 29-30, 1966,” 8 J u ly 1966.

Endnotes


20. R. R. Titus, “FLEM—Flyby-Landing Excursion Mode,” AIAA Paper No. 66-36 (paper presen ted a t the 3rdAIAA Aerospace Sciences Meet ing, New York, New York, 24-26 J anuary 1966).

21. Edward Gray to H. K. Weidner, F. L. Williams, M. Faget , W. E. Stoney, J. West , J . P. Claybourne, and R.Hock, TWX, “Meet ing to Establish Follow-on Act ivit ies Cover ing the Advanced Manned Planeta ry, Ear thOrbita l, and Lunar Explora t ion Programs,” 17 November 1966.

22. Edward Gray to H. K. Weidner, F. L. Williams, J. W. Car ter, R. J. Harr is, J . P. Claybourne, R. Hock, and R.J. Cer ra to, TWX, “Follow-on Act ivity for Manned Planeta ry Program,” 2 December 1966.

23. J ohn Logsdon, “From Apollo to the Space Shut t le: U.S. Space Policy, 1969-1972,” unpublished manuscr ipt ,p. I-43.

24. “U.S. Space Funding to Grow Modera tely,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (6 March 1967): 126.

25. William Normyle, “Post -Apollo Program Poten t ia l Emerging,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (6 March1967): 126.

26. President ’s Science Advisory Commit tee, The S pace Program in the Post-Apollo Period (Washington , DC:The White House, February 1967).

27. Ibid ., p. 18.

28. “Science Advisors Urge Balanced Program,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (6 March 1967): 135.

29. William Normyle, “Manned Mars F ligh ts Studied for the 1970s,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (27March 1967): 63.

30. Merr ifield, “A Histor ica l Note,” p. 13.

31. Normyle, “Manned Mars F ligh ts Studied,” p. 62-63; Edward Gray and Franklin Dixon , “MannedExpedit ions to Mars and Venus,” Er ic Burgess, editor, Voyage to the Planets (San Diego, CA: Univelt , Inc.,1967), pp. 107-35.

32. “U.S. Space Funding Set to Grow Modera tely,” pp. 123-24.

33. “House Unit Tr ims NASA Budget , Fight P ledged for Fur ther Slashes,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology(22 May 1967): 24.

34. “Space Funds Cut Deeply by House, Sena te,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (3 J u ly 1967): 28.

35. “Conferees Vote Space Cut ,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (7 August 1967): 24.

36. William Normyle, “Small Hope Seen to Restore Space Funds,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (10 J u ly1967): 38.

37. Kather ine J ohnsen , “Webb Refuses to Choose Program for Cuts,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (31J uly 1967): 20.

Endnotes


38. Hotz, “New Era for NASA,” p. 17.

39. Spacecraft Engineer ing Branch, Apollo-based Venus/ Mars Flybys (Houston: NASA MSC, September 1967).

40. Cont ract ing Officer to Prospect ive Cont ractors, “Planeta ry Sur face Sample Return Probe Study forManned Mars/Venus Reconnaissance/Ret r ieva l Missions,” Request for Proposa l No. BG721-28-7-528P, 3August 1967.

41. Irving Stone, “Manned Planeta ry Vehicle Study Proposed,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (2 October1967): 87.

42. William Normyle, “Pr ior ity Shift Blocks Space P lans,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (11 September1967): 27.

43. Ezell and Ezell, On Mars, p. 118.

44. “White House Stand Blocks NASA Budget Restora t ion ,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (28 August1967): 32.

45. Ezell and Ezell, On Mars, p. 142.

Chapter 5

1. NASA, “Out line of NASA Presenta t ion to Space Task Group, August 4, 1969” (28 J u ly 1969), p. 20.

2. Wernher von Braun , “The Next 20 Years of In terplaneta ry Explora t ion ,” Astronautics & Aeronautics(November 1965): 24.

3. NASA, Astronautics and Aeronautics 1967 (Washington , DC: NASA SP-4008), pp. 339-41.

4. J ames Dewar, “Atomic Energy: The Roset ta Stone of Space F ligh t ,” Journal of the British In terplanetaryS ociety (May 1994): 200.

5. Ibid ., p. 202.

6. J ohn Kennedy, “Excerpts from ‘Urgent Nat iona l Needs,’” Logsdon, gen . ed., Exploring the Unknown , Vol. I,p. 454.

7. Dewar, “Atomic Energy,” p. 203-04.

8. Raymond Wat t s, “Manned Explora t ion of Mars?” S ky & Telescope (August 1963): 64.

9. William House, “The Development of Nuclear Rocket Propulsion in the United Sta tes,” Journal of theBritish In terplanetary S ociety 19, No. 8 (March-Apr il 1964): 317-18.

10. Boeing Aerospace Group, In tegrated Manned Interplanetary S pacecraft Concept Defin ition , Vol. 1,S um m ary (Sea t t le, Washington: NASA CR-66558, J anuary 1968).

Endnotes


11. Nor th Amer ican Rockwell Corpora t ion Space Division , Definition of Experim ental Tests for a MannedMars Excursion Module: Final Report, Vol. 1, S um m ary (SD 67-755-1, 12 J anuary 1968).

12. Ar thur Hill, “Apollo Shape Domina tes NAR Manned Mars Study,” Aerospace Technology (6 May 1968): pp.26.

13. “Cost of Tet ,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (27 May 1968): 25.

14. “Congressiona l Cr it ics Aim to Cut NASA Budget to $4-Billion Level,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology(12 February 1968): 22.

15. Kather ine J ohnsen , “NASA Gears for $4-Billion Fund Limit ,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (27 May1968): 30.

16. “Webb Urges Full $4-Billion NASA Fund,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (1 J u ly 1968): 22.

17. Administ ra tor to Associa te Administ ra tor for Manned Space F ligh t , “Termina t ion of the Cont ract forProcurement of Long Lead Time Items for Vehicles 516 and 517,” Logsdon, gen . ed., Exploring theUnknown , Vol. I, pp. 494-95.

18. “Work on Future Sa turn Launchers Halted,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (12 August 1968): 30.


20. NASA, Astronautics and Aeronautics 1968 (Washington , DC: NASA SP-4010), p. 215.

21. William Normyle, “NASA Plans Five-Year Fund Rise,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (14 October1968): 16.

22. Bureau of the Budget , “Nat iona l Aeronaut ics and Space Administ ra t ion : Highligh t Summary,” 30 October1968, Logsdon, gen . ed., Exploring the Unknown , Vol. I, pp. 497-98.

23. Cour tney Brooks, J ames Gr imwood, and Loyd Swenson , J r., Chariots for Apollo, A History of MannedLunar S pacecraft (Washington , DC: NASA SP-4205, 1979), p. 279.

24. Ibid ., pp. 256-60.

25. Ar thur Schlesinger, J r., The Alm anac of Am erican History (Greenwich , CT: Brompton Books, 1993), p. 581.

26. “Against the Tide,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (17 March 1969): 15.

27. Heppenheimer, The S pace S huttle Decision , pp. 115-16.

28. Roger Launius, “The Waning of the Technocra t ic Fa ith : NASA and the Polit ics of the Space Shut t leDecision ,” Philippe J ung, editor, History of Rocketry and Astronautics, AAS History Ser ies, Volume 21 (SanDiego, CA: Univelt , Inc., 1997), p. 190.

29. Heppenheimer, The S pace S huttle Decision , p. 127.

Endnotes


30. NASA, Astronautics and Aeronautics 1968 (Washington , DC: NASA SP-4010), pp. 215.

31. Char les Townes, et a l., “Repor t of the Task Force on Space,” 8 J anuary 1969, Logsdon, gen . ed., Exploringthe Unknown , Vol. I, p. 502.

32. Ibid ., p. 505.


34. Dwayne Day, “Viewpoin t : Paradigm Lost ,” S pace Policy (August 1995): 156.


36. William Normyle, “NASA Aims a t 100-man Sta t ion ,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (24 February1969): 16.

37. Richard Nixon, “Memorandum for the Vice President , the Secretary of Defense, the Act ing Administ ra tor,NASA, and the Science Advisor,” 13 February 1969, Logsdon, gen. ed., Exploring the Unknown , Vol. I, p. 513.

38. Thomas Pa ine, “Problems and Oppor tunit ies in Manned Space F ligh t ,” Logsdon, gen . ed., Exploring theUnknown , Vol. I, pp. 513-19.

39. Logsdon, “From Apollo to the Space Shut t le,” pp. III-7 - III-8; Heppenheimer, The S pace S huttle Decision ,pp. 130-31.

40. NASA, “In tegra ted Manned Space F ligh t Program, 1970-1980” (12 May 1969).

41. Ibid ., p. 2.

42. Logsdon, “From Apollo to the Space Shut t le,” p. IV-50.




46. “Washington Roundup,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (21 J u ly 1969): 15.



49. NASA, “Out line of NASA Presenta t ion to Space Task Group, August 4, 1969” (28 J u ly 1969), p. 20.

50. Wernher von Braun, “Manned Mars Landing Presentation to the Space Task Group,” presentation materials (4 August 1969).

51. Ibid ., p. 4.

Endnotes


52. Ibid ., pp. 22-24.

53. Ibid ., p. 26.

54. Ibid ., p. 35.

55. Ibid ., pp. 41-43.

56. NASA, “Out line of NASA Presenta t ion ,” p. 23.

57. Rober t Seamans, J r., Secreta ry of the Air Force, to Spiro Agnew, Vice President , let ter, 4 August 1969,Logsdon, gen . ed., Exploring the Unknown , Vol. I, p. 521-22.

58. “Washington Roundup,” p. 15.


60. Ibid .

61. Ibid ., pp. 57-63.

62. “Space Manpower,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (11 August 1969): 25.

63. Rober t Hotz, “The Endless Front ier,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (11 August 1969): 17.

64. William Normyle, “Manned Mission to Mars Opposed,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (18 August1969): 16.

65. Ibid ., p. 17.

66. NASA, Am erica’s N ext Decades in S pace: A Report to the S pace Task Group (Washington , DC: NASA,September 1969).

67. Ibid ., p. 7.

68. Ibid ., p. 1.

69. Space Task Group, The Post-Apollo S pace Program : Directions for the Future (Washington , DC: NASA,September 1969).

70. Logsdon, gen . ed., Exploring the Unknown , Vol. I, pp. 522-23.

71. Space Task Group, The Post-Apollo S pace Program , pp. ii-iii.

72. Ibid ., p. iv.

73. Ibid .

74. Wernher von Braun in terview by J ohn Logsdon, referenced in T. A. Heppenheimer, The S pace S huttleDecision , p. 152.

Endnotes


75. Rober t Mayo, Director, Bureau of the Budget , “Memorandum for the President , ‘Space Task GroupRepor t ,’” 25 September 1969, Logsdon, gen . ed., Exploring the Unknown , Vol. I, pp. 545-46.

76. “NASA Budget Faces House-Sena te Par ley,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (29 September 1969): 19.

77. George Mueller to J ohn Naugle, 6 October 1969; Morr is J enkins, Manned Exploration Requirem ents andConsiderations (Houston: NASA, February 1971), pp. iii-iv.

78. Logsdon, “From Apollo to the Space Shut t le,” p. V-22.

79. “Bill of Fare,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (2 February 1970): 11; NASA, Astronautics andAeronautics 1970 (Washington , DC: NASA SP-40), pp. 11-12.

80. “Centers Reviewed,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (19 J anuary 1970): 16.

81. “Space in the 1970s,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (9 February 1970): 11.

82. Schlesinger, p. 586.

83. “Ad Ast ra per Aspera ,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (9 February 1970): 10.

84. Logsdon, “From Apollo to the Space Shut t le,” p. V-40.

85. Space Science and Technology Panel of the President ’s Science Advisory Commit tee, The N ext Decade inS pace (Washington , DC: Execut ive Office of the President , Office of Science and Technology, March 1970),pp. 3, 22.

86. Ibid ., p. i.

87. Ibid ., p. 45.

88. Ibid ., p. 4.

89. Ibid ., p. 52.

90. Launius, “The Waning of the Technocra t ic Fa ith ,” p. 185.

91. Morr is J enkins, Manned Mars Exploration Requirem ents and Considerations (Houston: NASA, February1971), p. iv.

92. Ibid ., p. iii.

93. Ibid ., p. 4–14.

94. Ibid ., p. 2–15.

95. U.S. Congress, N uclear Rocket Developm ent Program , J oin t Hear ings before the Commit tee onAeronaut ica l and Space Sciences, United Sta tes Sena te and the J oin t Commit tee on Atomic Energy, 92ndCongress of the United Sta tes, Fir st Session , 23-24 February 1971, p. 1.

Endnotes


96. Ibid ., pp. 13-15.

97. Ibid ., p. 21.

98. Ibid ., p. 34.

99. Ibid ., p. 40.

100. “OMB Limits NASA to $15 Million for NERVA,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (4 October 1971): 20.

101. Launius, “The Waning of the Technocra t ic Fa ith ,” pp. 188-89.

102. NASA, Astronautics and Aeronautics 1972, (Washington , DC: NASA SP-4017), pp. 4-5

103. Dewar, “Atomic Energy,” p. 205.

Chapter 6

1. Benton Clark, “The Viking Result s—The Case for Man on Mars,” AAS 78-156, Richard J ohnston , Alber tNaumann, and Clay Fulcher, editors, The Future U.S . S pace Program (San Diego: Univelt , Inc., 1978), p. 263.

2. Har tmann and Raper, The N ew Mars, pp. 32.

3. Ray Bradbury, Ar thur C. Clarke, Bruce Murray, Car l Sagan , and Walter Sullivan , Mars and the Mind of Man(New York: Harper and Row, 1973) is an in format ive and en ter ta in ing explora t ion of changing human per -cept ions of the planet Mars.

4. Har tmann and Raper, The N ew Mars, pp. 94-107.

5. Andrew Wilson , S olar S ystem Log (New York: J ane’s, 1987), p. 69.

6. Richard Lewis, “On the Golden P la ins of Mars,” S paceflight (October 1976): 364.

7. Richa rd Lewis, “The Puzzle of Mar t ian Soil,” S pacefligh t (November 1976): 391-95. See a lso BevanFrench , Mars: The Vik ing Discoveries (Wash ington , DC: NASA, 1977), pp. 20-22; Andrew Cha ikin , “TheCase for Life on Mars,” Air & S pace S m ithson ian (Februa ry/March 1991): 63-71; Harold Klein , NormanHorowit z, and Klaus Biemann , “The Sea rch for Extan t Life on Mars,” Hugh Kieffer, Bruce J akosky,Conway Snyder, and Mildred Ma thews, editor s, Mars, (Tucson: Un iver sit y of Ar izona P ress, 1992), pp.1221-33.

8. Cary Spitzer, editor, Viking Orbiter Views of Mars (Washington, DC: NASA, 1980), pp. 31-32. See a lso VictorBaker, Michael Carr, Virginia Gullick, Cameron Williams, and Mark Marley, “Channels and ValleyNetworks”; and Chr istopher McKay, R. L. Mancinelli, Carol Stoker, and R. A. Wharton, “The Possibility of Lifeon Mars During a Water-Rich Past ,” both in Hugh Kieffer, et a l., editors, Mars, pp. 493-522 and 1234-45.

9. Ezell and Ezell, On Mars, pp. 422-23.

10. NASA, Proceedings of the S eventh Annual Working Group on Extraterrestrial Resources (Washington , DC:NASA SP-229, 1970), p. iii.

Endnotes


11. J. N. Smith , Manned Mars Missions in the Unfavorable (1975-1985) Tim e Period , pp. 11-12.

12. Louis Fr iedman in terview by David S. F. Por t ree, 15 August 1999.

13. R. L. Ash , W. L. Dowler, and G. Varsi, “Feasibility of Rocket Propellan t Product ion on Mars,” ActaAstronautica (J u ly-August 1978): 705-24.

14. Clark, “The Viking Result s,” p. 273.

15. Ibid ., p. 274.

16. Other examples of Mars ISRU papers in the 1980s include the following: Benton Clark, “The Chemist ry ofthe Mar t ian Sur face: Resources for the Manned Explora t ion of Mars,” AAS 81-243, Penelope Boston , edi-tor, The Case for Mars, (San Diego, CA: Univelt , Inc., 1984), pp. 197-208; G. R. Babb and W. R. Stump, “TheEffect of Mars Sur face and Phobos Propellan t Product ion on Ear th Launch Mass,” Michael Duke and PaulKeaton , editors, Manned Mars Missions:Working Group Papers, Vol. 1 (Huntsville, AL, and Los Alamos, NM:NASA M002, NASA/LANL, J une 1986), pp. 162-175; R. H. Fr isbee, “Mass and Power Est imates for Mars In-Situ Propellan t Product ion Systems,” AIAA-87-1900 (papers presen ted a t the AIAA/SAE/ASME/ASEE 23rdJ oin t Propulsion Conference, 29 J une-2 J u ly 1987); Benton Clark and Donald Pet t it , “The HydrogenPeroxide Economy on Mars,” AAS 87-214, Carol Stoker, editor, The Case for Mars III: S trategies forExploration—General In terest and Overview (San Diego, CA: Univelt , Inc.,1989), pp. 551-57; Rober t Ash ,J oseph Werne, and Merry Beth Haywood, “Design of a Mars Oxygen Processor,” AAS 87-263, Carol Stoker,editor, The Case for Mars III: S trategies for Exploration—Technical (San Diego, CA: Univelt , Inc.,1989), pp.479-87; Diane L. Galecki, “In-Situ Propellan t Advantages for Fast Transfer to Mars,” AIAA-88-2901 (paperpresented a t the AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE 24th J oin t Propulsion Conference, 11-13 J u ly 1988); ThomasMeyer and Chr istopher McKay, “The Resources of Mars for Human Set t lement ,” Journal of the BritishInterplanetary S ociety (Apr il 1989): 147-60; J. R. French , “Rocket Propellan ts from Mar t ian Resources,”Journal of the British In terplanetary S ociety (Apr il 1989): 167-70.

17. Louis Fr iedman in terview, 15 August 1999. Fr iedman founded The P laneta ry Society with Car l Sagan andBruce Murray in 1980.

18. Rober t Ash in terview by David S. F. Por t ree, 29 J u ly 1999. Ash ca lled Fr iedman “ISRU’s godparen t .”

Chapter 7

1. Alcest is Oberg, “The Grass Roots of the Mars Conference,” AAS 81-225, Penelope Boston , editor, The Casefor Mars (San Diego, CA: Univelt , Inc., 1984), p. ix.

2. Tim Furn iss, S pace S huttle Log (New York: J ane’s, 1986), pp. 15-18, 34-36.

3. William Stockton and J ohn Noble Wilford, S paceliner (New York: Times Books, 1981), p. 159.

4. Oberg, “The Grass Roots,” p. ix.

5. Benton Clark in terview by David S. F. Por t ree, 27 August 1999.

6. S. Fred Singer, “The PH-D Proposa l: A Manned Mission to Phobos and Deimos,” AAS 81-231, PenelopeBoston , editor, The Case for Mars (San Diego, CA: Univelt , Inc., 1984), pp. 39-65.

Endnotes


7. S. Fred Singer, “To Mars By Way of It s Moons,” S cientific Am erican (March 2000): 56-57.

8. Space Sciences Depar tment , Manned Lunar, Asteroid and Mars Missions, Visions of S pace Flight: Circa 2001(Schaumburg, IL: Science Applica t ions In terna t iona l Corpora t ion , September 1984).

9. Louis Fr iedman, “Visions of 2010,” The Planetary Report (March/Apr il 1985): 5.

10. Louis Fr iedman in terview by David S. F. Por t ree, 15 August 1999.

11. Fr iedman, “Visions,” pp. 6, 22.

12. Ibid ., p. 22.

13. “Beggs Calls for Sta r t on Space Sta t ion ,” S pace N ews Roundup (25 J une 1982): 1, 3-4.

14. Clarke Covington , “The Role of the Space Opera t ions Center,” presenta t ion mater ia ls (28 May 1981).

15. Dave Alter, “Space Opera t ions Center” (Houston , TX: NASA J ohnson Space Center Press Release 82-008, 19February 1982).

16. Presidential Papers of the President: Adm inistration of Ronald Reagan, 1985 (Washington , DC: U.S.Government Pr in t ing Office, 1985), p. 90.

17. Humboldt Mandell, persona l communica t ion .

18. Michael Duke in terview by David S. F. Por t ree, 26 August 1999.

19. Paul Kea ton in terview by David. S. F. Por t ree, 30 August 1999.

20. R. F. Baillie to R. W. J ohnson , “Manned Planeta ry Explora t ion Act ion Item from the Wallops Workshop”(August 1, 1978); J oseph Loftus, J r., in terview by David S. F. Por t ree, 15 August 1999.

21. Keaton in terview, 30 August 1999.

22. Harr ison Schmit t , “A Millennium Project—Mars 2000,” Wendell Mendell, editor, Lunar Bases and S paceActivities of the 21st Century (Houston , TX: Lunar and P laneta ry Science Inst itu te, 1985), p. 787.

23. Duke in terview, 30 August 1999; Keaton in terview, 30 August 1999.

24. Ibid .

25. Michael Duke and Paul Kea ton , editors, Manned Mars Missions, Working Group S um m ary Report(Huntsville, AL, and Los Alamos, NM: NASA M001, NASA/LANL, May 1986); Michael Duke and PaulKeaton , editors, Manned Mars Missions, Working Group Papers, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (Huntsville, AL, and LosAlamos, NM: NASA M002, NASA/LANL, J une 1986).

26. Char les Cravot ta and Melanie DeFor th , “Soviet P lans for a Manned Fligh t to Mars” (Office of Scien t ific andWeapons Research , U.S. Cent ra l In telligence Agency, 2 Apr il 1985), p. 2.

Endnotes


27. Ibid .

28. Ibid ., p. 7.

29. Ibid ., p. 8.

30. Barney Rober t s, “Concept for a Manned Mars F lyby,” Manned Mars Missions: Working Group Papers, Vol.1 (Huntsville, AL, and Los Alamos, NM: NASA M002, NASA/LANL, J une 1986), pp. 203-18.

31. Ibid ., pp. 213-15.

32. Buzz Aldr in , “The Mars Transit System,” Air & S pace S m ithsonian (October /November 1990): 47.

33. Char les Rall and Walter Hollister, “Free-fa ll Per iodic Orbit s Connect ing Ear th and Mars,” AIAA No. 71-92(paper presen ted a t the Amer ican Inst itu te of Aeronaut ics and Ast ronaut ics 9th Aerospace SciencesMeet ing, New York, New York, 25-27 J anuary 1971). Cycler proponent Buzz Aldr in was one of Hollister ’sstudents a t MIT before he became a NASA ast ronaut .

34. S. M. Welch and C. R. Stoker, editors, The Case for Mars: Concept Developm ent for a Mars Research S tation(Boulder, CO: Boulder Center for Science Policy, 10 Apr il 1986).

35. Thomas Pa ine, “A Timeline for Mar t ian P ioneers,” AAS 84-150, Chr istopher McKay, editor, The Case forMars II (San Diego, CA: Univelt , Inc., 1985), pp. 18-19.

36. Michael Duke, Wendell Mendell, and Barney Rober t s, “Lunar Base: A Stepping Stone to Mars,” AAS 84-162,Chr istopher McKay, editor, The Case for Mars II (San Diego, CA: Univelt , Inc., 1985), pp. 207-20.

37. Humboldt Mandell, “Space Sta t ion—The First Step,” AAS 84-160, Chr istopher McKay, editor, The Case forMars II (San Diego, CA: Univelt , Inc.,1985), pp. 157-70.

38. Welch and Stoker, The Case for Mars: Concept Developm ent, p. 53.

39. For examples, see Rober t Farquhar, “Lunar Communica t ions with Libra t ion-Poin t Sa tellit es,” Journal ofS pacecraft and Rockets (October 1967): 1383, and Rober t Farquhar, “A Halo-Orbit Lunar Sta t ion ,”Astronautics & Aeronautics (J une 1972): 59-63. In 1971, Farquhar became involved in Harr ison Schmit t ’seffor t to ta rget Apollo 17 to the lunar fa rside cra ter Tsiolkovskii. He studied the possibility of placing com-munica t ion relay sa tellit es in Lagrange poin t ha lo orbit s to permit cont inuous communica t ion between theApollo 17 moonwalkers a t Tsiolkovskii and Mission Cont rol on Ear th (“Lunar Backside Landing for Apollo17,” presenta t ion mater ia ls, 2 September 1971).

40. Rober t Farquhar and David Dunham, “Libra t ion-Poin t Staging Concepts for Ear th-Mars Transpor ta t ion ,”Manned Mars Missions: Working Group Papers, Vol. 1 (Huntsville, AL, and Los Alamos, NM: NASA M002,NASA/LANL, J une 1986), pp. 66-77.

41. Paul Kea ton , A Moon Base/ Mars Base Transportation Depot (Los Alamos, NM: LA-10552-MS, UC-34B, LosAlamos Nat iona l Labora tory, September 1985).

42. Ibid ., p. 10.

Endnotes


Chapter 8

1. [Car l Sagan , Louis Fr iedman, and Bruce Murray], The Mars Declara t ion , specia l supplement to ThePlanetary Report (November /December 1987). Author names revea led in Louis Fr iedman in terview, 15August 1999.

2. Nat iona l Commission on Space (NCOS), Pioneering the S pace Frontier: The Report of the N ationalCom m ission on S pace (New York: Bantam Books, May 1986).

3. Lyn Ragsda le, “Polit ics Not Science: The U.S. Space Program in the Reagan and Bush Years,” S paceflightand the Myth of Presidential Leadership, Roger Launius and Howard McCurdy, editors (Urbana , IL:University of Illinois Press, 1997), p. 151.

4. Carole Shifr in , “NASA Nears Fina l Decisions on Sta t ion Configura t ion ,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology(10 March 1986): 107-109; NASA, “NASA Facts: Space Sta t ion” (Kennedy Space Center Press Release No.16-86, J anuary 1986).

5. “NASA Managers Divided on Sta t ion ,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (28 J u ly 1986): 24-25; Cra igCovault , “Launch Capacity, EVA Concerns Force Space Sta t ion Re-Design ,” Aviation Week & S paceTechnology (21 J u ly 1986): 20; NASA, Space Sta t ion Freedom Media Handbook (Washington , DC: NASA,Apr il 1989), p. 7; Mark Hess, “NASA Proceeding Toward Space Sta t ion Development” (J ohnson SpaceCenter Press Release 87-50, 3 Apr il 1987), p. 2.

6. Paul Mann, “Commission Sets Goals for Moon, Mars Set t lement in 21st Century,” Aviation Week & S paceTechnology (24 March 1986): 18-21.

7. Thomas Pa ine, “Overview: Repor t of the Nat iona l Commission on Space,” Duke Reiber, editor, The N AS AMars Conference (San Diego: Univelt , Inc., 1988), p. 533.

8. NCOS, Pioneering, p. 191.

9. “Spaced Out ,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (15 September 1986): 11.

10. Thomas Pa ine, “Who Will Lead the Wor ld’s Next Age of Discovery?” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (21September 1987): 43.

11. Cra ig Covault , “Ride Panel Ca lls for Aggressive Act ion to Asser t U.S. Leadersh ip in Space,” Aviation Week& S pace Technology (24 August 1987): 26.

12. NASA, “Sta tement by Dr. Sa lly K. Ride, Associa te Administ ra tor for Explora t ion (Act ing) before theSubcommit tee on Space Science and Applica t ions, Commit tee on Science, Space, and Technology, House ofRepresenta t ives” (22 J u ly 1987), p. 1.

13. Sa lly Ride, Leadership and Am erica’s Future in S pace (Washington , DC: NASA, August 1987), p. 5.

14. Ride, Leadership, p. 21.

15. NASA, “Sta tement by Dr. Sa lly K. Ride,” p. 2.

Endnotes



17. Ibid ., p. 6.

18. Cra ig Covault , “Ride Panel Ca lls for Aggressive Act ion ,” p. 26; NASA, Astronautics and Aeronautics 1986-1990 (Washington , DC: NASA SP-4027), p. 126.


20. Cra ig Covault , “Ride Panel Will Urge Lunar Base, Ear th Science as New Space Goals,” Aviation Week &S pace Technology (13 J u ly 1987): 17; see a lso Michael Collins, Mission to Mars (New York: Grove Weidenfeld,1990), pp. xii, 197.


22. Ibid ., p. 22.

23. Ibid ., p. 43.

24. NASA, “Sta tement by Dr. Sa lly K. Ride,” p. 4.


26. “NASA Forms Office to Study Manned Lunar Base, Mars Missions,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (8J une 1987): 22.


28. Ibid ., p. 47.

29. Science Applica t ions In terna t iona l Corpora t ion , Piloted S print Missions to Mars (Schaumberg, IL: Repor tNo. SAIC-87/1908, Study No. 1-120-449-M26, November 1987).

30. Ibid ., p. 2.

31. Ibid ., p. 13; University of Texas and Texas A&M University Design Team, “To Mars—A Manned MarsMission Study,” Summer Project Repor t (NASA Universit ies Advanced Space Design Program, AdvancedPrograms Office, J ohnson Space Center, August 1985).

32. Ibid ., p. 17.

33. NASA, Astronautics and Aeronautics 1986-1990, p. 115.

34. Office of Explora t ion , Exploration S tudies Technical Report, FY 1988 S tatus, Volum e 1: Technical S um m ary(Washington , DC: NASA TM-4075, December 1988); Office of Explora t ion , “FY88 Explora t ion StudiesTechnica l Presen ta t ion to the Administ ra tor,” presenta t ion mater ia ls (25 J u ly 1988).

35. Mar t in Mar iet ta , Manned Mars S ystem S tudy (MMS S ) Executive S um m ary (Denver, CO: Mar t in Mar iet ta ,J u ly 1990).

Endnotes


36. Clark in terview, 27 August 1999.

37. David S. F. Por t ree, Thirty Years Together: A Chronology of U.S .-S oviet S pace Cooperation (Houston: NASACR-185707, February 1993), pp. 26-27.

38. Harvey Meyerson , “Spark Matsunaga 1916-1990,” The Planetary Report (J u ly/August 1990): 26.

39. Philip Klass, “Commission Considers J oin t Mars Explora t ion , Lunar Base Opt ions,” Aviation Week & S paceTechnology (29 J u ly 1985): 47.

40. Car l Sagan , “To Mars,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (8 December 1986): 10.

41. The Mars Declara t ion .

42. Richard O’Lone, “Scien t ist Sees Space Sta t ion Usefu l Only If Linked to Manned Mars Mission ,” AviationWeek & S pace Technology (25 J anuary 1988): 55, 57.

43. Por t ree, Thirty Years Together, p. 30.

44. V. Glushko, Y. Semyonov, and L. Gorshkov, “The Way to Mars,” The Planetary Report (November-December1988): 4-8. Transla t ion of Pravda ar t icle da ted 24 May 1988.

Chapter 9

1. NASA, Report of the 90-Day S tudy on Hum an Exploration of the Moon and Mars (Washington , DC: NASA,November 1989), pp. 9-12 - 9-13.

2. Aaron Cohen in terview by David S. F. Por t ree, 27 August 1999.

3. Cra ig Covault , “Space Policy Out lines Program to Rega in U.S. Leadersh ip,” Aviation Week & S paceTechnology (22 February 1988): 20.

4. “NASA Funds $100-Million Pa thfinder Program for Mars, Lunar Technology,” Aviation Week & S paceTechnology (18 J anuary 1988): 17.

5. Dwayne Day, “Doomed to Fa il,” S paceflight (March 1995): 80.

6. Office of the White House Press Secreta ry, “Remarks of the President a t the 20th Anniversary of ApolloMoon Landing” (Washington , DC: White House, 20 J u ly 1989).

7. “Space Wra ith ,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (24 J u ly 1989): 21.

8. Mark Cra ig in terview by David S. F. Por t ree, 13 September 1999.

9. Richard Tru ly and Franklin Mar t in , “Br iefing to NASA Employees,” presenta t ion mater ia ls (26 J u ly 1989).

10. Ivan Bekey in terview by David S. F. Por t ree, 7 September 1999.

Endnotes


11. “NASA Accelera tes Lunar Base P lanning as Sta t ion Changes Draw European Fire,” Aviation Week & S paceTechnology (18 September 1999): 26-27.

12. Humboldt Mandell in terview by David S. F. Por t ree, 13 September 1999.

13. Cohen in terview, 27 August 1999.

14. Ibid .

15. NASA, “Cost Summary,” unpublished chapter in Report of the 90-Day S tudy on Hum an Exploration of theMoon and Mars, p. 2.

16. Ibid ., p. 3.

17. Ibid .

18. Ibid ., p. 4.

19. Ivan Bekey, “A Smaller Sca le Manned Mars Evolu t ionary Program,” IAF-89-494 (paper presen ted a t the40th Congress of the In terna t iona l Ast ronaut ica l Federa t ion , Malaga , Spa in , 7-12 October 1989), p. 6.

20. Bekey in terview, 7 September 1999.

21. Rod Hyde, Yuki Ish ikawa, and Lowell Wood, “An Amer ican-Tradit iona l Space Explora t ion Program: Quick,Inexpensive, Dar ing, and Tenacious, Br iefing to the Nat iona l Space Council” (Livermore, CA: LLNL Doc. No.Phys. Br ief 89-403, September 1989).

22. Day, “Doomed to Fa il,” p. 81.

23. “Space Policy,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (30 October 1989): 15; J ohn Connolly, persona l communi-ca t ion .

24. Cra ig in terview, 13 September 1999.

25. Roder ick Hyde, Mur iel Ish ikawa, and Lowell Wood, “Mars in th is Century: The Olympia Project ,” UCRL-98567, DE90 008356, Lawrence Livermore Nat iona l Labora tory (paper presen ted a t the U.S. SpaceFoundat ion 4th Nat iona l Space Symposium, Colorado Spr ings, Colorado, 12-15 Apr il 1988).

26. R. A. Hyde, M. Y. Ish ikawa, and L. L. Wood, “Toward a Permanent Lunar Set t lement in the Coming Decade:The Columbus Project” (Lawrence Livermore Nat iona l Labora tory: UCRL-93621, DE86 006709, 19November 1985).

27. Hyde, et al., “An Amer ican-Tradit iona l Space Explora t ion Program,” p. 38.

28. Ibid ., p. 3-4.

29. “Not ice to NASA,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (15 J anuary 1990): 15.

30. Commit tee on the Human Explora t ion of Space, Hum an Exploration of S pace: A Review of N AS A’s 90-DayS tudy and Alternatives (Washington , DC: Nat iona l Academy Press, 1990), p. x.

Endnotes


31. Ibid ., p. 28.

32. Ibid ., p. 3.

33. Ibid ., pp. xii-xiii.

34. Ibid ., p. x.

35. “Bush Calls for Two Proposa ls for Missions to Moon, Mars,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (12 March1990): 18.

36. Breck Henderson , “Livermore P lan for Explor ing Moon, Mars Draws Space Council At ten t ion ,” AviationWeek & S pace Technology (22 J anuary 1990): 84.

37. Douglas Isbell, “Congress Says OK to Moon, Mars Work,” S pace N ews (28 May-3 J une 1990): 3, 20.

38. Douglas Isbell, “Ex-Astronaut Stafford to Head Moon-Mars Outreach Team,” S pace N ews (4-10 J une 1990): 4.

39. Mandell in terview, 13 September 1999.

40. Andrew Lawler, “Bush: To Mars by 2019,” S pace N ews (14-20 May 1990): 1.

41. Pa t r icia Guilmar t in , “House Kills Funding for Moon/Mars Effor t ,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (2 J u ly1990): 28.

42. “Darman Backs NASA,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (21 May 1990): 17.

43. Douglas Isbell and Andrew Lawler, “Sena tors Assa il Bush P lan ,” S pace N ews (7-13 May 1990): 1.

44. “Bush Sets 2019 Manned Mars Object ive,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (21 May 1990): 19.

45. Andrew Lawler, “Bush Moon-Mars P lan Handed First Defea t ,” S pace N ews (18-24 J une 1990): 3.

46. NASA, Astronautics and Aeronautics 1986-1990 (Washington , DC: NASA SP-4027), pp. 272-73.

47. Cra ig Covault , “White House Endorses P lan for Shut t le, Sta t ion Sca le-Back,” Aviation Week & S paceTechnology (17 December 1990): 20; NASA, Astronautics and Aeronautics 1986-1990, p. 287.

48. “U.S. Ast ronaut to Visit Soviet Sta t ion , Cosmonaut to F ly on Shut t le,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (22October 1990): 24.

49. “Senior Soviet Space Officia ls Out line P lan for J oin t Mars Mission ,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (19November 1990): 67; Arnold Aldr ich to Dist r ibu t ion , “Background Mater ia l on Coopera t ion with NPOEnergia” (29 J une 1992).

50. Leonard David, “Faster, Cheaper Mars Explora t ion Proposed,” S pace N ews (11-17 J une 1990): 4.

51. Yur i Semyonov and Leonid Gorshkov, “Dest ina t ion Mars,” S cience in the US S R (J u ly-August 1990): 15-18.

Endnotes


52. Ibid ., p. 17.

53. Scien t ific Indust r ia l Corpora t ion “Energia ,” Mars Manned Mission: Scien t ific/Technica l Repor t (Moscow,Russia : USSR Minist ry of Genera l Machinery, 1991), p. 1.

54. Ibid ., p. 15.

55. SEI Synthesis Group, Am erica at the Threshold: Am erica’s S pace Exploration In itiative (Washington , DC:Government Pr in t ing Office, May 1991).

56. “Reaching Out ,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (4 J une 1990): 15; Cra ig Covault , “Explora t ion In it ia t iveWork Quickens as Some Concepts Avoid Sta t ion ,” Aviation Week & S pace Technology (17 September 1990):36.

57. Astronautics and Aeronautics 1986-1990, p. 255.

58. Covault , “Explora t ion In it ia t ive Work Quickens,” p. 36.

59. Am erica at the Threshold , p. 52.

60. Ibid ., p. 8.

61. Kent J oosten , persona l communica t ion .

Chapter 10

1. Kent J oosten , Ryan Schaefer, and Stephen Hoffman, “Recent Evolu t ion of the Mars Reference Mission ,”AAS-97-617 (paper presen ted a t the AAS/AIAA Ast rodynamic Specia list Conference, Sun Valley, Idaho, 4-7August 1997), p. 1.

2. Rober t Zubr in with Richard Wagner, The Case for Mars (New York: Free Press, 1996), pp. 51-52; BentonClark in terview by David S. F. Por t ree, 30 September 1999.

3. Zubr in and Wagner, The Case for Mars, p. 65.

4. Leonard David, “Faster, Cheaper Mars Explora t ion ,” p. 37.

5. Rober t Zubr in and David Baker, “Humans to Mars in 1999,” Aerospace Am erica (August 1990): 30-32, 41.For other examples, see Zubr in and Benjamin Adelman, “The Direct Route to Mars,” Fina l Front ier(J u ly/August 1992): 10-15, 53, 55; Zubr in and Chr istopher McKay, “P ioneer ing Mars,” Ad Astra(Sept em ber /Oct ober 1992): 34-41; Zu br in , “Th e Sign ifica n ce of t h e Ma r t ia n F r on t ier,” Ad Astra(September /October 1994): 30-37; Zubr in , “Mars: Amer ica’s New Front ier,” Fina l Front ier (May/J une 1995):42-46; Zubr in , “The Economic Viability of Mars Coloniza t ion ,” Journal of the British In terplanetary S ociety(October 1995): 407-414; Zubr in , “The Promise of Mars,” Ad Astra (May/J une 1996): 32-38; Zubr in , “Mars ona Shoest r ing,” Technology Review (November /December 1996): 20-31; Zubr in , “Sending Humans to Mars,”S cientific Am erican Presents (Spr ing 1999): 46-51; Zubr in , “The Mars Direct P lan ,” S cientific Am erican(March 2000): 52-55.

Endnotes


6. Zubr in and Baker, p. 30.

7. Ibid, p. 31.

8. Mar t in Mar iet ta , Manned Mars S ystem S tudy (Mars Transportation and Facility In frastructure S tudy),Volum e II, Final Report (Denver, CO: Mart in Mar iet ta , J u ly 1990), pp. 4-11 - 4-16.

9. Zubr in and Baker, p. 41.

10. Michael Duke and Nancy Anne Budden , editors, Mars Exploration S tudy Workshop II (Houston: NASA CP-3243, November 1993), p. iii.

11. Explora t ion Programs Office, “EXPO Mars Program Study, Presenta t ion to the Associa te Administ ra tor forExplora t ion ,” presenta t ion mater ia ls (9 October 1992).

12. Zubr in with Wagner, The Case for Mars, pp. 66-67.

13. David Weaver and Michael Duke, “Mars Explora t ion St ra tegies: A Reference Program and Compar ison ofAlterna t ive Architectures,” AIAA 93-4212 (paper presen ted a t the AIAA Space Program and TechnologiesConference, Huntsville, Alabama, 21-23 September 1993).

14. Duke and Budden , Mars Exploration S tudy Workshop II.

15. Rober t Zubr in and David Weaver, “Pract ica l Methods for Near-Term Piloted Mars Missions,” AIAA 93-2089(paper presen ted a t the AIAA/SAE/ASME/ASEE 29th J oin t Propulsion Conference, Monterey, Californ ia ,28-30 J une 1993), p. 3. In a 30 September 1999 in terview with the au thor, Benton Clark compared the MarsDirect ERV volume per crewmember to “a telephone booth .” See a lso David S. F. Por t ree, “The New Mar t ianChronicles,” Astronom y (J u ly 1997): 32-37.


17. Donald Savage and J ames Gately, “Mars Observer Invest iga t ion Repor t Released” (Washington , DC: NASAHeadquar ters Press Release 94-1, 5 J anuary 1994).

18. Tim Furn iss, “Red Light?” Flight In ternational (6-12 October 1993): 28-29.


20. Donald Savage, J ames Har t sfield, and David Sa lisbury, “Meteor ite Yields Evidence of Pr imit ive Life onEar ly Mars” (NASA Headquar ters Press Release 96-160, 7 August 1996).

21. Everet t Gibson , David McKay, Kath ie Thomas-Kepr ta , Chr istopher Romanek, “The Case for Relic Life onMars,” S cientific Am erican (December 1997): 58-65.


23. Associa te Administ ra tors for HEDS Enterpr ise and Associa te Administ ra tor for Space Science Enterpr iseto Director, J et Propulsion Labora tory, and Director, Lyndon B. J ohnson Space Center, “In tegra t ion of MarsExplora t ion Study and P lanning,” 7 November 1996, p. 1.

Endnotes


24. Ibid ., pp. 1-2.

25. Ibid ., p. 2.

26. Douglas Isbell and Michael Braukus, “Space Science and Human Space F ligh t Enterpr ises Agree to J oin tRobot ic Mars Lander Mission” (NASA Headquar ters Press Release 97-51, 25 March 1997).

27. Stephen Hoffman and David Kaplan , editors, Hum an Exploration of Mars: The Reference Mission of theN AS A Mars Exploration S tudy Team (Houston: NASA SP-6017, J u ly 1997).

28. Ibid ., pp. 1-36 - 1-37, 1-41.

29. Ibid ., p. v.

30. Kent J oosten , et a l.

31. Michael Duke, editor, Mars S urface Mission Workshop, LPI Cont r ibu t ion 934 (Houston: Lunar andPlaneta ry Inst itu te, 1998).

32. Mars Explora t ion Study Team, “Mars Explora t ion Study Program: Repor t of the Architecture Team” (pres-en ta t ion mater ia ls, 6 Apr il 1999), p. 6. The three-pronged approach to Mars explora t ion apparen t ly da tesfrom a March 1995 NASA Solar System Explora t ion Subcommit tee meet ing (Don Bogard, persona l com-munica t ion); it became widely applied to NASA Mars planning only a fter the McKay team’s announcementin August 1996.

33. Duke, Mars S urface Mission Workshop, p. 8.

34. Bret Drake, editor, Reference Mission Version 3.0, Addendum to the Hum an Exploration of Mars: TheReference Mission of the N AS A Mars Exploration S tudy Team , EX13-98-036 (Houston: NASA J ohnson SpaceCenter Explora t ion Office, J une 1998), pp. 33-37.

35. David S. F. Por t ree, “Walk This Way,” Air & S pace S m ithsonian (October /November 1998): 45-46.

36. Nancy Anne Budden and Michael B. Duke, editors, HEDS -UP Mars Exploration Forum , LPI Cont r ibu t ion955 (Houston: Lunar and P laneta ry Inst itu te, 1998).

37. Michael Duke, editor, S econd Annual HEDS -UP Forum , LPI Cont r ibu t ion 979 (Houston: Lunar andPlaneta ry Inst itu te, 1999).


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David S. F. Por t ree is an Ar izona-based science wr it er and h istor ian . His other NASA h istory publica t ionsinclude Orbita l Debr is: A Chronology (with J oseph P. Loftus, J r., 1999), NASA’s Or igins and the Dawn of theSpace Age (1998), Walking to Olympus: An EVA Chronology (with Rober t C. Trevino, 1997), and Mir HardwareHeritage (1995).


About the Author

Aaron, J ohn, 73Abbey, George, 94, 95Acta Astronautica, 55aerobraking, 16, 20, 21, 57, 59, 62, 63, 71, 72, 73, 79, 80,

89, 90, 92, 95, 96Aerojet -Genera l Corpora t ion, 34, 35Aeronutronic, 12, 13, 15, 16, 23; MEM descr ipt ion, 16

18; see also EMPIREAerospace Indust r ies Associa t ion, 82, 85Aerospace Technology, 39Agnew, Spiro, 42, 44, 46, 47Air Force—see United Sta tes Air Forcealcohol, 1Aldr in , Edwin “Buzz,” 43; and cyclers, 63ALH 84001, 94American Astronaut ica l Society (AAS): Symposium on

the Manned Explora t ion of Mars, 15, 35, 58; FifthGoddard Memoria l Symposium, 30

American Astronomical Society, 24American Inst itu te of Ast ronaut ics and Aeronaut ics

(AIAA), 74, 85; Aerospace Am erica, 89; Steps toMars conference, 73-74; 3rd Manned Spaceflight Conference, 16

Ames Research Center (ARC)—see under NASAAnders, William, 41Anderson, Clin ton, 5, 34, 35, 46, 52Antarct ica , 2, 94Antoniadi cra ter, 17Apollo Applica t ions Program (AAP), 24, 26, 29, 30, 31,

32, 42, 46Apollo mission modes: Direct -Ascent , 7, 8; Ear th-Orbit

Rendezvous (EOR), 7; Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR), 8, 9; LOR impact on Mars plans, 8-9

Apollo Program, 2, 7, 8, 11, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24-27, 29, 30,33, 37, 38, 40, 42, 45-49, 51, 53, 55, 58, 70, 73, 74,77, 78, 82, 86, 94, 95, 98; poor ly t imed as lead-in to piloted Mars flights, 11; devia t ion from von Braun plan , 12

Apollo missions: Apollo 1, 30; Apollo 4, 33; Apollo 7, 40;Apollo 8, 41, 49; Apollo 10, 86; Apollo 11, 43, 46,47, 48, 57, 63, 70, 77; Apollo 13, 41; Apollo 15, 51;Apollo 17, 60; Apollo 20, 48

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project , 57, 73Apollo technology: Command and Service Module

(CSM), 13, 21, 22, 26, 28, 30, 33, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41,43, 57; Command Module (CM), 13, 14, 22, 25, 26,33, 36, 37, 61, 81, 85, 86; Lunar Module (LM), 18,21, 41, 43, 63; Lunar Roving Vehicle, 51; Service Module (SM), 13, 22; as source of Mars mission

technology, 9, 21, 26, 58; see also Saturn rockets,Saturn rocket modifica t ions

Ares Vallis, 95argon, 17, 58Armstrong, Neil, 2, 43, 45, 67Army—see United Sta tes Armyart ificia l gravity, 2, 8, 13, 14, 20, 21, 51, 59, 80, 81, 89, 90Ash, Rober t , 55, 56, 89, 90Asteroid Belt , 13, 27, 29Atlas missile, 13, 20Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), 5, 12, 26, 33, 34, 35,

42, 52; Los Alamos Nat ional Labora tory (LANL),34, 61, 62, 84, 86

Aviation Week & S pace Technology, 30, 31, 41, 42, 43,46, 48, 68, 69, 70, 74, 78, 86

Baikonur Cosmodrome, 74Baker, David, 89-91ballu te, 38Bay of Pigs, 6Beggs, J ames, 73Bekey, Ivan, 80; and Office of Explora t ion task force,

80-81Bellcomm, 25, 29Ber lin Air lift , 1Bia lla , Paul, 82Bible, Alan, 52biologica l contaminat ion, 17, 31, 45, 51, 95Boeing Company, 44, 50, 73; Mars “cruiser” descr ipt ion,

36-39Bonestell, Chesley, 2Borman, Frank, 41Boulder Center for Science and Policy, 63Brit ish In terplanetary Society, 35Bush , George, 67, 75, 77-85, 87; launches Space

Explora t ion In it ia t ive, 77-78; sets t imetable for Americans on Mars, 83

Cannon, Howard, 40Cape Kennedy, 53Capitol Hill, 23, 29, 30, 49, 52; see also Congresscarbon dioxide, 17, 20, 23, 55, 56, 67, 90, 93carbon monoxide, 55, 64, 90Car ter, J immy, 60Case for Mars, The, 57, 58, 63, 67, 84, 87, 89; “Mars

Underground,” 57, 58Cecropia region, 17Centaur upper stage, 13Centra l In telligence Agency—see under United Sta tes

Government


Index

cesium, 7, 8Chaffee, Roger, 30chemical propulsion, 5, 7, 12, 13, 16, 34, 50, 58, 84, 97, 98Chernobyl, 84Chryse Planit ia , 54Clark, Benton, 53, 56, 58, 63, 84, 89; “The Viking

Results—the Case for Man on Mars,” 56, 58Clinton, William, 85Cohen, Aaron, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81Cold War, 6, 73, 74, 77, 81Collier’s, 2, 3, 7, 42, 98Collins, Michael, 43; and NASA Advisory Council Task

Force, 70Congress, 5, 6, 7, 23, 24, 30, 31, 34, 35, 39, 40, 44, 52, 67,

77, 78, 82, 83; funds first NASA Mars study, 5;response to NASA Space Task Group presentat ion , 46, 47; r esponse t o Space Explora t ion In it ia t ive, 78, 82-84; see also H ou se of Representa t ives, Senate

conjunct ion-class mission, 2, 19, 37, 55, 56, 80, 89, 91Connolly, J ohn, viiCooke, Doug, 94cor iolis effect , 8Cornell University, 74Craig, Mark, 78Crippen, Rober t , 57Crocco, Gaetano, 11, 12Crocco-type flyby, 11, 15, 63cyclers, 63, 64, 68

Darman, Richard, 77, 83Deimos, 13, 53, 58, 81Democrat , 5, 31, 32, 34, 39, 40, 41, 47, 52, 83Depar tment of Commerce—see under United Sta tes

GovernmentDepar tmen t of Defense—see under United Sta t es

GovernmentDepar tment of Energy, 81, 82, 85; Lawrence Livermore

Nat ional Labora tory (LLNL), 81, 82Depa r t m en t of St a t e—see u n d er Un it ed St a t es

GovernmentDepa r t m en t of Tr a n spor t a t ion —see u n d er Un it ed

Sta tes GovernmentDesign Reference Mission (DRM), 89, 91, 94, 95, 96, 97;

cargo lander, 92, 93, 96, 98; Ear th-Return Vehicle,91, 92, 93, 96, 98; Habita t , 92, 93, 95, 96, 98; High-Energy Ellipt ica l Parking Orbit (HEEPO), 98;Hum an Exploration of Mars: The Reference Mission of the N AS A Mars Exploration S tudy Team , 95; Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), 91, 92, 93;

Mars Explora t ion Study Team, 91, 93; rela t ionship to Mars Direct , 91-92; “scrubbed” DRM, 95,98; Solar-Elect r ic Transpor t Vehicle (SETV), 97,98; su r fa ce payloa d, 96-97; “t h r ee-pr on ged approach” to Mars science, 97

Disney, Walt , 7Dixon, Franklin , 16, 17, 18; “Manned Expedit ions to

Mars and Venus,” 30Douglas Aircraft Company, 18Dowler, William, 55, 56, 90Dubridge, Lee, 42, 44Dukakis, Michael, 83Duke, Michael, 63, 96, 97, 98Dunham, David, 64

Eagle Engineer ing, 68, 73Econom ist, The, 49Ehr icke, Krafft , 13-15elect r ic propulsion, 5, 7, 8, 58, 68, 84, 85, 97Eisenhower, Dwight , 5-7EMPIRE (Ear ly Manned P laneta ry In terplaneta ry

Roundtr ip Expedit ions), 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 18, 19,21, 29, 35, 36, 73

encounter mission—see under piloted Mars flybyEnergia rocket , 74, 75, 84, 85; and Buran shut t le, 75Explorer 1, 4, 6, 7, 47Explorer 3, 6Ezell, Edward, 21

Faget , Maxime, 12, 15, 21, 23, 30, 50, 85Farquhar, Rober t , 64Finger, Harold, 35First Lunar Outpost (FLO), 91Fisher, William, 83Flanigan, Peter, 49Fletcher, J ames, 52, 69, 70flyby—see piloted Mars flybyFlyby-Landing Excursion Mode (FLEM), 29Flyby-Rendezvous mode, 15, 16, 59Ford, Gera ld, 55, 82Freeman, Fred, 2Fr iedman, Louis, 55, 58, 59Frosch, Rober t , 60Fulbr ight , J. W., 47Future Project s Office—see under Marsha ll Space

Flight Center

Gagar in , Yur i, 6Gemini, 12, 29, 30, 31, 33


Index

Genera l Dynamics, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 82; see alsoEMPIRE

Genera l Elect r ic, 40Genesis, 41Glushko, Vladimir, 74Gorbachev, Mikhail, 73, 74, 84, 85Gore, Alber t , 83Gorshkov, Leonid, 74, 84Gramm-Rudman deficit reduct ion legisla t ion , 83Gray, Edward, 25; “Manned Expedit ions to Mars and

Venus,” 30Great Explora t ion, The, 81-82Green, Bill, 83 Griffin , Michael, 91Grissom, Gus, 30Gusev cra ter, 54

Haber, Heinz, 2Habitability of Mars, The, 58halo orbit , 64Hammock, David, 15, 16Hatfield, Mark, 46heavy-lift rocket , 60, 61, 63, 68, 71, 72, 80, 84, 85, 86, 89,

91, 92, 96, 97; Advanced Launch System, 79; HL Delta rocket , 81; Nova rocket , 7, 9, 12, 13; Titan VI rocket , 81; see also Energia rocket , Saturn rocket , Sa tu rn rocket modifica t ions, Shu t t le-der ived rocket

Hellas basin , 43Hellespontus region, 43Heppenheimer, T. A., 11Hit ler, Adolf, 13Holland, Spessard, 31Hollister, Walter, 63Hoffman, Stephen, 89Hotz, Rober t , 31, 46Houbolt , J ohn, 8House, William, 35H ou se of Repr esen t a t ives, 31, 32, 83, 84;

Appr opr ia t ion s Com m it t ee, 83; Scien ce a n d Astronaut ics Commit tee, 47; Space Commit tee,26, 31, 39, 68; Subcommit tee on Housing and Urban Development and Independent Agencies,83; Su bcom m it t ee on Spa ce Scien ce a n d Applica t ions, 32, 69, 70

Hubble Space Telescope, 83H u m a n E xplor a t ion a n d Developm en t of Spa ce-

University Par tners (HEDS-UP), 98, 99.Humphrey, Huber t , 40Huntress, Wesley, 94, 95

hydrogen, 5, 13, 22, 26, 33, 34, 35, 36, 43, 44, 51, 55, 57,61, 72, 81, 83, 89, 90, 92, 93

hydrogen peroxide, 56

infla table st ructures, 1, 2, 3, 81, 97In-Situ Resource Ut iliza t ion (ISRU), 55, 56, 58, 62-64,

79, 80, 86, 89, 91, 92, 95, 99integra ted program, 26Integra ted Program Plan (IPP), 42-44, 48, 78Interplanetary Shut t le Vehicle (ISV), 64Internat ional Astronaut ical Federat ion Congress, 11, 80Internat ional Sun-Ear th Explorer-3, 64Internat ional Space Year, 69Internet , 98, 99

J ackson, Bruce, 15, 16J enkins, Morr is, 50-51J et Propulsion Labora tory (J PL), 61, 63, 74, 77, 78, 79,

85, 87, 91, 93, 94, 95, 97; and Voyager, 25; and ISRU, 55

J ohnson, Lyndon, 21, 24, 29-32, 34, 35, 39-42; cancels Rea ct or-In -F ligh t -Test (RIF T), 35; r equ est s NASA’s post -Apollo plans, 24

J ohnson Space Center (J SC), 15, 60, 61, 77, 79, 94;Explora t ion Dir ector a t e, 87, 93; Explora t ion Office, 94, 95; Lunar-Mars Explora t ion Program Office, 78; Office of the Cura tor, 94; Planetary P r oject s Office, 93, 94; see also Ma n n ed Spacecraft Center

J ohnson, U. Alexis, 42J oosten , Kent , vii, 89J upiter (planet ), 7, 53J upiter-C rocket , 7

Kaplan, J oseph, 2Kar th , J oseph, 32Keaton, Paul, 61, 64Kennedy, J ohn F., 7, 8, 12, 24, 29, 33-35, 41, 48, 49, 75,

77; decision to go to the Moon, 5-6, 15; and nuclear rockets, 34-35

Kennedy, Rober t , 39Kennedy Space Center (KSC), 25, 29, 30, 33, 37, 49, 57,

80, 89; Pad 39C, 28, 31, 37Kennedyesque proclamat ion, 78kerosene, 33Keyworth , George, 69King, Mart in Luther, J r., 39.Kirkpat r ick, J eane, 67Klep, Rolf, 2Koelle, Heinz, 11, 21

145

Index


Kraft , Chr istopher, 85

Lagrange, J oseph, 64Lagrange point sta t ion , 63, 68; as stepping stone to

Mars, 64Laird, Melvin , 42Langley Research Center, 8, 15, 20, 32, 36, 42; suppor ts

ISRU research, 56Launius, Roger, 41Leadersh ip and Am erica’s Fu ture in S pace (Ride

Repor t ), 69-73, 81, 89Lewis Research Center, 5, 6, 8, 9, 15, 19, 34, 85, 97, 98;

and first NASA Mars study, 5-6, 37; and Design Reference Mission, 97-98; see also NASA—Glenn Research Center a t Lewis Field

Ley, Willy, 2, 3Life Systems, 73lift ing body, 13, 15, 16, 17, 20, 23lith ium, 85Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, 12, 13, 14, 29,

35; see also EMPIRELogsdon, J ohn, vii, 48Los Alamos Nat ional Labora tory (LANL)—see under

Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)Los Angeles Herald-Exam iner, 43Lovell, J ames, 41Low, George, 41, 49, 52, 74Lowell, Percival, 23, 53Lunar and Planetary Inst itu te, 97Lunar Bases and Space Activit ies of the 21st Century, 61Lunar Orbiter, 53Lunokhod 2, 95

Manarov, Musa, 74Mandell, Humboldt , 63, 79Manned Mars Mission (MMM): study, 51, 61, 84; work

shop, 61, 64Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), 15, 16, 19, 25, 31, 32,

37, 41, 49, 50, 59, 60, 80; and Planetary Missions Requirements Group, 49-51; see also J ohnson Space Center

Margar it ifer Sinus region, 3Mariner, 26, 53; Mariner 2, 12, 23; Mariner 4, 22, 23, 24,

25, 30, 37, 44; Mariner 6, 43-44, 53; Mariner 7, 43-44, 46, 53; Mariner 9, 53, 54, 55, 95

Mars: affect of environment on unprotected human, 54;a tmosphere, 16, 17, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 37, 38, 54-56, 67, 86, 90; canals, 2-4, 23; channels, 53, 54, 95;dust , 53, 54, 97, 99; opposit ion , 3, 4, 18, 19, 53, 75;permafrost , 53, 54; poles, 1, 17, 18, 43, 67; popular

image, 23, 53, 54, 55; water, 17, 23, 53, 54, 55, 56,81, 94, 98; as an abode of life, 2, 3, 15, 17, 23, 26,29, 45, 51, 53, 54, 71, 89, 94, 97, 98; as base/sett lement site, 2, 19, 21, 45, 55, 56, 60, 62, 63, 70, 71,79, 80, 81, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 97; as revealed by Mariner 4, 23; as revealed by Mariner 9, 53, 55;as revealed by Viking, 54-55

Mars and Beyond , 7Mars Declaration, The—see under Planetary Society,

TheMars Direct , 85, 89-92; small Ear th-Return Vehicle, 91;

see also Design Reference MissionMars Explora t ion Study Team—see under Design

Reference MissionMars Globa l Su rveyor—see under Mars Surveyor

ProgramMars Observer, 93, 94, 96Mars Orbit Rendezvous (MOR), 9, 14, 15, 16, 29, 37, 63,

93; see also piloted Mars landersMars Pathfinder, 89, 95; renamed Sagan Memoria l

Sta t ion , 95Mars Sur face Sample Return (MSSR) lander—see

under piloted Mars flybyMars Surveyor Program, 94, 95, 96; Mars Global

Surveyor, 96, 98Mars Transpor ta t ion and Facility Infrast ructure Study

—see under Mart in Mariet ta Corpora t ion“Mars Underground”—see under Case for Mars, TheMarshall Space Flight Center, 7, 9, 11, 12, 15, 18, 20, 21,

24, 25, 35, 44, 49, 55, 61, 73, 89; Future Projects Office, 11, 12, 18, 20, 21, 24, 44; Symposium on Manned Planetary Missions, 16, 21

Mart ian meteor ite—see ALH 84001Mart in , Franklin , 77, 78Mart in Mariet ta Corpora t ion, 15, 56, 73, 80, 85, 89, 90;

Mars Transpor ta t ion and Facility Infrast ructure Study, 73, 80

Matsunaga, Spark, 73Mayo, Rober t , 42, 44, 46-48McGill University, 94McKay, Chr istopher, 57, 58, 63McKay, David, 94Mendell, Wendell, 63Mercury (planet ), 53Mercury, 12, 15, 31, 33; Freedom 7, 6Meteor Cra ter, 98meteoroids, 8, 13, 14, 17, 19, 23, 62, 97methane, 38, 39, 55, 56, 90, 91, 92, 93Mie cra ter, 54Miller, George, 47


Index

Moon, 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 14, 22, 24, 28, 29, 33, 34, 41, 42,43, 45, 47, 48, 49, 53, 54, 60, 61, 64, 70, 77, 78, 79,80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 86, 94, 95, 96; base site, 12, 43,47, 60, 61, 68, 70, 73, 77, 78, 79, 81, 86, 89, 91;“impor tan t for the long-range explora t ion of space,” 5, 8; source of oxygen propellant for Mars flight , 68, 78; stepping stone to Mars, 15, 63, 70,73, 77, 78, 86

Morgenthaler, George, 15Mueller, George E., 25, 26, 40, 42, 43, 46, 48Murray, Bruce, 74

nanobacter ia , 94Nat ional Academy of Sciences, 61, 68; Space Science

Board, 24; S pace Research: Directions for the Future, 24

Na t ion a l Advisor y Com m it t ee on Aer on a u t ics (NACA)—see under United Sta tes Government

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration),4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 15, 17, 23, 30, 32, 33, 35, 37,40, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 55, 57, 58, 59, 61, 68,73, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 89, 93, 94, 95,98; Advisory Council Task Force, 70; Ames Research Center (ARC), 19, 49, 63; budget, 5, 23,24, 25, 29, 30, 31, 32, 39, 40, 42, 46, 48, 49, 52, 59,68, 70, 77, 78, 83, 84; Exploration Office, 87, 91, 93,94; Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field, 5;Goddard Space Flight Center, 64; Headquarters,15, 25, 27, 82, 94; Human Explora t ion and Development of Space (HEDS) Enterprise, 94, 95;Manned Planeta ry Mission Technology Conference, 15; Mars Conference, 68; Mission to Planet Earth, 69, 84; Office of Exploration, 70, 71,73, 80, 90, 91; Office of Manned Space Flight (OMSF), 25, 27, 30, 40, 42; Planetary Missions Requirements Group (PMRG); 48-51, 80; Science and Technical Advisory Council, 42; Science and Technology Advisory Committee, 25; Space Science Enterpr ise, 94, 95; see also individual NASA Centers, Design Reference Mission, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (J PL), Planetary Joint Action Group

Nat ional Commission on Space (NCOS), 67, 68, 69, 70,85, 89; Pioneering the S pace Frontier, 67

Nat ional Press Club, 46Nat ional Research Council (NRC), 77, 82; Commit tee

on H u m a n E xplor a t ion of Spa ce (St ever Commit tee), 82

Nat ional Space Council—see under White HouseNat ional Space Society, 89N ew York Tim es, 44

N ewsweek , 74Nicogossian , Arnauld, 94Niehoff, J ohn, 71, 72nit r ic acid, 1nit rogen, 17, 20, 23, 54Nix Olympica , 43, 53—see also Olympus MonsNixon, Richard M., 6, 34, 40, 41, 42, 47, 48, 49, 52, 74,

82; suppor ts Space Shut t le, 52; Task Force on Space, 41, 42, 46

North American Rockwell (NAR), 51, 44, 85; MEM descr ipt ion, 37-39

NPO Energia , 84, 85nuclear reactor, 8, 34, 84, 89, 90nuclear propulsion, 3, 5, 6, 8, 12, 14, 16, 25, 26, 29, 32,

34, 35, 36, 40, 46, 48, 50, 52, 61, 84, 86, 89, 92, 96,97; Kiwi, 34, 35; NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Applica t ion), 33, 34, 35, 36, 40, 41,43, 44, 45, 48, 52, 96; NRX-A6 ground test , 35;Reactor-In-Flight -Test (RIFT), 35; ROVER, 34

Nuclear Rocket Development Stat ion (NRDS), 34, 40, 52Nuclear Shut t le, 43-45

Office of Manned Space Flight (OMSF)—see under NASA

Old Dominion University, 55, 56Olympus Mons, 53; see also Nix Olympicaopposit ion-class mission, 19, 36, 37, 80Orbita l Transfer Vehicle (OTV), 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 68,

72, 73Ou t r ea ch P r ogr a m —see u n d er Spa ce E xplor a t ion

In it ia t ive (SEI)oxygen, 8, 17, 22, 33, 34, 38, 39, 51, 55, 56, 57, 61, 64, 68,

72, 73, 78, 79, 81, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93

Paine, Thomas, 33, 40-44, 46-49, 52, 63, 67-69Peenemünde, 1, 13Pentagon, 79; see also United Sta tes Government—

Depar tment of Defenseper iodic-orbit sta t ions, 63; see also cyclersPH-D Proposal, 58Philadelphia Inquirer, 43Phillips, Samuel, 82Phobos (Mart ian moon), 13, 53, 58, 73, 74, 80, 81Phobos spacecraft , 74-75piloted Mars flyby, 11-13, 15, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30,

32, 58, 61, 62, 74; Apollo-based Ear th-return cap-sule, 13, 14, 21, 22, 25, 26; automated probe cargo,12, 13, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 32; “cool” versus“hot” t ra jectory, 13; devia t ion from von Braun plan , 12; encounter mission, 30, 31; Exper iment

147

Index


Module, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32; “manned Voyager,”25; Mars Surface Sample Return (MSSR) probe,28, 29, 31, 32; Mission Module, 14, 25, 26, 27, 61;and Mariner 2, 12; and Mariner 4, 22, 23; and “robot caretaker” just ifica t ion, 12, 22, 23

piloted Mars lander, 80; Aeronutronic Mars Excursion Module (MEM), 15-18, 29, 45, 51; Flyby-Landing Excursion Module (FLEM) MEM, 29; Flyby-Rendezvous MEM, 15; Mars Excursion Vehicle (MEV), 14-15; Mars Landing Vehicle, 85; NAR MEM, 37-39, 44, 51, 85; NASA STG MEM, 44-45;SAIC Mars lander, 59; TRW MEM, 20; von Braun gliders, 1-3, 23

piloted Mars orbiter, 12, 13, 14, 26, 58; see also PH-D Proposal

P la n et a r y J oin t Act ion Gr ou p (J AG), 24-32, 45;Planetary Exploration Utilizing a Manned Flight S ystem , 26, 27

Planetary Missions Requirements Group (PMRG)—see under NASA

Planetary Report, The, 59Planetary Society, The, 58, 59, 71, 73, 74; fund ear ly

Mars ISRU research, 56; Mars Declaration, The,67, 74; St eps t o Ma r s con fer en ce, 73, 74Pluto, 12, 35

post -Apollo space program, 9, 21, 24, 29, 41, 46, 49, 56,87; see also Apollo Applica t ions Program

post-Saturn rocket , 7, 9, 15, 21, 33; see also Nova rocketPravda , 74President’s Science Advisory Commit tee (PSAC), 30,

35, 42, 49, 74; The N ext Decade in S pace, 49; The S pace Program in the Post-Apollo Period , 30

Progress spacecraft , 84Project Hor izon, 11Project Pathfinder technology development program,

70, 77, 78Proton rocket , 74Pueblo incident , 39

Quayle, Dan, 77, 78, 81, 82, 84

radia t ion, 6, 13, 14, 19, 23, 58, 62, 64, 71, 85, 90, 97;spacecraft radia t ion shelter, 6, 8, 13, 21, 27, 51,72, 73, 85

radioisotope power unit , 13, 21Rall, Char les, 63Rand Corpora t ion, 19, 82, 85Ranger program, 12, 14, 22, 53Reagan, Ronald, 60, 67, 68, 69, 73, 74; and “Kennedy-

style declara t ion,” 77

Redstone Arsenal, 7Redstone missile, 7Republican, 40, 41, 46, 60, 83Ride, Sally, 69, 70, 71, 73, 78, 91Ride Repor t—see Leadership and Am erica’s Future in

S paceRL-10 engine, 22Rober ts, Barney, 61, 62, 63Rocket Team , The, 1Roentgen Equivalent Man (REM), 6Rogers Commission, 69rover, 51, 53, 56, 58, 59, 74, 86, 90, 92, 93, 94, 97; and

“walk-back” limit , 51; see also t ractorRuppe, Harry, 11, 15, 21, 22Ryan, Cornelius, 2

Sabat ier, Paul, 55Sabat ier process, 55, 90Sagan, Car l, 58, 73, 74; see also Mars Pathfinder—

Sagan Memoria l Sta t ionSaturn (planet ), 53Saturn rocket , 7, 8; “Big Shot ,” 33; Saturn C-5, 13, 15;

Saturn I, 7; Saturn IB, 7, 11, 22, 36; Saturn V, 11,13, 15, 21, 22, 28, 29, 31, 33-37, 39-41, 44, 48, 49,52, 57, 74, 89, 91; Saturn V launch descr ipt ion, 33Saturn rocket modifica t ions: Improved Saturn V,26, 27; MS-IVB stage, 26, 27, 28, 31; S-IIB stage,22; upra ted Saturn V, 36

Schaefer, Ryan, 89Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC),

59, 68, 71, 72, 73, 81, 90; Piloted S print Missions to Mars, 71, 72; split /sprint mission mode, 71-73, 90

S cience in the US S R , 84Schachter, Oscar, 2Schmit t , Harr ison, 60, 61, 74, 84; “Chronicles Plan ,” 60;

“Mars 2000 Millennium Project ,” 61Schr iever, Bernard, 67Sea of Tranquillity, 2, 22, 43; Tranquillity Base, 43Seaborg, Glenn, 42, 44Seamans, Rober t , 25, 40, 42, 44, 46, 85Semyonov, Yuri, 74, 84Senate, 34, 52, 84; Appropr ia t ions Commit tee, 31, 32,

40; Foreign Rela t ions Commit tee, 47; Major ityLeader, 34; Space Commit tee, 34, 40, 46, 68Shepard, Alan, 6Shuttle-derived vehicle, 61, 62, 63, 79, 96, 97; Ares rocket,

89-91; Shuttle-Z, 80Singer, S. Fred, 58, 60S ky & Telescope, 15Smith , Margaret Chase, 46


Index

Smithsonian Inst itu t ion: Air & S pace S m ithsonian , 63;Nat ional Air and Space Museum, 77

Sohn, Rober t , 19, 20, 90Sojourner rover, 95, 98solar ar ray, 27, 28, 51, 58, 60, 68, 74, 85, 96, 97solar fla re, 6, 23, 27, 51, 64Soviet Academy of Science, 61Soviet Union, 4, 6, 34, 57, 73, 74, 75, 84, 85, 95Soyuz spacecraft , 85Space Coopera t ion Agreement , 73, 74Space Explora t ion In it ia t ive (SEI), 73, 77-87, 89, 91, 95;

Am erica at the Threshold , 85, 87; cost est imate,79-80; 90-Day S tudy, The, 77-82, 87, 89, 93, 95;Outreach Program, 82, 83, 85, 87; Synthesis Group (Stafford Group), 82, 85, 86, 87, 89, 91, 93

S pace N ews, 82Space Nuclear Propulsion Office (SNPO), 34, 35Space Shut t le, 42-46, 48-52, 55, 59, 60, 62, 63, 67, 68, 69,

70, 73, 75, 79, 80, 83, 85; Challenger, 67, 68, 69, 70,74, 75; Colum bia, 57, 60; Discovery, 75; External Tank (ET), 57, 80, 89; launch descr ipt ion, 57;“myth of an economic Shut t le,” 67; orbiter, 57, 67;Orbiter Maneuvering System (OMS), 57; Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), 57, 67, 80, 89; Space Shut t le Main Engines (SSMEs), 57, 80, 89; Space Transporta t ion System (STS), 49; Spacelab, 57,59; STS-1, 57, 60; STS-4, 60; STS-26, 75; STS-27,75; STS-51L, 67; source of technology for Mars missions, 50, 51, 57, 58; see also Shutt le-der ived vehicle

Space Sta t ion, 1, 2, 3, 6, 12, 24, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 4957, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 74,77, 81, 84, 85, 86, 91, 95; Dual Keel, 67, 68, 79, 84;Internat ional Space Sta t ion, 85, 94; Mir, 74, 84,85; Mir-2, 85; Phase I, 67, 68, 73; Phase II, 67, 70,84; Salyut , 60, 61, 73; Skylab, 24, 48; Space Opera t ions Cen ter (SOC), 60; Space Sta t ion Freedom , 77, 78, 79, 80, 83, 84, 85, 86, 98; spacepor t versus labora tory, 60, 70; spacepor t funct ion de-emphasized, 60, 83-84; source of technology for Mars missions, 44, 57-59, 61, 63

space suit , 11, 17, 51, 81, 97, 98Space Task Group (STG): progenitor of Manned

Spacecraft Center, 15; char t ing NASA’s fu ture,42-46, 48, 49, 52, 68, 69, 78, 89; Am erica’s N ext Decades in S pace: A Report to the S pace Task Grou p , 47; Post-Apollo S pace Program :Directions for the Future, The, 47-48

Space Transpor ta t ion System (STS)—see under Space Shut t le

Spacelab—see under Space Shut t lesplit -spr in t m ission m ode—see u n d er Scien ce

Applica t ions In ternat ional Corpora t ionsplit mission architecture, 89Sputnik 1, 4, 5, 34Stafford, Thomas, 82, 85, 86, 91Stanford University, 73, 94Stever, H. Guyford, 82Stone, Edward, 94, 95Stuhlinger, Ernst , 7, 8, 9, 11Sullivan, Kathy, 67Surveyor program, 14, 53; Surveyor 4, 93Symposium on the Manned Explora t ion of Mars—see

under American Astronaut ica l Society

telescope, 2, 3, 4, 11, 27, 28, 53Tet Offensive—see under VietnamTexas A&M University, 71, 83Tharsis Pla teau, 53Tim e, 74Titov, Vladimir, 74Titus, R. R., 29Townes, Char les, 25, 41tractor, 2, 3Trafton, Wilbur, 94, 95Traxler, Rober t , 83Truly, Richard, 77, 78, 79, 80, 82, 86TRW Space Technology Labora tory, 19, 20

UMPIRE, 18-19, 21, 55Un favor a ble Ma n n ed P la n et a r y In t er pla n et a r y

Roundtr ip Expedit ions—see UMPIREUnited Aircraft Research Labora tor ies, 29United Sta tes (U.S.), 1, 6, 12, 13, 22, 24, 31, 33, 34, 39,

43, 44, 47, 57, 58, 61, 67, 68, 73, 74, 75, 83, 84, 86,93, 98

United Sta tes Air Force, 15, 34, 42, 85; Edwards Air Force Base, 58

United Sta tes Army, 4, 7; Army Ballist ic Missile Agency (ABMA), 1, 7, 11; Corps of Engineers, 81; see alsoU.S. government—Depar tment of Defense

Un it ed St a t es gover n m en t : Cen t r a l In t elligen ce Agen cy (CIA), 6, 61, 74; Depa r t m en t of Agr iculture, 67; Depar tment of Commerce, 67;Depar tment of Defense, 5, 39, 49, 82, 83, 85;Depa r t m en t of St a t e, 67; Depa r t m en t of Transpor ta t ion , 67, 85; NACA (Nat ional Advisory Commit t ee on Aeronau t ics), 5, 19; Na t iona l Science Founda t ion , 67, 82; see also Atomic Energy Commission; Congress; Depar tment of

149

Index



Energy; NASA; United Sta tes Air Force; United Sta tes Army; White House

University of Arizona, 67University of Illinois Press, 1University of Texas, 71urban r iots, 29, 31, 32Utopia Planit ia region, 54

V-2 missile, 1, 7Valles Mariner is, 53Van Allen Radia t ion Belts, 6, 8, 58, 97, 98Varsi, Giulio, 55, 56, 90Vast itas Borealis region, 17Venus, 12, 13, 20, 23, 26, 32, 37, 45, 53, 58, 62, 80Vietnam, 24, 29-31, 39, 49; Tet offensive, 39Viking, 32, 35, 48, 53-57, 60, 68, 74, 93, 95von Braun, Wernher, 1-4, 6, 7, 11, 13, 19, 21, 23, 33, 42-

48, 98; career apogee, 44; Das Marsprojek t, 1, 3;The Exploration of Mars, 3; The Mars Project, 1,2, 7, 11, 19

Vostok 1, 6Voyager Mars/Venus program, 24-26, 29-32, 35; as vic-

t im of piloted flyby planning, 32

Wallops Island, 60Washington Evening S tar, 41

Washington Post, 74Webb, J ames, 24, 31, 39, 40, 41weight lessness, 1, 3, 13, 28, 58, 64, 71, 84, 90Whipple, Fred, 2White, Ed, 30White House, 29, 32, 35, 39, 40, 47, 49, 52, 60, 67, 68, 69,

73, 77, 78, 81, 83; Budget Bureau, 21, 24, 29, 35,40, 42, 48; Nat ional Space Council, 24, 77, 78, 79,81, 84, 86; Office of Management and Budget (OMB), 48, 49, 52, 69, 77; Office of Science and Tech n ology Policy, 67; see also in dividu a l P r esiden t s; P r esiden t ’s Scien ce Advisor y Commit tee (PSAC)

Wilkening, Laurel, 67Wood, Lowell, 81Working Group on Extra ter rest r ia l Resources (WGER),

55

Yeager, Chuck, 67Yeltsin , Bor is, 85Young, J ohn, 57

zero gravity—see weight lessnessZubr in , Rober t , 89, 90, 91Zucker t , Eugene, 15

Index

151

All monographs except #1 are available by sending a self-addressed 9 x 12” envelope for each monograph withappropr ia te postage for 15 ounces to the NASA History Office, Code ZH, Washington, DC 20546. A complete list -ing of a ll NASA History Ser ies publica t ions is available a t h t t p ://h is t or y.nasa .gov/ser ies95.h tml on the WorldWide Web. In addit ion , a number of monographs and other History Ser ies publica t ions are available online fromthe same URL.

Launius, Roger D., and Aaron K. Gillet te, compilers. Toward a History of the Space Shut t le: An AnnotatedBibliography. Monograph in Aerospace History, No. 1, 1992. Out of pr in t .

Launius, Roger D., and J.D. Hunley, compilers. An Annotated Bibliography of the Apollo Program. Monograph inAerospace History, No. 2, 1994.

Launius, Roger D. Apollo: A Retrospective Analysis. Monograph in Aerospace History, No. 3, 1994.

Hansen, J ames R. Enchanted Rendezvous: J ohn C. Houbolt and the Genesis of the Lunar-Orbit RendezvousConcept. Monograph in Aerospace History, No. 4, 1995.

Gorn, Michael H. Hugh L. Dryden’s Career in Avia t ion and Space. Monograph in Aerospace History, No. 5, 1996.

Powers, Sheryll Goecke. Women in Flight Research at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center from 1946 to 1995.Monograph in Aerospace History, No. 6, 1997.

Por t ree, David S. F., and Rober t C. Trevino. Walking to Olympus: An EVA Chronology. Monograph in AerospaceHistory, No. 7, 1997.

Logsdon, J ohn M., modera tor. Legisla t ive Origins of the Nat ional Aeronaut ics and Space Act of 1958: Proceedingsof an Oral History Workshop. Monograph in Aerospace History, No. 8, 1998.

Rumerman, J udy A., compiler. U.S. Human Spaceflight , A Record of Achievement 1961-1998. Monograph inAerospace History, No. 9, 1998.

Por t ree, David S. F. NASA’s Origins and the Dawn of the Space Age. Monograph in Aerospace History, No. 10, 1998.

Logsdon, J ohn M. Together in Orbit : The Origins of Internat ional Cooperat ion in the Space Sta t ion. Monograph inAerospace History, No. 11, 1998.

Phillips, W. Hewit t . J ourney in Aeronautical Research: A Career at NASA Langley Research Center. Monograph inAerospace History, No. 12, 1998.

Braslow, Alber t L. A History of Suct ion-Type Laminar-Flow Control with Emphasis on Flight Research. Monographin Aerospace History, No. 13, 1999.

Logsdon, J ohn M., modera tor. Managing the Moon Program: Lessons Learned Fom Apollo. Monograph in AerospaceHistory, No. 14, 1999.

Perminov, V. G. The Difficult Road to Mars: A Brief History of Mars Explorat ion in the Soviet Union. Monograph inAerospace History, No. 15, 1999.


NASA History Monographs


Tucker, Tom. Touchdown: The Development of Propulsion Controlled Aircraft a t NASA Dryden. Monograph inAerospace History, No. 16, 1999.

Maisel, Mart in , Giulanet t i, Demo J., and Dugan, Daniel C. The History of the XV-15 Tilt Rotor Research Aircraft :From Concept to Flight . Monograph in Aerospace History, No. 17, 2000 (NASA SP-2000-4517).

J enkins, Dennis R. Hypersonics Before the Shuttle: A Concise History of the X-15 Research Airplane. Monograph inAerospace History, No. 18, 2000 (NASA SP-2000-4518).

Chambers, J oseph R. Partners in Freedom: Contr ibutions of the Langley Research Center to U.S. Military Aircraftof the 1990s. Monograph in Aerospace History, No. 19, 2000 (NASA SP-2000-4519).

Waltman, Gene L. Black Magic and Gremlins: Analog Flight Simula t ions a t NASA’s Flight Research Center.Monograph in Aerospace History, No. 20, 2000 (NASA SP-2000-4520).

NASA History Monographs

Humans to Mars

Documents