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From the Executive DirectorFollow The Water!December 15 , 2006
The first week of December was quite a week for NASA: Mars Global Surveyor investigators announced the discovery of water on Mars, NASA officials described plans for landing and maintaining humans on the Moon, a shuttle was launched on a scheduled flight, and Congress adjourned after taking no action on the agency’s fiscal year 2007 budget. We had heard rumors about a possible discovery of liquid water on the surface of Mars some weeks earlier, but we understood that something like that would be checked and rechecked with more observations. It’s startling – a world once thought to be bone dry, a place where liquid water cannot exist on the surface, is now found to have flows of liquid water. Mars does not cease to surprise us. Maybe it is, or was, or perhaps will be, a habitable world after all. Wes Huntress, President of The Planetary Society, created an exploration strategy in the 1990s called “follow the water,” which was adopted by then NASA Administrator Dan Goldin. The strategy was right on – water is the fundamental fluid of planetary evolution and the medium of life. Now, with the discovery of water on the Mars surface, following the water is even more interesting and cries out for more exploration. In addition to the gullies, the Mars Exploration Rovers have discovered a Mars that in the past was “awash with water” (in the words of Steve Squyres the rovers’ science team leader). Much of that water may still be near the surface in the form of ice, which occasionally gets warm enough to spring out on the surface. Finding out why and how this happens will be a key factor in defining future exploration goals. In contrast to Mars, the Moon is dry -- and it is getting drier. New studies using Earth-based radar confirm that previously-detected hydrogen is probably not bound in ice. These new observations also show that measurements of hydrogen in the permanently shadowed areas (where theoretical analysis points to trapped ice) were about the same as in sunlit areas (where ice cannot possibly exist). Still, we hear many enthusiasts speak about lunar “resources,” ignoring both the science pointing to the absence of water and the complex engineering needed to extract resources from dry soil. The lunar architecture described by NASA had two welcome features: it began to lay out a plan for human operations on the Moon, and it set forth a global strategy to incorporate the ambitions and efforts of other nations in the grand adventure of sending humans beyond Earth orbit. But plans can have pitfalls – and this one has a huge one. It is called “permanence.” The NASA plan endorsed the idea of a permanent base on the Moon, but did not offer a purpose for such a base: no scientific or military or practical application was identified. Instead, proposals for lunar bases have come from those who want to build the base, not from those who might use it. The goal of permanence suggests a never-ending, money-consuming program. NASA should go to the Moon with an exit strategy. If there really are private or commercial interests or some other government agency whose mission demands lunar resources, or who want a permanent base there, great! They can use NASA’s return to the Moon as their stepping stone to achieve permanence. They should not, however, delay the human exploration of the solar system. NASA’s humans should follow their robots, and follow the water to Mars. From closely observing public interest in space exploration in the U.S. and around the world, I believe that Mars is the only objective that will gather enough political and financial support to sustain a human space flight goal. The European Space Agency has been very explicit in emphasizing the Mars goal of their Aurora program, and the original Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) also emphasized Mars, saying that the lunar operations were only “to prepare for going to Mars." My own view is that the VSE has been hijacked by a small group of big-thinking macro-engineers and political ideologues who see the Moon as a nationalistic adventure. Such a rationale, in my opinion, is not sustainable. Nonetheless I continue to support the NASA Exploration strategy because I believe it is at least moving us outward again, and it will get corrected as realism begins to outweigh enthusiasm. Follow the water has another resonance for me. Let’s follow it not just to Mars, but also beyond Mars! The only known extraterrestrial ocean -- on Europa -- also beckons us to search for extraterrestrial life and to advance our fundamental understanding of planets. Following the water to Europa is a top priority of the National Academy of Sciences and several NASA advisory committees. NASA, however, has cancelled work on the mission, because it had to raid the science budget for what it calls "exploration priorities." But no exploration priority should come before following the water. Moreover, the money that was raided wasn’t even used for exploration: it replaced funds for the shuttle’s modifications and return to flight that the Administration (by its own admission) chose not to provide. This underfunding of NASA science is, of course, the heart of our Save Our Science campaign , and that is why we were so disappointed when Congress failed to act on the NASA Appropriations. Both Senate and House Committees seemed to be working up plans to restore some of the huge science cuts (three billion dollars over five years), but they could not get the bill acted upon before Congress adjourned. The President is now preparing the fiscal year 2008 budget, which could cement these draconian cuts. The Planetary Society is now conducting a strong campaign to convince him otherwise: To Save Our Science. It was a busy first week of December – and all of these topics will occupy us through the coming year. To all, I wish Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.-- Louis Friedman Comments? We welcome your opinions on this subject. Send us email! |
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