The Rock From Mars by Kathy Sawyer

Author:Kathy Sawyer
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9781588365279
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2006-02-13T16:00:00+00:00

Running throughout the activities was an obvious awareness of a political dilemma: how to demonstrate political commitment to tackling the big, fundamental questions when there was little hope of prying loose new money to do it.

As part of its “guidance” for the summit, NASA had prepared a memo for the White House science office: “Make it clear that NASA has successfully restructured its program to focus on research and development and has [relevance] to the American public.” The agency’s stated goal was to win support for a merely stable—not larger—budget from 1997 to 2001 “at the $13.6–$13.8 billion level.” But a hand-scrawled notation on the page differed: “Not [illegible] enuf! 14 at least w/o Mars initiative!” The memo went on to ask, “If budget is held to FY 1996 (vs 97!?) outyear runout, what are policy decisions on what to cut?”

Though genuinely excited about the potential implications of the Martian meteorite findings, the White House was preoccupied with the deficit. The administration was grappling with what one space policy expert described as its “uncertainty over how best to deal with the firestorm of interest unleashed by the president’s words [in connection with the Mars rock story], compared to its desire to avoid major new, expensive space commitments.”

Hopes for another major, Kennedy-style push in human space exploration had been as persistent as they were unrealistic. The last time anybody had tried it was in 1989, when President Bush’s proposal for a human mission to Mars had sunk without a ripple, largely because Congress found it so easy to laugh at NASA’s stolid, self-serving proposal of a $400 billion sticker price.

Clinton and Gore were not about to follow that path.

But well-founded research on the compelling question of extraterrestrial life was another matter. The summit process served to underline the fact that, as Michael Meyer, the top NASA exobiology official, put it, “this is not crazy research but, in fact, has become cutting edge with mainstream scientists.”

When the meeting finally broke up, waiting reporters wanted to know about the resulting plan for action. The media wanted news, not schmooze—but from their perspective, the latter was all they got. White House science adviser John Gibbons commented that the event had provided “a good deal of flavor and perspective” for the vice president, and should help administration officials be more definitive in their testimony before Congress. The group around the table had concluded that Goldin and NASA were on the right track, he said, “to do more with the same dollars.”

The vice president issued a statement calling NASA’s new Origins program “a vital contribution to our national and global pursuit of knowledge.” He would prove to be a staunch supporter.

An ebullient Dan Goldin, his voice tight with emotion, called the event “a highlight of my career in Washington.” He said it was in harmony with NASA’s new approach: in the past, NASA had defined itself by the engineering temples it wanted to build and then picked the questions to fit. That was about to change, Goldin vowed.

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