The Mission

by David W. Brown

  50.L. Prockter, email message to C. Niebur regarding SDT membership application, December 21, 2006.

  51.P. H. Schultz, “Atmospheric Effects on Ejecta Emplacement and Crater Formation on Venus from Magellan,” Journal of Geophysical Research 97, no. e10 (1992): 161–83, https://doi.org/10.1029/92JE01508.

  52.L. Prockter, interview by author, December 12, 2017.

  53.J. W. Head, interview by R. Wright, June 6, 2002, NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project, Edited Oral History Transcript, last modified July 16, 2020, https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/HeadJW/HeadJW_6-6-02.htm.

  54.M. Johnson, “The Galileo High Gain Antenna Deployment Anomaly” (presentation, Twenty-Eighth Aerospace Mechanisms Symposium, Cleveland, 1994), https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19940028813.

  55.W. O’Neil et al., “Performing the Galileo Jupiter Mission with the Low Gain Antenna (LGA)” (presentation, International Astronautical Federation Space Exploration, Graz, Austria, 1993), https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20060039129.

  56.J. Taylor, K. Cheung, and D. Seo, DESCANSO Design and Performance Summary Series, Article 5: Galileo Telecommunications (Pasadena, CA: Deep Space Communications and Navigation Systems Center of Excellence, NASA JPL, CIT, July 2002), https://descanso.jpl.nasa.gov/DPSummary/Descanso5--Galileo_new.pdf.

  57.Ibid.

  58.D. J. Mudgway, Uplink-Downlink: A History of the NASA Deep Space Network, 1957–1997, NASA History Series (Washington, DC: NASA, 2001), https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20020033033.pdf.

  But don’t feel like you have to go to the library or bookstore to get this one. The seven-hundred-twenty-two-page book is available for free at the above URL. I learned this only after buying a copy, so you’re welcome, Mudgway.

  59.NASA, JPL, “Galileo Spacecraft Anomaly Being Investigated,” press release, October 12, 1995, https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/text/gal_tape.txt.

  Galileo is the Apollo 13 of outer planets flagship missions. So many things went wrong, and the Rube Goldberg–like rescue of its data storage and communications capacities make it one of the greatest achievements of the space age. Somebody should write a book about it, but not me.

  See also M. R. Johnson and G. C. Levanas, “The Galileo Tape Recorder Rewind Operation Anomaly” (presentation, Thirty-First Aerospace Mechanisms Symposium, Huntsville, AL, 1994), https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19970021630.

  60.Associated Press, “Data Recorder Malfunctions in Spacecraft,” New York Times, October 13, 1995, A16.

  61.K. Sawyer, “Rewind Almost Unhinges Galileo Mission,” Washington Post, October 29, 1995, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/10/29/rewind-almost-unhinges-galileo-mission/0d550514-4fa5-49b7-98d8-4011d13c6dc6/?utm_term=.37724af19a33.

  62.NASA, JPL, “Galileo on Track After Tape Recorder Recovery,” press release, October 26, 1995, https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/text/gal_tape_3.txt.

  63.Khurana, “Induced Magnetic Fields,” 777–80.

  64.N. Paulter, Users’ Guide for Hand-Held and Walk-Through Metal Detectors (Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, Office of Science and Technology, January 2001), https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/184433.pdf.

  See also K. Khurana, interview by author, August 27, 2018.

  65.Kivelson et al., “Galileo Magnetometer Measurements,” 1340–43.

  66.C. Niebur, email message to L. Prockter regarding SDT membership application, December 22, 2006.

  67.L. Prockter, email message to C. Niebur regarding SDT membership application, December 22, 2006.

  68.J. Morse, Pathological Aspects of Religion, vol. 1 (Worcester, MA: Clark University Press, 1906), 259.

  Add this to the list of works I didn’t expect to read while researching this book.

  69.M. J. Neufeld, “Transforming Solar System Exploration: The Origins of the Discovery Program, 1989–1993,” Space Policy 30, no. 1 (2014): 5–12, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2013.10.002.

  70.N. Panagakos and F. Bristow, NASA Office of Public Affairs, “Voyager 1: Saturn Encounter, Summary of Events,” news release no. 80-145, September 1980, https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19810066669.pdf.

  The timeline of encounter events can be found on pages 5–8.

  71.R. D. Launius, “Public Opinion Polls and Perceptions of U.S. Human Spaceflight,” Space Policy 19, no. 3 (2003): 163–75, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0265-9646(03)00039-0.

  72.Declassifying “Fact of” National Reconnaissance Office’s Use of the Space Shuttle as a Launch Vehicle: A Policy Decision Risk Assessment (Chantilly, VA: Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance, Office of Policy, National Reconnaissance Office, July 2001), accessed June 14, 2019, https://www.scribd.com/document/348134338/Declassifying-the-Fact-of-the-NRO-s-Use-of-the-Space-Shuttle-as-a-Launch-Vehicle.

  Thank you to the inimitable journalist Matt Novak for filing a Freedom of Information Act request for this document and sharing it publicly.

  73.B. Hendrickx, “Kidnapping a Soviet Space Station,” Space Review, last modified July 14, 2014, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2554/1.

  74.“ESA Takes Its Anger to Washington,” New Scientist 89, no. 1244 (March 12, 1981): 661.

  75.J. M. Logsdon, Ronald Reagan and the Space Frontier (Cham, Switz.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 30.

  See also J. Schefter, “It’s Time to Stop the Space Retreat,” Popular Science 221, no. 4 (October 1982): 32–45. So many of the Reagan administration’s early attempts to derail space science are enumerated in this eye-opening piece.

  76.J. M. Logsdon, “The Survival Crisis of the U.S. Solar System Exploration Program in the 1980s,” in Exploring the Solar System: The History and Science of Planetary Exploration, ed. R. D. Launius (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 45–76, https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137273178_3.

  This chapter—indeed, anything by John Logsdon—is required reading for anyone interested in how the American space program works.

  77.T. O’Toole, “NASA Weighs Abandoning Voyager,” Washington Post, October 7, 1981, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1981/10/07/nasa-weighs-abandoning-voyager/a3df075c-6f7b-4573-8956-d3852c7fe59a.

  78.P. Ulivi and D. M. Harland, Robotic Exploration of the Solar System, part 2: Hiatus and Renewal, 1983–1996 (New York: Springer, 2007).

  79.O’Toole, “NASA Weighs Abandoning Voyager.”

  80.S. Crow, “The Viking Fund,” Icon VI (June 1981), 17.

  This program from the 1981 ICON science-fiction convention in Iowa, manually typed and mimeographed, is especially fun in that it includes a brief article by an unknown, early-career author named George R. R. Martin.

  81.“Mariner 6 and 7,” Arizona State University, Space Exploration Resources, accessed October 10, 2019, http://ser.sese.asu.edu/M67/mar67.html.

  82.W. von Braun and C. Ryan, “Can We Get to Mars?,” Collier’s Weekly, April 30, 1954, 22–29.

  83.R. D. Launius, “Project Apollo: A Retrospective Analysis,” NASA History Division, last modified April 21, 2014, https://history.nasa.gov/Apollomon/Apollo.html.

  84.M. Wright, “The Disney–Von Braun Collaboration and Its Influence on Space Exploration,” NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center History, last modified August 3, 2017, http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/history/vonbraun/disney_article.html.

  85.W. von Braun, “Manned Mars Landing” (presentation, Space Task Group, Washington, DC, August 4, 1969), https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/19690804_manned_mars_landing_presentation_to_the_space_task_group_by_dr._wernher_von_braun.pdf.

  86.Roper Center for Public Opinion Research (blog), last modified March 10, 2015, https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/blog/fly-me-moon-public-and-nasa-blog.

  See also T. W. Smith, “General Social Survey Final Report: Trends in National Spending Priorities, 1973–2014” (presentation, University of Chicago, March 2015), http://www.norc.org/PDFs/GSS%20Reports/GSS_Trends%20in%20Spending_1973-2014.pdf.

  87.NA
SA, “Viking,” press kit, February 1975, https://mars.nasa.gov/mro/odyssey/newsroom/presskits/viking.pdf.

  88.Achenbach, “NASA’s 1976 Viking Mission to Mars.”

  89.V. K. McElheny, “Viking Team, Pressed to Supply News, Sees Itself Practicing ‘Instant Science,’” New York Times, August 18, 1976, https://www.nytimes.com/1976/08/18/archives/viking-team-pressed-to-supply-news-sees-itself-practicing-instant.html.

  90.J. N. Wilford, “Mars Chemistry Still Puzzles Scientists,” New York Times, August 3, 1976, https://www.nytimes.com/1976/08/03/archives/mars-chemistry-still-puzzles-scientists.html.

  91.W. Sullivan, “Nitrogen, Key to Life, Is Found,” New York Times, July 21, 1976, https://www.nytimes.com/1976/07/21/archives/nitrogen-key-to-life-is-found.html.

  92.V. K. McElheny, “Hunt for Evidence of Life on Mars Is Still a Puzzle,” New York Times, August 11, 1976, https://www.nytimes.com/1976/08/11/archives/hunt-for-evidence-of-life-on-mars-is-still-a-puzzle.html.

  93.“Viking Experiments in Biology on Mars Called Inconclusive,” New York Times, September 1, 1976, https://www.nytimes.com/1976/09/01/archives/viking-experiments-in-biology-on-mars-called-inconclusive.html.

  94.J. N. Wilford, “New Viking 2 Data Called ‘Marginally Positive,’ but Scientists Are Still Unsure About Mars Life Tests,” New York Times, September 24, 1976, https://www.nytimes.com/1976/09/24/archives/new-viking-2-data-called-marginally-positive-but-scientists-are.html.

  95.V. K. McElheny, “Technology Hopes for a Mobile Viking on Mars,” New York Times, November 24, 1976, https://www.nytimes.com/1976/11/24/archives/technology-hopes-for-a-mobile-viking-on-mars-technology-a-chance-to.html.

  96.J. N. Wilford, “Tests by Viking 2 Keep Alive Belief in Biological Activity,” New York Times, September 17, 1976, https://www.nytimes.com/1976/09/17/archives/tests-by-viking-2-keep-alive-belief-in-biological-activity.html.

  97.“Life on Mars? . . .” New York Times, September 20, 1976, https://www.nytimes.com/1976/09/20/archives/life-on-mars.html.

  98.J. N. Wilford, “Viking 2 Test Finds No Organic Matter,” New York Times, October 1, 1976, https://www.nytimes.com/1976/10/01/archives/viking-2-test-finds-no-organic-matter-results-termed-preliminary.html.

  99.G. Williams, “Viking and Friends,” Popular Mechanics, December 1980, 154.

  100.W. H. Patterson and R. A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century, vol. 2: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988, 1st ed. (New York: Tor Books, 2014), 436.

  101.“Passing the Hat for Space,” Boston Globe, June 28, 1981, 16.

  102.M. Toner, “Private Citizens Kick in Money to Keep Space Programs Going,” Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, WI), May 28, 1981, 3.

  103.H. Mark, “New Enterprises in Space,” Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 28 no. 4 (1975): 14–26, doi:10.2307/3823240.

  Hoooo boy, what a piece! When the incoming deputy administrator of a NASA center says, Unfortunately, the results of space science to date have not been of major significance, you can bet that a lot of scientists need to start polishing their résumés, because this space business is on borrowed time.

  104.“Airplane Types,” Travel Insider (blog), accessed October 10, 2019, https://blog.thetravelinsider.info/airplane-types. An early configuration of the DC-10 could hold everyone.

  105.H. Finley, Space Exploration: Cost, Schedule, and Performance of NASA’s Mars Observer Mission—Fact Sheet for the Chairman, Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space, Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, U.S. Senate (Washington, DC: U.S. General Accounting Office, National Security and International Affairs, May 27, 1988), https://www.gao.gov/products/nsiad-88-137fs.

  106.E. M. Conway, Exploration and Engineering: The Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Quest for Mars (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015). This is perhaps the most comprehensive and engaging book out there on how Jet Propulsion Laboratory built a Mars program.

  107.A. F. AbuTaha, The Problem with the Space Shuttle and the Space Program (Washington, DC: NASA, February 2003), https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/382045main_19%20-%2020090730.11.STS%20Problem%202003.pdf.

  108.M. C. Malin et al., “Design and Development of the Mars Observer Camera,” International Journal of Imaging Systems and Technology 3, no. 2 (1991): 76–91, https://doi.org/10.1002/ima.1850030205.

  And what a camera it was! Engineers had to reinvent inventing to do it, but they came up with a camera without a shutter. Moving parts wear out. Moving parts bring surprises, and nobody likes surprises a hundred million miles from home. The camera worked like a fax machine, would scan Mars one line at a time and algorithmically assemble the image in memory and return it back to Earth.

  109.D. S. F. Portree, online interview by author, July 10, 2018.

  My kind thanks to David S. F. Portree, the extraordinary historian who, to the best of my knowledge, has done the best and most comprehensive work connecting SDI and Faster-Better-Cheaper. His work can be found at DSFP’s Spaceflight History, https://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com.

  110.“Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI),” Atomic Heritage Foundation, last modified July 18, 2018, https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/strategic-defense-initiative-sdi.

  111.A. Wellerstein, “Why Build So Many Nukes? Factors Behind the Size of the Cold War Stockpile” (presentation, Putting the Genie Back in the Bottle: MIT Faculty and Nuclear Arms Reduction, Cambridge, MA, May 2011), http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/235/wallslides.pdf.

  Mutually Assured Destruction, of course, required both countries to build ever-growing arsenals of increasingly sophisticated doomsday weaponry, keep them on constant alert, and have them pointed perpetually at each other, because if you couldn’t absolutely annihilate your opponent, destruction was not mutually assured. And since you could never know for certain how many nuclear weapons the enemy actually had, you had to keep making more . . . just in case!

  112.D. G. Brennan, “Strategic Alternatives: I,” New York Times, May 24, 1971, https://www.nytimes.com/1971/05/24/archives/strategic-alternatives-i.html.

  113.H. M. Kristensen and R. S. Norris, “Global Nuclear Weapons Inventories, 1945–2013,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 69, no. 5 (2013): 75–81, https://doi.org/10.1177/0096340213501363.

  114.Soviet Military Power (Washington, DC: Defense Intelligence Agency, 1983), available at Federation of American Scientists, https://fas.org/irp/dia/product/smp_83_ch3.htm.

  115.S. D. Drell, P. J. Farley, and D. Holloway, “Preserving the ABM Treaty: A Critique of the Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative,” International Security 9, no. 2 (1984): 51, https://doi.org/10.2307/2538668.

  116.S. Nozette, Defense Applications of Near-Earth Resources (CSI-83-3) (La Jolla, CA: California Space Institute, September 1, 1983), https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a340021.pdf. This document is one of the most stunning and exciting artifacts in all of space history.

  117.H. Smith, “Would a Space-Age Defense Ease Tensions or Create Them?,” New York Times, March 27, 1983, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1983/03/27/060428.html?pageNumber=140.

  118.J. A. Abrahamson and H. F. Cooper, “What Did We Get for Our $30 Billion Investment in SDI/BMD?” (paper, National Institute for Public Policy, Fairfax, VA, September 1993), http://highfrontier.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/What-for-30B_.pdf.

  119.R. Hale, Statement of Robert F. Hale, Assistant Director, National Security Division, Congressional Budget Office, Before the Defense Policy Panel and the Subcommittee on Research and Development, Committee on Armed Services, U.S. House of Representatives (Washington, DC: Congressional Budget Office, March 26, 1987), https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a529879.pdf.

  The testimony of Robert F. Hale is an excellent place to start if you want to understand funding trends for SDI.

  120.National Research Council, Lessons Learned from the Clementine Mission (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 1997), https://doi.org/10.17226/5815.

  121.Hale, Statement of Robert F. Hale. This is the source of SDI fundi
ng figures for the years 1984, 1985, 1986, and 1987.

  See also B. S. Lambeth and K. N. Lewis, The Strategic Defense Initiative in Soviet Planning and Policy (R-3550-AF) (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, January 1988), 101, https://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R3550.html.Thisisthesourceofthe1988figure.

  See also CQ Almanac 1989: 101st Congress, 1st Session (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2013). The 1989 CQ Almanac is the source of the four-point-one-billion-dollar figure for 1989.

  See also L. Aspin, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 1990 and 1991 (Pub. L. 101–189), 1989. Source of the 1990 figure.

  See also M. Duric, The Strategic Defence Initiative: U.S. Policy and the Soviet Union, 1st ed. (London: Routledge, 2017), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315236926. Source of the 1991 figure.

  122.T. Hogan, Mars Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Space Exploration Initiative, NASA History Series (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2009), 134, https://history.nasa.gov/sp4410.pdf. This book is quite worth the time of anyone interested in the political realities of attempting to mount an Apollo-esque human space-flight program.

  123.M. Cabbage and W. Harwood, Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia (New York: Free Press, 2004), 221.

  124.S. Begley, “The Stars of Mars,” Newsweek, last modified July 20, 1997, https://www.newsweek.com/stars-mars-174306.

  125.Neufeld, “Transforming Solar System Exploration,” 5–12.

  See also Conway, Exploration and Engineering, 145.

  126.Ibid., 49.

  127.This is $170 million, adjusted for inflation.

  128.E. Weiler, interview by author, September 4, 2017.

  129.Ibid.

  130.L. Spitzer Jr., “Astronomical Advantages of an Extra-Terrestrial Observatory,” Astronomy Quarterly 7, no. 3 (1990): 131–42, https://doi.org/10.1016/0364-9229(90)90018-V.

  131.J. N. Wilford, “Scientists Assess the Hubble Loss,” New York Times, June 29, 1990, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1990/06/29/issue.html.

  132.NASA, “Space Shuttle Mission STS-61,” press kit, December 1993, https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/139889main_PressKit12_05.pdf.