Washington DC
THE US has formally abandoned its goal of landing astronauts on Mars by
2019. Instead, the new national space policy unveiled last week commits the
nation to a permanent robot presence on the Red Planet starting no later than
2000. Human exploration might come later, depending on what the robots
find.
The national space policy issued by the White House also loosens the US鈥檚
stranglehold on the world鈥檚 rocket launch industry. In the past, Washington
insisted that Russia, Ukraine and China should be limited in the number of
launches they could sell to Western satellite manufacturers, for fear that they
would undercut the cost of launches by Western companies.
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Under the new policy, once current agreements with Russia, Ukraine and China
expire, the US will push for 鈥渁 trade environment characterised by the free and
open interaction of market economies鈥�.
President Bill Clinton emphasised this aspect of the policy while campaigning
for re-election last week in Washington state, home of the aerospace giant
Boeing. The company is seeking to develop a commercial sea-launched rocket in
collaboration with Russia and Ukraine. The space policy will 鈥渢ear down the
barriers that block the development of our space industry鈥�, Clinton told a rally
in Tacoma. 鈥淲e want to have free and fair trade among economies in space.鈥�
The goal of placing American astronauts on Mars by 2019 was set in 1989 by
Clinton鈥檚 predecessor, George Bush, as the nation celebrated the 20th
anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. But NASA never pursued the goal
vigorously, and the tightening of federal budgets in recent years had already
made a costly new astronaut project highly unlikely.
Michael McCurry, Clinton鈥檚 spokesman, told reporters last week that any
mission that sent astronauts to Mars 鈥渋s a roughly $100 billion
proposition鈥� that would be unjustified at present. 鈥淲hat we鈥檙e looking for is a
continual transmission of data from the surface of Mars.鈥� The information sent
back by probes might build a case for sending astronauts later, he said.
Clinton drew a parallel to the popular movie Independence Day, in
which invading aliens wreak havoc in the capital on 4 July then continue their
destructive rampage across the planet. An American probe is scheduled to land on
Mars on 4 July 1997, he said. 鈥淲e thought we would go visit them first and try
to get around that blowing up the Capitol and White House business. This will
help us to determine whether and how and when we should send human missions
迟丑别谤别.鈥�
John Logsdon, an expert on space policy at George Washington University in
Washington DC, played down the significance of abandoning Bush鈥檚 goal. The
former president鈥檚 deadline, which he declared in a speech but which was never
written into a formal policy document, had been 鈥渄ead on arrival鈥�, says Logsdon.
鈥淭his new policy is more in line with reality,鈥� he says.
However, Robert Park of the American Physical Society sees the document as a
watershed in government attitudes towards space because it does not
automatically assume that exploration of the cosmos will be carried out by
humans. For example, while the policy endorses continued development of the
international space station in Earth orbit, it stresses that the project will
help NASA in making decisions on the need for further human exploration.
The mere fact that the policy document raises any question about human
travels beyond Earth orbit is heartening, says Park. He argues that the space
station will accomplish little worthwhile science and has soaked up funds that
otherwise might have financed research with automated spacecraft.
The document also says that the US government will promote more international
collaboration in space. In particular, NASA will work with other space agencies
to try to develop international standards that would allow one nation鈥檚 ground
stations to broadcast commands to another country鈥檚 spacecraft and to receive
data from them. Currently, each nation has its own scheme for communicating with
its spacecraft, making it impossible for nations to share costs on spacecraft
projects by sharing responsibility for controlling the satellites.