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Mars Sample Return: Off the table?

The recent release of the administration’s FY 2013 budget gave some scientists a bit of a shock.  Planetary science (considered a “jewel in the crown” of the space agency) has been identified for cutting, over 20% during the next five years.  A particularly painful cut comes to the agency’s robotic Mars exploration program.  Planned missions in cooperation with the Europeans and future missions designed to lead up to the return of a surface sample from Mars were eliminated from the budget.  In effect, the successful program of Mars missions created after the embarrassing failure of the Mars Polar Lander over a decade ago is being scrapped.

The administration digested the National Research Council (NRC) Decadal Survey in planetary science (released last spring) before writing their new budget.  The study process for this report involves getting the relevant scientific communities to determine and lay out their priorities.  The assumption is that the scientific community can best determine the most relevant goals and questions in planetary science and therefore design mission concepts to address them.  Through a variety of working groups and forums, the desires of the community are made known and a report is written around them.  Typically, planetary scientists organize their working groups around objects of study, such as the inner (rocky) planets, small bodies (asteroids and comets), and giant planets.  For the latest Decadal Survey, the Mars community had its own separate group. Mars is, of course, a rocky, inner planet, and for decades has held sway in the planning process, both for robotic and human missions.

NASA’s highest scientific priority for Mars exploration is to determine if it has now, or has ever had life.  The chosen mission concept to address this question is to return samples of the surface of Mars to the Earth.  This is a very difficult task.  Mars is a big planet with a deep gravity well.  At its closest, it is several tens of millions of miles from the Earth, leaving robotic machines controlled from the Earth with long time delays (up to tens of minutes).  Safely landing on Mars is hard enough – taking off again and navigating back to Earth with samples safely in hand, is at least an order of magnitude more difficult.

Yet the new Decadal Survey made Mars sample return its only priority in the area of Mars science – the report offered no alternative missions for consideration.  Moreover, the sample return mission concept presented by the Decadal Survey required not one, but three separate “Flagship” missions (i.e., those having total costs exceeding $1 billion).  In a complex scenario, the mission concept called for a Mars lander to deliver a rover, explore and collect samples and then store them on the surface.  A second mission years later would rendezvous with the stored samples on the surface of Mars, transfer them to an ascent vehicle, and place the samples in orbit around the red planet.  The third and final mission would rendezvous with this orbital vehicle, dock with it and return the samples to the Earth.  From initial landing to sample return would take over a decade and cost many billions of dollars.  Moreover, in this series of three sequential and very complex missions, one single-point failure could spell the end of the entire effort.

When the Office of Management and Budget saw this plan and its price tag, they thought it was too much money for too complicated a mission.  Unfortunately, the Mars subgroup left no “back-up” options in the Decadal Survey – it was do the sample return trio or do nothing.  Hence, the new budget proposes nothing.  Of course, a big part of the reason that this mission trio was a non-starter was to preserve funding for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which at its current estimated $8 billion cost (and counting), effectively makes most other space science endeavors non-starters.

Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war!  The planetary science community was stunned.  The Planetary Society organized a letter writing campaign, demanding that Congress intervene and save the “Mars program.”  Scientists complained that their highest priority as expressed in the Decadal Survey had been discarded without any real thought and debate (much as the Vision for Space Exploration had been thrown away two years ago).  In partial response, the agency is setting up an ad hoc group to study some less expensive, interim Mars missions (something that the Decadal Survey should have done).  Presently, all of planetary science is in danger of severe cutbacks.  And the final bill for JWST has yet to be delivered.

What can be learned from this these events and applied to the exploration of the Moon?  Like the Mars community, the lunar science community has made sample return the centerpiece of their mission wish list.  A South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin sample return has been proposed as a New Frontiers mission and studied in detail twice over the last nine years – and passed over for selection twice.  Yet the new Decadal Survey once again makes this mission its top priority in lunar science.  Moreover, for this mission to be scientifically successful in its goal of dating the impact that created the SPA basin (the biggest and oldest impact crater on the Moon) it must not only complete the sample return, it must collect samples whose context can be reconstructed and fully understood.  As discussed here previously, given the difficulty of such reconstruction for the Apollo samples (which were carefully documented and collected by trained field observers), an unambiguous outcome for this robotic mission is exceedingly unlikely.

Certainly, returning a sample from the Moon is less difficult than doing it from Mars, so the two tasks are not directly comparable.  Yet, there are a number of missions to both the Moon and Mars that could be done for less money and would significantly advance our understanding of their histories and processes.  For example, an entirely new field of scientific study is the generation, movement and fate of water on the Moon, a problem rich in both scientific and exploration potential.  This new field could be investigated profitably by a series of properly instrumented, small robotic missions.

These issues and questions were known at the time that the Decadal Survey was conducted, so there is little excuse for ignoring them, except for the community’s fixation on sample return missions.  In part, this obsession exists because it provides a large part of the research community with something to do.  NASA money has built many expensive laboratories to analyze extraterrestrial materials and new lunar and planetary samples are needed to keep them operating.  But the full potential of remote, in situ analysis – coupled with careful and clever geological planning – has not been given enough thought by the scientific community.

Will the lunar science community also shoot itself in the foot?  If so, it will simply be finishing a job started by this administration two years ago with the cancellation of the VSE.  Fans of human spaceflight please take note:  the process of undertaking these “Decadal Surveys” has been widely praised and advocated as a model for determining the goals and objectives of the human space program.  Considering the consequences of this latest effort in planetary science, one might want to re-think that scenario.

Valuable and reachable goals on reasonable timescales: Cislunar space

Astronomer Neil Tyson, a friend dating from the Aldridge Commission, recently appeared on Comedy Central’s Daily Show to promote his new book.  During the program, Neil suggested that NASA’s budget should be doubled.  He made the point that the current total budget for the civil space program is less than one-half of one percent, so doubling the budget would still result in less than one percent spending on space.  Neil believes that a strong, vigorous space program inspires the next generation to take up scientific and technical studies, fields of endeavor vital to our nation’s future.  Initially taken aback, Jon Stewart, the show’s host, ending the segment by proclaiming Tyson his preferred choice for President in 2012.

The very thought of a doubled space budget is one to start the salivary glands of most space cadets watering overtime.  Think of all the missions we could do!  No more either Space Launch System (SLS) or commercial launch – we do both!  No longer either James Webb telescope or Mars missions – we do both!  All issues resolved, all problems solved, all constituencies satisfied.  Right?

A couple of years ago, I wrote an essay stating that more money for NASA was not the answer to their problems.  That post was written when NASA still had a strategic direction – the now-discarded Vision for Space Exploration (VSE).  After this administration terminated the VSE, they endorsed another program called Flexible Path.  No destination was named (though a human mission to one of the Earth-Moon L-points or to a near-Earth asteroid was posited), rather the agency was asked to design generic systems that, in theory, could take us anywhere.  Flexible Path was the course advocated by the Augustine committee, who had been tapped to evaluate NASA’s implementation of the VSE.  Their report claimed that it was not possible to implement the VSE (specifically, the development of the lander needed to return to the Moon) without a one-third increase in the agency budget, so a refocusing of the strategic direction of the agency (one more “flexible” than the VSE) was necessary.

The conclusions of Augustine (specifically, the non-return to the Moon part) were embraced by the administration and early 2010 the plug was pulled on the VSE.  However, the commercial (COTS) part of the terminated VSE was retained, becoming the primary avenue and focus of NASA funding and development for future cargo and eventual human access to and from low Earth orbit.  The decision to terminate VSE became increasingly controversial as the agency also decided to move forward with the planned shutdown of Shuttle.  In light of the unknowns of commercial launch success or its timetable, it became evident that the delay caused by these decisions would affect our space workforce and the viability of the U.S. space program.  Congress reacted by insisting that the agency develop a new heavy lift vehicle (to ensure human missions beyond low Earth orbit), a program now underway known as the Space Launch System (SLS).  Until one (if any) of these systems come on line (projected to be in 5-10 years) we must purchase human LEO access from the Russians.

More money might alleviate some near term issues with certain missions (such as ExoMars, the now-canceled joint NASA-ESA mission to Mars), but as Neil Tyson suggests, would that give us a fundamentally different and better space program?  More funding would enable more activity, but to do what?  As we no longer have a reasonable, near-term strategic goal (and I do not count empty promises of human Mars missions 30 years in the future as such), more money might accelerate progress on some programs, but money alone will never establish a healthy and vigorous space program.

What has held us back from creating a strong space program?  I contend that it is the lack of any strategic direction, by which I mean not simply a goal, but a believable goal, one that combines clear and pressing societal value with attainable, decadal timescales, at costs at or less than their projected budget line.  Under the existing operational template, most proposed space goals satisfy one or two, but not all conditions.

In space, as in most federal programs, throwing money at a problem may be necessary, but is seldom sufficient.  A doubled space budget would likely produce more studies, additional staff meetings, endless Powerpoint charts and countless and interminable management training retreats.  NASA’s productive engineering segment will continue to shrink as bureaucratic overhead continues to swell.  A program without a direction, no matter how well funded, creates nothing but waste.

We must not retreat from our role as a viable space faring nation. If we become complacent and lose our place in history, there is no assurance that the values and liberty we cherish here will follow humanity into the new frontier of space, or even remain strong here at home.  Money alone does not measure the health of a program or a nation.  NASA and the United States urgently need a believable, strategic space goal.

Today the U.S. space program is moving rapidly toward oblivion. Can it be saved?  I myself go back and forth debating this critical question.  Today I think it is possible.  If reason is the ability to draw conclusions from what is evident, faith is the ability to believe in things unseen or not proven.  I must have faith – it sure as hell can’t be reason.

The Dodo awards Alice her prize after the caucus-race

In space circles, the idea of offering incentive prizes to develop complex technology has some currency.  Most notably, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich recently advocated a prize-based incentive model coupled with a leaner NASA as an alternative to our currently stalled, government bureaucratic model of space operations.  The incentive idea is behind the current Centennial Challenges program of NASA, which offers money for the demonstration of certain specified technologies or procedures.  Presumably, Gingrich is speaking not of this existing program but about a vastly expanded prize structure, funded by the federal government, for significant milestones in humanity’s expansion into space.

This model structure harkens to early days of aviation when prizes for specific aeronautical achievement proliferated.  Notable was the $25,000 Orteig Prize offered by New York hotelier Raymond Orteig for the first non-stop air flight between New York and Paris.  Charles Lindbergh won the Orteig Prize in 1927 in his specially built Spirit of St. Louis.  After this flight, probably due more to celebrity culture and the frenzy of fame rather than actual flight accomplishment, commercial aviation enjoyed a boom of popularity with the public and industry.  In short, the prize offering succeeded in producing a PR stunt; the design features of Spirit of St. Louis were specifically optimized to permit Lindbergh to win the prize, not to advance aeronautical technology or establish commercial transatlantic flight operations.

Currently, the most visible prize structure for spaceflight is Peter Diamandis’ X-Prize Foundation, a private funding group that awards prizes for specific space-related goals.  The first and most famous, the Ansari X-Prize founded in 1996, was offered to the first non-government group that could (within two weeks) twice launch and safely return to Earth a reusable, manned spacecraft.  In 2004, the $10,000,000 X-Prize was won by Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne, funded by Microsoft’s Paul Allen.  This vehicle used an innovative airborne launch system, a hybrid solid-liquid rocket engine and a “wing feathering” method for re-entry and return flight.  Plans were immediately made to construct a commercial version of SpaceShipOne, to be sponsored and operated by Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic organization.

However, since that prize-winning flight almost eight years ago, things have not proceeded smoothly.  An explosion in 2007 destroyed the rocket fabrication facility and killed three workers.  Virgin Galactic established an operations base in New Mexico on October 17, 2011.  There is a passenger manifest backlog of 455 subscribers but as of this writing, not a single commercial passenger spaceflight has occurred.

Another current space prize is the Google Lunar X-Prize, offering a $20 million award for successfully landing a spacecraft carrying a high-definition imaging system and roving on the Moon at least 500 meters.  Since its announcement in 2007, over 30 companies have registered to participate in the competition.  Additional prize increments are awarded for other accomplishment, such as long range (> 5 km) roving, survival over a lunar night, and documentation of the presence of water in lunar soil.  No lunar mission has yet been launched nor has any launch date been announced.  The original expiration date for the lunar X-Prize was 2012 but was extended to the end of 2015.

An alternative incentive approach is milestone-based contracting.  NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program awards government money to companies that meet specific milestones on previously announced timescales.  That money is to be spent developing specific capabilities required for government needs.  The reward at the end of this cycle is a performance-based government contract for launch services.  However, under this government-sponsored incentive program, a commercial human spaceflight industry has yet to develop.

Bigelow Aerospace, a builder of private, “For Lease” space stations, recently laid off over one third of their workforce.  Part of the problem is the lack of assured, commercially available access to their orbital stations.  In 2004, Bigelow himself established and funded a $50 million prize to develop a commercial crew vehicle for orbital transport; the prize expired in 2010 without a single attempt at flight.  Although rumor has it that Boeing is developing a spacecraft to serve private space stations, nothing has yet appeared, even in prototype form.  Due to some unidentified technical issues, SpaceX has delayed the launch of the first flight of their Dragon cargo vehicle to ISS from early next month to an unspecified future date.

The simple glaring fact is the United States has no commercial human spaceflight industry.  NASA’s attempt to encourage the development of such through COTS is floundering against some unpleasant realities:  it is both very difficult and very costly to get into and back from space.  The former drives up the cost, severely limiting potential markets.  The latter stops not only imagined demand (such as space tourism) dead in its tracks but also real demand, such as government contracts for ISS crew access.

The hope of space prize enthusiasts for explosive growth in space similar to that seen in aviation innovation and industry following the winning of the Orteig Prize is unlikely to be realized.  The problem is that spaceflight is a vastly more difficult field in which to participate than aviation.  Many amateurs could and did fabricate aircraft in their garages and barns in the early decades of the last century.  The First World War made surplus aircraft widely available at low cost, furthering the development of a robust early aviation industry.  In contrast, no one has flown a surplus government space vehicle and “barnstorming” rockets do not exist, despite some imaginative depictions in Hollywood films.

Unfortunately, this is the space program we now have.  No American human spaceflight flight systems exist and their development is dependent on the advent of a demand that has not yet materialized.  Meanwhile, we comfort ourselves with fantasies about human missions to Mars.  I appreciate and applaud Gingrich’s enthusiasm for space, a visionary attitude sorely lacking in most politicians.  He needs to think carefully about how to incentivize the development of space and about the critical national needs served by our civil space program.  Prizes seem attractive because of their historical role in stimulating a nascent aviation industry.  But significant differences between aviation and spaceflight and our primitive level of development of the latter suggest that what worked before may not work now.

The lunar crater Daniell, seen from the Chang'E 2 spacecraft

Controversy quickly followed astonishment with the recent release of a white paper outlining China’s intentions in space.  Sparking particular buzz from the Internet was a statement about human lunar missions being an objective for future Chinese space efforts.  That statement drew comment ranging from sophisticated to simplistic, yet in my opinion, most of the discussion to date neglects the essential point of what this means to humanity’s future in space.

The report lays out China’s plan for missions to the Moon of increasing complexity and capability.   The Chinese orbiters Chang’E 1 (2007) and Chang’E 2 (2010) made global maps of the Moon’s morphology and topography.  The Chang’E spacecraft demonstrated China’s ability to navigate trans-LEO space.  After Chang’E 1’s mapping mission was complete, the spacecraft was deliberately de-orbited to impact the Moon.  However, after surveying a potential landing site for future missions, the Chang’E 2 spacecraft left lunar orbit and was sent to the Earth-Sun L2 point, a stable location 1.5 million km from the Earth.  This maneuver is quite complex and its successful completion demonstrated their capability to maneuver spacecraft throughout cislunar space.  It also lays the groundwork for more complex lunar and planetary missions in the near future.

The white paper reiterates the Chinese strategy of orbiter-lander-sample return for lunar exploration with robotic missions, of which the Chang’E series is the first step.  The paper mentions human spaceflight activities occurring only in low Earth orbit, specifically asserting their determination to conduct an “independent” space exploration program.  Closing remarks in that section of the report have been drawing the most attention: China intends to conduct “studies on a preliminary plan for a human lunar landing.”

In NASA terms, such wording would lead no one to conclude that anything remotely flight-ready was within a decade or two of occurring.  But our way is not their way.  The Chinese clearly are systematically pursuing a series of steps to incrementally increase their flight experience, technology base and operational expertise in low Earth orbit, but in a direction unmistakably toward the Moon and throughout cislunar space.

Despite some pronouncements of military doom – visions of Red Army Space Troopers descending upon us – a war in space does not appear imminent.  Over several pages, the report repeatedly proclaims China’s intention to “peaceably explore and use outer space,” especially in conjunction with an endless series of United Nations mandates, innumerable Moon treaties and international kumbayah.  Perhaps, as Queen Gertrude once observed, they doth protest too much.

Military action is not the only possible geopolitical threat on Earth or in space.  Although it is probably too early to tell, the real issue is how serious is China about expanding their sphere of operations beyond low Earth orbit to the Moon.  Currently, their human space program appears to be relatively benign, with simple Earth orbital missions, the construction of a rudimentary space station, crew EVA – all steps and capabilities that a nascent space faring nation must learn and develop.  Their proposed robotic lunar exploration plan likewise makes sense, in that they first orbit and map, then survey in detail to land, rove, explore and return samples.  For each step, a new capability is developed, building on existing ones, with all contributing toward a future strategic position.  Hmmmm – an incremental architecture with cumulative series of small but interlocking steps.  What a concept!

The reaction of space observers in the West seems bifurcated along the lines of “The sky is falling!” or “Who cares?”  For the former, some note that the Chinese space program is run by their military.  Moreover, the demonstration test of a Chinese anti-satellite weapon in 2007 did not engender the international peaceful good feelings so stridently expressed in the white paper.  Those who read potential danger in Chinese intentions in space are not being unreasonable, even if there appears to be no immediate threat.  For the latter group, nothing that China has done, is doing or ever could do in space would bother them.  ASAT testing?  Any alarm is labeled “hysteria.”  Chinese lunar landings?  So what?  We did that 40 years ago.  These people know not what they don’t know.  Holding such a position is patently naïve.

The real cause for concern is not a Chinese presence in cislunar space or on the Moon, but our absence from it.  Although much has been made of China’s purported movement toward capitalism in recent decades, they still possess an authoritarian political system, one with scant regard for the rule of contract law, copyright, private property and western notions of free market dynamics. Although some may not care whether China conquers the Moon, if they are the only ones on the Moon, they will determine what operational regime and legal template will prevail there.  Advocates of “commercial space” might do well to carefully consider such a scenario – commercial companies are incorporated under national auspices on Earth, pay taxes to terrestrial governments, and are subject to the laws of the country in which they are based.  They will not be free agents either in space or on the Moon.

I argued almost two years ago that there is a new “space race” but that it is quite different in character from the first one.  The outcome of this race will determine what kind of politico-economic paradigm will prevail on the new frontier of space.  One can imagine a situation in which a country establishes a permanent presence on the Moon and maintains control of the resources there.  Yes, the Moon is a big planet, but the valuable concentrations of water lie in small areas near the poles.  Water at the poles of the Moon allow a space faring entity to develop routine access to the entirety of cislunar space, where all of the economic, scientific and security space assets of many countries reside.  Space control in the new century does not refer to “Death Stars” bristling with space weaponry, but to situational awareness, assurance of service, and the defense and maintenance of space-based assets.  Control of cislunar space – meaning in this case the ability to routinely travel throughout its extent and to all the various orbits of cislunar satellites – does not mean to militarize or weaponize space, but rather the permanent presence of a space faring power of a particular ideology or worldview, undeterred by the absence of a competing ideology.

And if some say “So what?” to that, the more fool they.

Cue music, "Also Sprach Zarathustra".....

A long established year-end tradition – for good or ill – is a review and analysis of the preceding twelve months.  Who am I to fight this trend?  Being that I am a “the glass is not only half-empty, but chipped and cracked down the middle” space policy town crier, be fairly warned as I conclude this year’s blogging with a look back at 2011.

The retirement of the Space Shuttle this past year vindicated T.S. Elliot’s pronouncement about the nature of the end of the world.  The U.S. workhorses that ferried Station pieces and crew to low Earth orbit await their museum berths.  The most heated emotions and debate surrounding this event dealt with the agency’s selection of the final resting places for the working U.S. space access machines.  To the outrage of many, space-oriented places like Houston and Huntsville were cold-shouldered in favor of show business-oriented Los Angeles and New York City.  In the heat of this controversy (so dire that members of Congress from space-economy communities rose from their slumber to pen op-eds mirroring constituent alarm),  few noticed or understood that without a replacement, the country’s capability for humans to access space had been discarded.  As  2011 closes out, construction and assembly of the International Space Station is complete – it is a unique Earth-orbiting platform for ongoing scientific research, accessible for the price of a ride on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

This past year was heralded as the opening chapter for a new approach to human spaceflight – the American civil space program was to advance more economically through the use of commercial launch services to LEO.  We’re waiting and watching, with more than a little trepidation, as millions of taxpayer dollars are doled out to “New Space” companies branded “commercial.”  Recent history shows taxpayer-funded, new-technology enterprises have failed spectacularly.  It’s troubling that simultaneously, these space access ventures are making similar claims of soon-to-be superior, cheap alternatives toward solving a pressing national problem.

In other exciting developments, the agency announced their new “mission statement” –  “To reach for new heights and reveal the unknown so that what we do and learn will benefit all humankind.”  Some noted the new statement says nothing about conducting missions and doesn’t mention space.  But it is stirring – a mission statement for an agency without a mission.

After being kicked long and hard by the Congress, NASA finally decided that they should probably go ahead and build a new launch vehicle.  Despite some initial foot-dragging (and the conspicuously ignored presence of an obvious and inexpensive alternative), the agency buckled down and produced a design for a new heavy lift launch vehicle, one that looks remarkably similar to the now-discarded Ares system.  With continued work on the new Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, looking remarkably similar to the now-discarded Orion spacecraft, we soon will be ready for new and exciting missions to untrod landscapes in space – perhaps a large rock –in a decade.  Maybe.  Perhaps even for less than its estimated $100 billion cost.

Robotic science missions, the so-called “crown jewels” of the space program, had their own share of difficulties this year.  The Goddard-run James Webb Space Telescope, the second-generation successor to the highly successful Hubble Space Telescope, is coming in late with a price tag of more than $8.7 billion and counting.  Its continued cost growth threatens all NASA space science programs.  JPL’s own giga-project, the $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory, was successfully launched and will encounter the planet in about six months, hopefully at very low velocity.  Less costly robotic missions to a variety of destinations continue to return copious amounts of data; whether there will be money to reduce and analyze it all remains uncertain.

The past year was the 50^th anniversary of both Yuri Gagarin’s first flight into space and John F. Kennedy’s announcement of the Moon landing goal – two events separated by type and location but connected in motivation.  It also was the centennial year of the race to, and attainment of, the South Pole – an event with reverberations throughout the ensuing years as a template for national efforts in exploration.  The space program, steeped in the history of global geopolitics and national competition, has sputtered slowly to a stop under that motivational and operational model.  A new paradigm for the space program is needed, one that ensures its long-term viability and stability.

To their own and the nation’s detriment, NASA is trapped by one model when thinking about space.  Missing is the notion of permanence and expansion into space.  A variety of “anyplace-but-the-Moon” destinations for human spaceflight have been mooted and studied in the past year, including near-Earth asteroids, L-points, the tiny, asteroid-like moons of Mars, lunar orbit, and even a human Venus flyby.  All of these imagined missions require knowledge, hardware and technologies that we do not now possess.  All expose human crews to substantial risk through long-term exposure to radiation and microgravity.  None create permanence of human presence or extension of capability in space.  And all travel to destinations offering little scientific and exploratory benefit or variety; their main attraction seems to be the yet-to-be-explained agency imperative to cross them off some “been there” check-list.

Several plans to develop cislunar space through an incremental, step-wise approach have been advanced.  The goal in each is not a flags-and-footprints type of space extravaganza, but the steady expansion of capabilities and reach beyond low Earth orbit.  Such a modus operandi is possible through the development and use of lunar resources —specifically the water ice found in quantity at both poles of the Moon.  In stark contrast to the Apollo template (and regardless of budgetary ups and downs), constant, steady and measurable progress can be realized through the creation of this “transcontinental railroad” in cislunar space.

I note with sadness, the passing of some great space visionaries this year.  John Marburger, former Presidential Science Advisor, was one of the few who truly understood the meaning and purpose of the Vision for Space Exploration.  Lunar and planetary scientists Baruch Blumberg, Bill Muehlberger, Mike Drake, Paul Lowman, Nick Short, Chuck Sonett, and my academic advisor and friend Ron Greeley passed away this year.  Theirs were voices of knowledge and experience and they will be missed.

The year 2011 was an annus horribilis for the national space program.  Here’s to the forthcoming year and hopes for a return of sanity to space policy.