Orlando Figueroa: In my opinion, there is no reason why they couldn’t do both. There is a human exploration side of the House and the science side of the House, and they both have a special role in what they contribute to NASA and the nation. It’s just that the message needs to be communicated, repeated, underscored constantly.
Casey Dreier: I just want to go back to the scientific community division here and how they’re thinking about Mars Sample Return. They look at the fiscal year ’24 NASA budget, which literally states, “We’re not going to do your priority mission in Heliophysics. We’re not going to do your priority mission in Astrophysics because of Mars Sample Return.” So NASA itself, via its budget requests, seems to be explicitly dividing the scientific community in this zero-sum game, and almost casting blame on MSR. And this was before your independent review panel upped the total budget expectation, almost doubling it.
Orlando Figueroa: Well, to be fair, there are flagship missions and then there are flagships, right? There are missions in the $2 billion to $5 billion category like the Roman Space Telescope, Europa Clipper, and past missions like the Hubble Space Telescope, Perseverance, and Curiosity. Incredibly difficult missions. But then there are missions that programmatically and technically are at the upper end, like JWST and MSR. Missions of a magnitude and complexity we’ve never dealt with. So this is one of the reasons why we also highlighted that this is unprecedented for how you do business. The yearly budget being requested for MSR is more than JWST ever requested in any given year. But that’s because JWST had an escape path, which was to move the schedule.
Casey Dreier: It wasn’t tied to an alignment of a planet. You could launch it pretty much whenever you wanted to.
Orlando Figueroa: You could go whenever you wanted to, and with MSR it is a different equation. And thus why we also say you have to look at robustness and resiliency, taking into consideration that at any given year a hiccup,whether it is fiscal or technical or something else, may put you in a situation where all of a sudden it makes it even more difficult for the agency to deal with.
Casey Dreier: Was there ever a discussion about bringing the Mars community into this mission more at this stage? Should we add some scientific instruments, some so that no matter what happens if something goes wrong with the launch, we have instruments on the sample return lander or the fetch helicopter that we could still get some science out of? Was that part of this discussion and is that something NASA should consider going forward?
Orlando Figueroa: No, we did not look at adding any other instrumentation or science. There are project scientists supporting the effort and there is a program scientist at NASA headquarters, but not a fully unified voice that says this is what we are all about in Mars Sample Return.
Casey Dreier: Did you consider the role of commercial or private contributions to a reformulation of this project? And if not, why isn’t that appropriate in Mars Sample Return?
Orlando Figueroa: There are two things that are alluded to in the report. One is that there are many large contracts already in place with the commercial sector.
Casey Dreier: We’re talking about classic aerospace contractors though, correct?
Orlando Figueroa: Correct.
Casey Dreier: But not necessarily what one might consider commercial is these days — companies putting their own skin in the game. This is more like standard contracting methods.
Orlando Figueroa: That is correct. If you look at who is participating, government or otherwise, there are people that have a lot of experience doing this kind of thing. They have done this before, they know the risk, they know how to manage it, et cetera. If you look at the architecture alternatives, you could consider whether there is a point of entry for others to participate, but you need to be careful that they have the experience and expertise to do what you may think about asking them to do because this is very hard. If a goal is to bring some commercial providers along, you need to prepare yourselves for the risk and uncertainties associated with it.
Casey Dreier: Just to build on what you’re saying, new commercial space ventures need lots of shots on goal. You need lots of opportunities to try and practice. And this is a bespoke one-off mission, This is it. And as we discussed earlier, it has to work. It’s like at this level, you’re paying for that assurance that this is going to work.
Orlando Figueroa: Absolutely. And what you see happening with commercial involvement in the Artemis program right now is that they’re going to get to practice and, knock on wood, we will get there. So you can imagine that being extended to the Mars environment. But we’re not quite there yet and they are two different beasts. So it has to be part of a longer-term agenda that says we’re going to also start bringing along a community. And by the way, the Mars Exploration Program had these things as their goals for the future — to bring the commercial sector along to provide communication infrastructure, for example.
Casey Dreier: Did your review board ever just consider saying that MSR isn’t worth it? That the opportunity cost is just too high?
Orlando Figueroa: That’s a great question. The board you may have noticed was very diverse. I mentioned you had technology, commercial sector, private sector, system engineers, managers, political backgrounds, you name it. We ended up with an incredibly competent and diverse board. One of the things that I asked them to do, because I was sensing these tensions within the community, was to do the homework so that we as members could convince ourselves as to the importance and challenge of this mission. And the National Academies of Sciences brought along a lot of material that rebuilt the history of why this is so important. Because we felt that if you’re going to invest any sums of money in the territory, even about $5 billion, we’d have to be convinced that this was worth doing. It was not that this isn’t worth doing. It is that this is not worth doing if you’re not going to do it right. If you’re not going to be committed to this all in, that is a formula for potential disasters.
Casey Dreier: Don’t half-ass your way to Mars Sample Return. Kennedy challenged Congress basically with that formulation of Apollo — either we do this all the way or we don’t try.
Orlando Figueroa: And the comparison is somewhat uneven, but it is that kind of conversation. We know what it takes, we know that this is going to be an end-to-end effort. And we know that the story doesn’t end with samples landing. A new stage begins with the samples landing just like OSIRIS-REx and the Bennu samples. And even with the Apollo Moon samples, where now with new instrumentation and technology we are uncovering things that were not possible 10, 20 years ago. So that whole story is going to evolve and I have every expectation that we’re going to be blown away by what we learn as a world community. But as you said it, you are all in or you’re not.
Casey Dreier: We’ve seen people in the community say that if we don’t do Mars Sample Return, then some other mission can be done instead. Mars Sample Return right now in the last budget approved by Congress received around $850 million. That’s larger than the entire Heliophysics division. But if this project were canceled, you don’t anticipate that this money would flow back into planetary science or even the science mission directorate.
Orlando Figueroa: Yes. I mean, anyone that has taken the time to familiarize themselves with the fiscal environment and how NASA and the government works will know that things don’t work that way. It’s not rob Peter to pay Paul. And so those that are assuming that just take it out of Sample Return and distribute it equally among your children, it just doesn’t work that way.
Casey Dreier: And I think that’s really important to remember that sometimes doing big things can actually help coerce bigger budgets. Because you’re ambitious and pushing for something new, which gets funded not from a preexisting pot of money but by NASA deciding what it wants to do and then trying to get the money to do it.
Orlando Figueroa: Yes, and that is why it is worrisome to see a community divided. And the present fiscal environment just doesn’t help because it amplifies the fears of the community. But I once again emphasize that this is where agency leadership needs to step in and be consistent and unified in a message. This is what this is all about, why it’s so important to us as a nation, to ESA, our partner, for now and for the future — we are either in or we are not.
Casey Dreier: Can NASA do this?
Orlando Figueroa: My view is that they need to take every one of the recommendations darn seriously, number one. Number two, do I have confidence in NASA being able to pull off big things like this? Absolutely. I lived it. I know what it means. We’ve been in situations like this before. But this is where actually the leadership needs to be visible, step in, continue repeating the message over and over and over. The moment they relax in that responsibility, we start falling back behind.