Mars Win Gives Goldin Political Leverage

Washington, DC – July 8, 1997 – The whole world went to Mars this weekend, and

nobody was happier than Daniel S. Goldin. The NASA Administrator literally

has bet the future of his civil space agency on producing cheaper space

missions, reduced manpower levels, and advanced technology without the

responsibility for mission operations for such budget eaters as the shuttle – and just possibly the space station, too.

The Mars Pathfinder was perhaps the most visible of the space chief's

"faster, better, cheaper" missions in which low cost probes are sent to

gather data from destinations in the solar system once the territory of

larger, more complex spacecraft. Goldin's philosophy has been that it's

better to send a robot with a few instruments today than wait for decades

for the funding to support launching more purposeful craft.

The only problem with such a view, critics have argued, is that cheaper

doesn't mean necessarily better. And that more complex spacecraft just

might be a better value. Goldin, though, has seen his agency's budget

shrink nearly 40% in five years, so he could reasonably argue that the

funds for more advanced craft will in fact never be forthcoming, from

either this Congress or this administration. The success of the Pathfinder

will now give Goldin a stronger hand in dealing with a growingly

recalcitrant Congress threatening to impose increasingly complex reportage

requirements over the Russian participation in the International Space

Station. He has resisted these moves, and the heat on Capitol Hill has been

rising on the generally popular space chief.

And the administration finds itself wedded to the administrator that it

desperately tried to dump back in 1993. Goldin, however, knew that the key

to his survival was taking the administration's policy and bending the

agency to fit -a move that some have said has cost NASA jobs, area

competence, and capabilities that it may never get back. The agency in fact

is now about the size it was in May, 1961 when Kennedy embarked upon the

Apollo path. Goldin says that the size is about right, given today's

political climate. Sending a robot the size of a suitcase to Mars may just

show the political world that, in this climate, size doesn't matter if you

get the job done.