Mars Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Space Exploration Initiative

Details Mars Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Space Exploration Initiative Mars Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Space Exploration Initiative

Aug 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007stin...0731234h&link_type=abstract

Technical Report, NASA/SP-2007-4410

Physics

Nasa Space Programs, Mars Exploration, Histories, Mars Surface, Space Law, Mars (Planet), Mission Planning, Mariner 7 Space Probe, Viking 1 Spacecraft, Mariner 4 Space Probe, Decision Making, International Space Station, Manned Mars Missions

Scientific paper

The rise of Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) and its eventual demise represents one of the landmark episodes in the history of the American space program ranking with the creation of NASA, the decision to go to the Moon, the post-Apollo planning process, and the space station decision. The story of this failed initiative is one shaped by key protagonists and critical battles. It is a tale of organizational, cultural, and personal confrontation. Organizational skirmishes involved the Space Council versus NASA, the White House versus congressional appropriators, and the Johnson Space Center versus the rest of the space agency all seeking control of the national space policy process. Cultural struggles pitted the increasingly conservative engineering ethos of NASA against the faster, better, cheaper philosophy of a Space Council looking for innovative solutions to technical problems. Personality clashes matched Vice President Dan Quayle and Space Council Executive Secretary Mark Albrecht against NASA Administrator Dick Truly and Johnson Space Center Director Aaron Cohen. In the final analysis, the demise of SEI was a classic example of a defective decision-making process one that lacked adequate high-level policy guidance, failed to address critical fiscal constraints, developed inadequate programmatic alternatives, and garnered no congressional support. Some space policy experts have argued that SEI was doomed to fail, due primarily to the immense budgetary pressures facing the nation during the early 1990's. This book will argue, however, that the failure of the initiative was not predetermined; instead, it was the result of a deeply flawed policy process that failed to develop (or even consider) policy options that may have been politically acceptable given the existing political environment.

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