Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Space Policy Edition: Did NASA Ace its Midterms? With Special Guest Louise Prockter

Episode Date: September 7, 2018

We talk with planetary scientist and Lunar and Planetary Institute Director Louise Prockter, who co-led creation of a new report evaluating the performance of NASA's planetary science division. This comes five years after the release of the influential decadal survey. Given the massive budget cuts over the past few years, how did NASA do? Where do these reports come from and who puts them together? Why are they important? All will be answered in this month’s SPE!  We also look into the report-within-a-report on the status of the robotic Mars Exploration Program, and find some recommendations that appear to have been inspired by a 2017 Planetary Society report. More resources to explore this month’s topics are http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/2018/space-policy-edition-29.htmlLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to the Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio for September of 2018. I'm Matt Kaplan, the host of Planetary Radio, joined once again by the Director of Space Policy for the Planetary Society, Casey Dreyer. Hi, Casey. Hey, guys. Welcome to the final month of the 2018 fiscal year. It's exciting. Oh, yes. We'll talk more about that, the federal fiscal year, at least. We'll talk more about that in a moment with Jason Callahan, Space Policy Advisor to the Planetary Society. Welcome to you, Jason. Hey, guys. How are you doing?

Excellent. Good to be talking to you again. Has it been a month? Actually, it's been more than a month. And there is a lot to talk about. And Casey, you have a long and marvelous conversation in store for us that people should definitely stick around for. We'll be getting to that in a very few minutes. Up front, though, I know you've got a couple of announcements, but even before that, I want to get in our usual plug. For anybody who's listening to this, maybe you've just discovered the Space Policy Edition.

Maybe you've heard us right from the start. Maybe you are a regular on the weekly edition of Planetary Radio. But if you're not a member of the Planetary Society, then you're not really fully engaged. You're not really a part of helping this program happen, helping all of Planetary Radio, helping the Planetary Society to do everything it does, including the great work by Casey and Jason. You may think that their lives exist just so that they can come on and talk with me once a month. No, they are very busy in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere, looking out for the space policy interests of all of us who love space and planetary exploration, along with their colleague, Matt Renninger.

They have had many notable successes. If you listen to this program, you've heard about lots of those, and you will hear about many more. So please consider going to planetary.org slash membership and joining us because we certainly would like to have you fully on board. Casey, I don't know if you have anything to add, but I do know, as I said, that you've got a couple of things that people can get in on. I certainly do. First, I just want to emphasize, if you want to unburden your conscious, join the Planetary Society, support this program and other work we do.

The other things I want to mention, we have actually some really great news. We are investing more in our annual Congressional Visits Day, and we just put up registration. We have early registration. You can save a few bucks by registering now if you want to join me and Jason and Matt Renninger out in Washington, D.C. in March of 2019. It's a slightly new date. We're going to have really exciting opportunities here to meet with your Congress people, meet other members of Congress, and advocate for space directly. If you really want to make the ultimate contribution to space advocacy, join us in Washington, D.C. You get to hang out with us, other Planetary Society members. It's going to be a blast. It's March 3rd and 4th,

and you can actually register now at planetary.org slash space advocate. There's a link right in the front page there. So join us for the Blitz in 2019. It's going to be really good. Casey, if only people with no experience had a way of preparing themselves before they make that trip, or even if they can't make the trip, just learning more about what it takes to be a space advocate. Hmm. Geez, that's a really good point, Matt. That's funny you bring that up because we also are really, again, reminding you, we've talked about it here before, but Space Advocacy 101, our online course, unique online course, I should add, free online course. You can just register and take it for free.

And it's me. You get to hear me talking at you about space policy ad nauseum, maybe very enlightening ways. With a wipe-off board. Yes, very cool presentation. It's a really in-depth but broad survey of how you can level up as a space advocate. We talk about how Congress works. We talk about how Congress works. We talk about how the White House prepares NASA's budget. And we talk about effective ways to communicate with your member of Congress and to just be a better space advocate. Again, you can

go to planetary.org slash space advocate. There's a link right there on the main page, right next to where you can register for the 2019 congressional visits. And you can just really pairing those together. And it's a really powerful kind of one-two punch if you want to really up your game as space advocates. Jason, something that I'm always happy to see is when I hear from people who have gone on the Blitz and made the rounds of congressional offices, they're always thrilled. They are so happy about the experience. And they're often surprised at what a positive experience it was. Is that also been your experience? Well, yeah. I mean, people often think of the federal government as this monolithic entity that exists in this untouchable realm in Washington, D.C. But in fact, these are your

representatives in government if you're a U.S. citizen, and they are happy to hear from you. So it's one of the services that Casey mentioned that we provide. This one day we're able to set up a ton of meetings, which can be sort of the intimidating factor in going into these offices is just figuring out how to get your foot in the door. And it's really great to go in and actually talk to these staff members who are almost universally engaging. And they love these days because, you know, most days they're talking about housing policy or federal defense or something. And, you know, getting a chance to talk about space is fun for everybody. I think it's a great experience and I hope people sign up. And by March of next year, some of those

occupants of some of those congressional offices may still be getting acclimated to Washington, D.C., because, of course, we are, as we speak, not very far off from the next reckoning, the midterm elections. Is that also known as the midterm elections? The reckoning. Casey, as you said, we're also very close to the end of the federal fiscal year, which means a lot of Congress people and senators are really chomping at the bit to get the heck out of D.C. if they haven't left already. Right. a third of the Senate is up for reelection. They want to generally be reelected. There's a few retirements going on, but people are running for those jobs. And they want to get the business done. And they usually, particularly right before an election, want to demonstrate that they can do business in government, that they can govern effectively. And that's going to be interesting because from after Labor Day, when Congress really returns into session here, there's about 11 working days of Congress before the fiscal year ends.

Fiscal year ends, and if we don't have a budget approved by Congress for the United States, the government shuts down. Not good. It's a big mess. It's very disruptive. This has happened, obviously, a few times over the last few years. big mess. It's very disruptive. This has happened, obviously, a few times over the last few years. And it can be used politically for one way or another. But generally, the party in power wants to avoid shutting down the government, because it kind of shows that they can't govern effectively. Yeah, I mean, Congress's primary role is providing money to the federal government

through legislation. And, you know, it's the one thing that they have to do. All the other legislation is sort of optional and it's up to debate. But yeah, you've got to fund the government. And if you can't do that one thing, you have one job, right? And it doesn't look great if you can't deliver. So we have 10 days or so to do that. In addition, the Senate is grappling with the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice, which may go beyond September, but it's going to take up a lot of time. And there's a lot of details yet to be worked out. And, you know, there's two budget proposals out there, particularly relevant to NASA,

one from the Senate, one from the House. Both are generally good. The House is, I would say, overall better for NASA than the Senate's version. And they're working out that compromise right now. So if you want to talk to your member of Congress, now's a good time to do so. We actually have some petitions on our website, again, at planetary.org slash space advocate that address a few relevant topics on this. It's good to remind them that you care about space. But again, not a lot of time to work through. And so I think there's a strong possibility that we will see what's called a continuing resolution, basically a stopgap

measure where they just throw up their hands and say, we'll just continue the existing authority to spend money for a couple of months, get us through the election, and we'll deal with all the messy stuff after the election. Yeah, that would not be great. There are a number of projects in planetary science at the moment that are sort of dependent on somewhat stable funding. And if that CR drags on for very long, those projects could be in real trouble. So it's something we'll be keeping an eye on. So here's a way for you to get involved, if you're hearing this in time without having to head for DC, head for the Planetary Society website and get in on some of that, on those efforts that Casey just talked about. We should start getting ready for that conversation you had, Casey. You want to

introduce it to us and then we can talk a little bit about it. We had a very important report come out and God knows I love reports in policy. I mean, reports make policy. It's kind of weird. When I was starting in this field, all of, you know, six years ago now, I remember talking to people who were saying, what really changed this particular topic? What finally helped address X, Y, and Z? What finally helped fix it? Ultimately, the answer was always, well, a report from the National Academies came out and told us what to do. It's kind of stunning, again, just like you get a group of people together who carry that respect and authority, and they write down stuff on a piece of paper. And sometimes that is the key to moving forward with a solution to some sticky policy issues. And we just had this brand new report come out in reference to kind of the ultimate report for planetary science, the decadal survey, which comes out every 10 years. The last one came out in 2011, applying to the years 2013 through 2022.

We're halfway through that. And so we had a review, an analysis. I had like a NASA was kind of up for analysis from an external body of the National Academy saying, how well are you adhering to our recommendations in this decadal survey? And it's a big deal. It's an important report. Your guest, Louise Proctor, she had a lot to do with preparing that report. Indeed, she was the co-chair of the committee that wrote this report, a very well-respected planetary scientist. She's-chair of the committee that wrote this report, a very well respected planetary scientist. She's the director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston,

a very storied and respected science institution. And she led a team of, I think, about slightly over a dozen people over the last year putting this report together. Jason, actually, you know a lot of people in the National Academies, and particularly in the Space Studies Board, that also support reports like this. And I think it'd be good just to give some context. Why are these reports so respected? What makes them effective like this? The National Academy of Sciences is the oldest division within this organization. It dates all the way back. I think its charter was signed by Abraham Lincoln, to give you an idea of how long this group has been around.

It's a nonprofit organization. It's now called the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. The second two were sort of added in the 20th century. There's the academy itself, and then there's sort of the research arm. It used to be called the National Research Council. That's now been absorbed into the larger organization. But within that organization, they have standing boards. And one of those boards is called the Space Studies Board. It was originally the Space Science Board, and it was founded back before the existence of NASA. giving science advice to the federal government during the International Geophysical Year, which was actually two years that took place just before the formation of NASA,

and was sort of the United States' first foray into space. There had been a lot of space research, a lot of scientists talking about doing research in space prior to that, but the IGY was really where we first sort of started stepping into the space realm. The space science board was integral in sort of figuring out the details of what the US component of that would look like. Then you had the launch of Sputnik, you had the formation of NASA, and there was a big fight at the very beginning of NASA as to who would give the agency direction. Would it be the space studies board or would it be NASA internally? The fallout from all of that basically was that the Space Studies Board would provide scientific recommendations to NASA, but it would be up to NASA to execute those. That was sort of the state of affairs for about 20 or 30 years. During that time, the astronomy and astrophysics community began relying

on the Space Studies Board to form committees about every 10 years to look at the entire portfolio of their activities and sort of give direction for what that would look like over the coming decade. And in early 2000, NASA kind of looked at that report and said, you know, we should be doing this for all of our space sciences. And so in the early 2000s, you saw the very first decadal surveys for planetary science, for heliophysics, for astrophysics, not astrophysics, for earth science, for microgravity research. And these reports came

out and were incredibly influential. It allowed industry to figure out what NASA's plans were likely to be over a 10-year period so that they could sort of tool up for what that would look like. It allowed the community to figure out what kinds of missions they would want to propose. The community, of course, has lots of input onto these reports. These are supposed to be the consensus of the scientific communities reporting back to the federal government. But as we said, it's an external report. It's not directed by NASA. NASA determines what the scope of the report will be, but then the conclusions are all completely from the community, which is the really powerful part of these reports. Beginning in 2005, Congress began writing into the NASA Authorization Act that NASA should use these reports to direct its activities. And in fact, over the years,

that language has gotten stronger. And most of the directions coming from the authorization and even the appropriation now explicitly states that the rationale for these expenditures comes from the decadal surveys. They're incredibly powerful policy tools, and they really give the science community the ability to shape policy when it comes to space science. Do you think it's a good approach? I mean, it has the force of law behind it, it sounds like. It does. Like all things human, there are flaws. The nice thing about doing a 10-year approach and then having these incremental reviews.

year approach and then having these incremental reviews. So the report comes out and it covers a 10 year period. And then five years into that, you do a midterm review, which is the report that we'll be discussing today. What that allows for is tweaks to the process. So if something didn't work particularly well in the previous report, you can change that. It's a slow process, but I think it's far better than what we had before, which was sort of an ad hoc process. There were different committees under different organizations that would sort of give particular science recommendations, but then you also had scientists going to Congress, going around NASA or going around the community consensus process and just getting pet projects funded by particular senators or Congress people. It was not a transparent process, and it led Congress to often view the community as not a

particularly coherent group. This process really changes that dynamic. It allows Congress to go to one place to figure out what the community wants to do. It gives the entire community a rational, predictable method to get their viewpoint across. It's an imperfect system, but it is way better than anything that we've had previously. Yeah. What I found really interesting about this, and I talk about this with Dr. Proctor, is that the decadal survey and the midterm kind of check-in on it, particularly when the budget goes bad or the budget is less than you had expected. These surveys kind of help you in advance have an idea of what the prioritization should be if

you're NASA trying to say, what should we fund here? Is our budget decrease? But also really critically, and I think this is fascinating too, it also gives you that guidance if your budget does better than you expect. If you're suddenly getting a windfall of funding, you don't throw it into these things that have no meaning or seem flashy, that you have that guidance already from the community saying, should you have these new resources, this is where you prioritize it. And having that kind of steady hand laid out from the beginning, I think is really important to the long-term viability of some of these efforts. That actually came about. That's one of the tweaks that I was mentioning earlier. The first decadal survey for planetary science did not have those kinds of recommendations,

and it was a more rigid structure, and the community found that that was less useful. So in the statement of task for the most recent planetary science decadal survey, they actually requested that you come up with some rationale for prioritization. And that's been, I think, very effective. It's allowed a lot of support for Discovery and New Frontiers missions, as opposed to just throwing money at flagships. It's allowed for a lot of support for the research and analysis and technology budgets. I agree with you. It's a fundamentally useful process to have. But even so, I think that the upcoming decadal will still tweak that formula

a little bit to make it even better. So when I said it's an imperfect process, what I should have said is that it can be an imperfect process. But more often than not, it's actually a very effective process. Do these studies, recommendations, reports, do they directly or indirectly touch on other things that NASA is up to, like this space launch system, the big rocket, or the International Space Station? Interestingly, the difference between the space science community and the human spaceflight community is such that it's very difficult to find a unified constituency for specific kinds of human spaceflight missions. With science, you look at these decadal surveys, and they're predicated on looking at what scientific questions are best to answer.

Well, from a human spaceflight perspective, most of what you're doing is actually an engineering challenge, not a science challenge. of what you're doing is actually an engineering challenge, not a science challenge. And so you don't have the same basis of community necessarily that you do for, or it's a different type of a community than a science community. So it's far more difficult to figure out what the structure of a decadal survey for human spaceflight would look like. We've tried that a couple of times. There've been a number of reports coming out of the National Academies talking about the direction of human spaceflight, but it's a fundamentally different process than the decadal surveys. It's actually kind of an interesting contrast to delve into this just for a second, because in science, you actually have widely agreed upon scientific

priorities fundamentally. Even though scientists argue with each other all the time, that's what they do, long enough you get a scientist in a room, overall they will agree where the big questions are, where the big unknowns are. You have this external concept of science that drives consensus, even if there's disagreements in people's pet projects. You don't have a single external concept to drive consensus in human spaceflight because there's no primary, as Jason was saying, there's no single reason why we in human spaceflight. Because there's no primary, as Jason was saying, there's no single reason why we do human spaceflight. So it becomes a series of engineering issues. But there's nothing objectively saying the moon is more important than Mars or vice versa. And so in science, you have the whole process of science, you have these external questions that drive consensus. And that's what makes these effective. That's ultimately what gives you the consensus. Absolutely fascinating. This is

such a good introduction to the conversation you had with Louise Proctor. Casey, do either of you have anything to add before we jump into that? I do want to just talk about ourselves for a moment, one of my favorite subjects. And that is, this isn't just a midterm decadal review. Congress had actually mandated in the 2017 NASA authorization bill, a lot of it from prodding by us to say that NASA or the academies need to study the current Mars exploration program, you know, the robotic Mars exploration program at NASA, and say, what's the status of this program? And what are some of the major issues that they're facing? A lot of you may remember that last year, Jason and I and others worked on a report called Mars in Retrograde, which attempted to answer the same

question. And we found significant issues, particularly with ongoing infrastructure, telecommunications at Mars, the lack of any future missions beyond sample return or really Mars 2020. And the National Academy studied that same question and put it into a chapter in this report. So we kind of have a report within a report. It basically said the same thing that we did. It was a little more soft, I think, in its recommendations because we have fewer people to appease.

But broadly, they identified the same issues, which was telecommunications infrastructure is very fragile. And going forward, if you have a failure of these ancient orbiters, I love that they said the MAVEN is the only U.S. orbiter at Mars that's less than 12 years old, which is pretty stunning. They identified that. They said that there's no long-term plan for Mars and that NASA needs to develop a plan. It's exactly what we said. The good news is that sample return seems to be progressing well and that they were

very impressed with the technology development for the Mars Ascent vehicle. But they also used some of the work that Jason and I put together in some of the budget analysis for our Mars and retrograde paper. So if you want to see some of the quality of work and you need a sense of like what you're investing in as a member of the Planetary Society, it's good enough for the National Academies. I'm pretty proud of that. Yeah, I agree. That was neat. Of course, we will put links to both of these reports, both the one from the Academies and the one from the Planetary Society, Mars in Retrograde, which is already available on our website. Isn't it, Casey?

Indeed it is, but we will link to it again because it's a great piece of work, in my humble and objective opinion. So all of that will be available. If you're not already on our website, you can get to it from the links we'll put on the page for this program at planetary.org slash radio, but you can find it elsewhere as well. I'd just like to thank Dr. Proctor for coming on the show. She is a wonderful voice for the space science community and an incredibly competent space scientist in her own right.

And we're really, really lucky to have her on the show. And she's working on the Europa mission, which is just we'll have to have her on a separate point just to talk about that, because that's pretty exciting in its own right. Yeah, of course. And something that we cover regularly in the weekly version of Planetary Radio. So let's get to that conversation that Casey had just a few days ago with Louise Proctor. She is the director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute.

Dr. Proctor, thank you for joining us here on Space Policy Edition. Thank you for having me. So real quick, before we go into the midterm decadal report, I'd like to just establish some of your bona fides or bona fides. Can you just give me a little sense of what's the Lunar and Planetary Institute? What does it mean to be the director of it? You are also a planetary scientist in addition to directing this institute.

Love to hear a little bit about some of your research focus over the years. Well, the Lunar and Planetary Institute has actually been going for 50 years. We celebrated our 50th anniversary just a few months ago. I've been the director here for a couple of years. We are a program that is run for NASA by the University's Space Research Association, which is itself a group of about 106 universities across the US and abroad that are very heavily invested in space science, aerospace engineering, things like that. So we do a lot of things here at the LPI. The one that most planetary scientists are familiar with is that we run the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference each year in Houston, which is itself celebrating its own 50th anniversary this coming

March. But we also run many other workshops and conferences for NASA. We do research here, cutting-edge research in some areas. And we've been doing that, you know, since the beginning of Apollo. So we also have education groups. We do an intern program, various other activities, but all in service to NASA and the planetary community. So we like to think that we kind of bring NASA and the planetary community together and we act as a kind of facilitator to push planetary science forward.

And you're based in Houston, right? Yes, we are based in Houston. We're about five minutes down the road from the Johnson Space Center. And we have, this is our second building in our history, but originally we were just across the road from what was then the Manned Space Center is now called the Johnson Space Center. As for my personal history, I've spent most of my career working on planetary space missions. When I was a graduate student in the planetary program at Brown University,

I got involved in the Galileo mission and just fell in love with robotic space exploration. And so I've worked on a number of missions ever since, particularly the Discovery program. I worked at the Applied Physics Laboratory for most of my career. And then I came here to the LPI a couple of years ago to become the director. You were on Messenger, right? I was on Messenger. I started out as a lowly postdoc on Messenger. I ended up, you know, it's quite a long mission. Some of these missions are very long. But I was the deputy project scientist when I left. So yes, I learned a lot about Mercury. I also worked on the NEAR mission to the asteroid Eros. That was when I first became a postdoc, first came out of grad school. And in the background, I have been pursuing my sort of one true love, which is really icy

satellite science. So I've been working to try and get a Europa mission off the ground for many years. And we were, of course, finally able to do that a few years ago with what is now the Europa Clipper mission. So it's very exciting that my career started out looking at images of Europa and Ganymede. And, you know, hopefully before my career is over, I will get to see more new data of the surface of Europa and hopefully Ganymede too. It depends which launch vehicle I guess we end up using for Clipper. I do want to put a pin in that. We will definitely talk a little bit more about Clipper.

I'm excited to hear your experience on that. But let's talk about the most recent piece of work that you helped usher into existence. You were the co-chair on a committee for the National Academies that just released this new report, you know, really evaluating how NASA is doing in terms of responding to the scientific recommendations of the decadal survey. You played on the original title of the Visions and Voyages Report, Survey Science for Planetary Science. You have it as Visions into Voyages for Planetary Sciences in the Decade of 2013 through 2022, a midterm review. So you were co-chair and you led what, about a dozen other scientists in putting this together as part of this larger effort to evaluate

NASA's implementation and behavior. How is NASA doing? What's the big picture takeaway that you want people to know from this report? Oh, I think the big picture takeaway is that NASA is doing extremely well. At the beginning of the decade, when this new decadal survey kicked in, that survey panel, especially the steering committee, had come up with various different budget scenarios. And they had a, you know, a sort of here's what we expect budget scenario, a here's if things are really good budget scenario, and here's what we will do if things aren't so good budget scenario. And what actually happened at the beginning of the decade, as many will recall, the planetary science budget was not in a good place at all.

And the scenarios were actually, you know, even their worst case scenario was better than what NASA had to work with. So they started from a difficult, challenging place. Despite all of that, they have met most of the recommendations in the decadal to the best of their ability. And they are getting back on track in some of the other ones. So you know, there are a few things here and there that we can call out as things we would like them to focus on for the rest of the decade. But generally speaking, we think they have done a pretty good job. They should be quite proud of themselves. That's a pretty good review, actually. And I'm happy to hear it too. I mean,

we, particularly in the planetary science community and in my role as the Director of Space Policy at the Planetary Society, I have vivid, they're not happy memories, very vivid memories of the really challenging, as you put it, budget scenario. I was going to say it may be cratered at the beginning of the decade in 2012 and 2013. We were looking at 30% year over cuts. And there's some really nice charts in this report demonstrating kind of the expectations of what the decadal committee was originally working with versus what happened. And there's just like this chunk carved out of

the expected budget. And it's been going up ever since. And now we're actually into this really interesting period where we're peaking above what the decadal survey committee ever expected. And you can kind of fill in that missing gap with this new hump of funding that we seem to have now. It's kind of building that back up. But the ability of NASA to meet these recommendations, you know, I think that's what I always felt like there was a lot of Talmudic kind of argumentation about what the decadal survey actually meant versus what it didn't. And so can you go in a little bit more of how did NASA, even in this challenging budget, what were some of the key things that they did to meet the recommendations in the original decadal?

Yes, and I will just say you make a really good point there, because I've learned a huge amount during this process about how important it is to have very clear, concise language when you want to, if you want to be a little ambiguous, you know, you leave some wiggle room. But trying to interpret, you know, what did the original decadal survey committee mean when they wrote this has been quite an interesting basis of several conversations. And you were on that original, I mean, you were involved in the original decadal survey. Yes, I was on the satellites panel at that time. So, and just to, you know, give your listeners a little background, how that worked is that each panel had two co-chairs and those co-chairs were part of the overall steering committee. So even on our panel, we went through a lot of discussion, we did some studies,

we made recommendations, but even we didn't know what the final decadal was going to look like. So it's quite interesting seeing, you know, the overall sort of prioritization among the different areas, the different parts of the solar system. The budget was a bit low, so they couldn't do everything. They were extremely good about keeping to the recommendations for research and analysis funding. So this is the kind of bread and butter of science. If we want our science to move forward, we have to analyze the data that we are bringing back from these wonderful missions and figure out what it means for our understanding of the solar system, of know, of our environment here. So they did that. There was a recommendation in the decadal that the RNA budget should be put up.

I think it was five percent above the level it was in 2011. And I think it was a percent and a half above inflation beyond that. NASA has done that. They've actually, I think, exceeded that. So they're at a very good place now. They're something like 30% above where they were in 2011. So that's looking pretty good. The other recommendation they did a really good job on was the technology development. The recommended investment for this decade was 6% to 8% of the NASA budget each year. And they have generally exceeded that. And they have been doing some really nice focused development on technology, looking at technologies that were laid out in the

decadal, technologies that will be useful for more than one mission, you know, things like advanced propulsion, advanced thermal environments, you know, things like that. And they have just done a really nice job of getting those technologies in a good direction. So they have met most of the recommendations from the decadal and those technologies are going to really start paying off as we fly missions forward. So those were the main things. They also met the two flagship, the two highest priority flagship recommendations. One was to de-scope what was originally the MAX-C rover and turn it into, it's now the Mars 2020 rover. So it's very de-scoped from the MAX-C rover to get it into a certain cost budget. And this is the rover, of course, that will go and cache samples

on the surface of Mars and bring them back and stash them so that they can be retrieved and brought back to Earth at a later date. And the other high priority, the highest priority flagship, there were three flagships that were hoped to be flown this decade. The two highest priority were the Mars and Europa. Europa, the mission concept that was presented to the decadal, and I had worked on that in the study phase for some years in various iterations of it, But that was deemed to be too expensive to be flown in this decade. And so that team, our team was told to go back and get the costs down and try and find new money, which usually means going to Congress and saying, you know, we've got this great mission, but we really need help funding it. Both of those things were done. And so the Europa mission is now de-scoped. It is much more cost effective,

and it is focused only on Europa. And that mission is the Europa Clipper, which is just ending its phase B. It's just had a very good review actually this week. So those two they met. Where they didn't do quite as well was on the smaller missions, Discovery and New Frontiers, the sort of half billion and billion dollar class missions. there is a possibility NASA could still get to the recommended cadence by the end of the decade, but it will be difficult for them. So that was somewhere where, you know, they had still selected missions, but not quite at the rate that the decadal had hoped that they would do. So you bring up a really good point about

small missions. And this is, I think, the most ongoing critique that I've heard from other planetary scientists that really, it was pretty clear, I think, in the decadal survey that given a tight budget situation, NASA should prioritize the high cadence of small missions like Discovery, medium sized missions like New Frontiers to the exclusion of flagships. But really, we saw the flagships move forward and the small missions, the speed and cadence of those development really dropped. Do you agree with that assessment or was there more complexity there? I think there is more complexity because nothing is ever black and white, right? The decadal was pretty clear that NASA should try and maintain a balance across mission

classes and across solar system targets. So there's another argument there as to whether they have addressed the balance across solar system targets. So maybe we'll come back to that later. But as far as mission classes go, the highest priority mission was Mars 2020, which they started implementing, you know, went ahead with almost straight away. So they did do what they were told by the decadal. And the decadal had also made a pretty strong recommendation about Europa, right? If you do this and this, then this should go ahead too. Well, that team did this and this. And so they went ahead. And of course, there was very strong congressional support. There is very strong congressional support for the Europa mission.

That's one of the reasons why the NASA budget is better than it's been in a long, long time. If you're NASA, what do you do with that? You can't really walk away from that and say, thanks very much, but we don't want this money. You know, we want to just go ahead with this, especially when it was called out as a high priority in the decadal. They were also, of course, trying to work with smaller budgets, but keep technology development going, keep RNA going. So they may yet catch up in the decade, right? So the decadal survey recommended that the discovery

cadence should be about one every 24 months. As we note to them in our report, if NASA chooses three missions out of the next two AOs, then it will still meet the cadence for discovery. So it's not completely out of the question that they will do that. New Frontiers is a little trickier and that competition was ongoing during the last decadal survey.

So they selected one mission after that, which is OSIRIS-REx. They are expecting to put another, sorry, they've got one more competition in play right now. Of course, Dragonfly, the Titan drone mission, and CESAR, Comet Sample Return, are both going head to head at the moment to see which one of those will be the next New Frontiers mission. We are expecting there will be another AO, announcement of opportunity, that comes out before the end of the decade for what would be New Frontiers 5,

the fifth round of New Frontiers. So we don't think that NASA has enough physical time to go through the process of pulling together an AO, getting it out on the street, making sure the finance is available. I mean, the whole assessment of these mission concepts is a very lengthy, time-consuming and important process that shouldn't be rushed. So they probably are not going to get to where they want to be with New Frontiers, but they could still do it with Discovery. So yes, there is an argument that,

no, they should have just cut out the flagships. But the decadal did say a balance of mission classes as well. You know, it did have these decision rules. NASA, I think, could probably argue that they are trying to meet this recommendation over here. Yeah, it strikes me as a good reminder of the there's an institutional aspect of this as well. Like NASA isn't operating in a vacuum. And if you hadn't done any flagships that would pretty much be the end of the mars program and and the workforce behind that program same with a clipper you had this incredible i'd say maybe once in a generation

opportunity with a very like it just a incredibly strong uh supporter in congress and others to walk away i guess too quickly from those, I mean, and focus on small missions. Small missions are important, but they're almost in a sense too small to generate the kind of coalitions necessary for ongoing funding and awareness and interest. And, you know, the flagships are what really brings people, that's where you push the boundaries, right? That's why they tend to be so expensive. You take those risks, in a sense. But I have to say, the flagships, the science that comes back from a flagship, I mean, I always like to say the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. If you look at Cassini, I mean, that was, I don't know what the final

number was. You might know better than me, Casey, but it was something like, I've heard 4.6 billion, which is, I think, comparable to what the original Europa mission would have been that we presented to the original decadal. But the amount of science we have done in the Saturnia system from Cassini and the discoveries that have come from that have been unbelievable. You know, so there is a really good argument that there are some things where it absolutely makes sense to put these big missions with a lot of instruments, a big science team, a lot of diversity. You're also training the next generation on some of these that you can't do so easily on a, well, you can actually train the next generation on something like a grail, a very quick mission, or maybe some of the Mars missions where you have a launch opportunity every couple of years. But even, I was in grad school when Galileo flew. And most of my colleagues who trained up on the Galileo mission are no longer

in the science field because they couldn't get jobs because no one was doing any icy satellite work. You know, Cassini was sort of in the planning stage at that point, but that team was already selected. And, you know, there is an argument here for the longevity. And we're seeing that a little bit now with the moon, the return to the moon. You know, a lot of the Apollo guys just aren't around anymore. That expertise can so easily get lost if you have these big, long gaps. And certainly with the outer solar system, it's called the outer solar system for a reason. It takes a long time to get there. You know, new launch vehicles can help, but it's still a big commitment and it's a big financial commitment and you've got to make it count. You've got to make it worthwhile. And I don't, of course, in any way suggest I'm speaking

for NASA. I have no idea what goes through their minds. And that's part of it is we don't know what's going on behind the scenes. We don't know what kind of financial, political things are going on. You know, there's a lot of decisions they have to make. It looks very easy from where we're sitting to say, well, why didn't they do that? You know, why didn't they fly my favourite mission? But they have a lot of different constituencies and they are responsible for the integrity of the science and the exploration and technology. You know, they've got so many balls in the air. It's not easy what they do and i think i during this process of writing this report i've really come to appreciate that actually just how hard it is that's good to

emphasize these are recommendations oh yes that's right do it or not right they you have you this is an outside the national academy isn't you know independent provides independent scientific analysis and recommendations to government and this is one of the processes of this. So if NASA does or doesn't do anything, you don't have any like enforcement, right? You can't make them do one thing or another. Yeah, it's just advice. It's like we think, you know, we the science community who have spent our whole lives thinking about, you know, these big thoughts. We think that your best path to get the most science is to do this, you know,

certainly in the Planetary Science Division. So this is our path that we suggest for you. They can take it or leave it. Now, having said that, they usually take it or they take as much of it as they can because the decadal surveys are very important to Congress. You know, they like to know that their money is being spent appropriately as well as it can be. These decadal surveys are mandated by law. They have to be done by law. And the midterm reports are done by law. So it's in NASA's interest, I would say, to follow the decadal as much as they can. But at the same time, as you point out, it's not gospel. They don't have to do it. It is just guidance for them. But it is worth pointing out, maybe this is a good

time to say it, that the decadal surveys are tremendously important. And I have heard them described as a sword and a shield, a sword for cutting through to the really important science objectives and goals from the science community and taking on board any new discoveries, but also a shield against getting distracted by other things, you know, so that you really do have this 10-year pathway. And we certainly say in the report that we think NASA needs to find some mechanism where they can be a little more flexible, maybe, that there are new discoveries and sometimes they'll need to respond to that. And we understand that. And maybe they need a slightly more formal mechanism of doing that. But nevertheless, the overall plan is a very good plan.

And it keeps everybody focused. It stops you spending a lot of money in areas that might go away if there were, say, a change of administration, right? You know, different priorities. At least this way, the Planetary Science Division knows that these are the overall priorities of your community. You know, the planetary community, you know, there might be small changes as we go forward, but unless there's some absolutely major discovery, like we do find life on Mars or something like that, this is really the best path forward to maximize your science per dollar, your science return, and serve the American public, the taxpayer, which is ultimately what we do.

I find that really interesting that you bring this up. I was actually going to raise the same issue of how respected this process is in terms of the decadal survey, not just in the scientific community, but as you said, maybe even more crucially, in Congress and NASA itself that sees this relationship. And the process of putting together a decadal survey takes almost two years, I think. It was 18 months, I think, for the last one. And it really engages this broad coalition of the scientific community.

It's striking to me how important it has been through a tight budget period. But also, I'm seeing this now, the value of it when the budget is growing, is kind of what you were saying, to not get distracted or pulled into other areas. Now that the budget's growing, let's toss this idea out there. Let's toss that idea out there. Instead, you actually have a guiding document to kind of focus you in either extreme scenario, which I'm not used to being in that latter one where we have so much funding right now. And you raised this in the report, I think, in two areas. One is the addition of OceanWorld's opportunities to New Frontiers mission selection and the Europa lander.

But let's talk about that first one. You wanted to summarize this issue with New Frontiers and the committee's response to that? Yes. So New Frontiers, of course, is the approximately billion dollar class missions. We currently have three in the pipeline. Of course, New Horizons to Pluto is the first one. Juno currently in orbit around Jupiter is the second one. And OSIRIS-REx is about to encounter its target actually very soon. So those three are in the pipeline. And so the Decadal Survey recommended two new New Frontiers missions this decade, and it gave a list of mission types, which I don't have in front of me, and I can't remember them off the top of my head. But I think there were five in the New Frontiers 4 list, and there were going to be an additional two.

So the idea was that NASA would pick one of these mission themes they were actually referred to in the decadal. And so they were things like a South Pole Aitken Basin mission on the moon. Saturn probe, Trojan tour, comet surface sample return, Venus in situ explorer. Thank you. I have the list in front of me. Either you know it or you do have the list in front of you. This is a long report.

And then the next two, I think, were a lunar geophysical network and an IO observer were the ones that were supposed to be added on. So the idea was that, and the reason there's a list, and this is a little controversial, but the reason there is a list is because these are large missions. They're not big flagship level missions, which are directed to a NASA center, but they are competed. But nevertheless, they are big missions. And so the idea is that mission providers, so that's JPL, Goddard, and APL, usually the three big ones, would have a chance to start developing technology and really thinking through what was needed for these missions. That's why there's a list. So it's not a free for all, but it's fairly focused. And the idea was that NASA would put out New Frontiers 4, probably in the first half of the decade, pick something off that list. And then in New Frontiers 5, which would come, you know, maybe four or five years later, they would add the two remaining ones onto the New Frontiers 4 list.

However, what happened was some interesting things happened in the ocean world's community, which is, you know, we discovered, for example, that the plumes from Enceladus probably interacting with an ocean floor, very interesting from an astrobiological perspective. And we also have probably discovered plumes at Europa, right? The jury's still out on that one, but it's looking more and more likely. And that story is getting very interesting. Ocean worlds in general, which we thought might be, you know, really strange, exotic, unusual things, are turning out to be actually maybe quite common in the outer solar system and beyond. There has been a push to add more meat to the bones, even though we're only halfway through the decade. This is one of

those areas where you could argue that there have been new discoveries that require a slight course correction, right? Not a huge one, but a slight one. And so there was some congressional language, I think, very early on, suggesting to NASA that it start an Ocean Worlds program. I don't think that ever made it into law. Casey, you can correct me on this. It was recommended in a committee report, which isn't law, but very strong urging, basically. Very strong urging, right. So the OPAG group, which represents the Outer Planets community, this is a community focus group. They started a roadmap for ocean wilds, which they worked on. So they came up with a document of priorities in ocean world science.

But NASA, I think, felt it had to respond to this language in the committee report. The way they did that was to add two new mission concepts to the New Frontiers 4 list. These were a mission to Titan or a mission to Enceladus. And there was some concern among the community because those two had not undergone any studies or any of the kind of science objectives assessment that the other missions in that New Frontiers list had undergone. So although from NASA's point of view, or maybe from the Congress point of view, it made sense to add ocean whales to New Frontiers, it happened very quickly because of the timing.

add ocean wells to new frontiers. They didn't, it happened very quickly because of the timing. They had to add them in at short notice and they didn't have time to get any feedback from the community about, is this the right way to do it? What would the science objectives be for these missions? So to some extent they're on a different, they're in a different starting place than the rest of the missions, which have been at least had fairly brief studies, but at least those missions, we know they would fit into that cost cap. And we have an idea of what their science objectives would be because they're laid out in the decadal survey. For Titan Enceladus, that wasn't the case. While I think this checked the box for NASA, we know why they did it. And they had, you know, again, very good reasons internally for doing it this way. And it

might have been the best way they could come up with to move forward and try and bring more ocean whales into their program. There was pushback from the community who felt that this kind of went around the decadal process. And we heard from some of the other assessment groups that they, you know, while they all understood the need for having more flexibility in the process, they were kind of unhappy about the way this was carried out. They felt that it just went around the decadal process. And this sort of speaks to how loyal the community is to the process. I think all of us, there are things in the decadal that, you know, we could say we don't like or we don't agree with. But my experience, just speaking to my peers, is people are really committed to the process. Is

it perfect? No. But it is what it is. And it works pretty well. And so generally speaking, I think we're in pretty strong agreement that there needs to be some decadal process. Could it be rearranged? Could it be reworked? Maybe it could. Maybe we shouldn't be going body by body. Maybe we should be thinking about science themes or processes or, you know, some, what are the big picture questions doing it that way. But that's a separate issue. But the point is that we are all on board that there is a very strong need for decadal process. And once the community has spoken, you know, we kind of tend to stand behind it pretty well. And so I think that was part of the concern. And of course, one of those two added missions is, you know, Dragonfly, this drone mission to Titan is one of the down selected missions right now. Yeah, it's hard to argue that the cool factor of some of the potential ones that they added, that I'm very conflicted on this, because it really would be awesome to have a drone at Titan. You cannot argue how cool of a mission that would be. So it's interesting to see that struggle. And the argument for is to say, look, we didn't know about this when we put

together the first decadal survey. So I guess that is really a message for the next decadal committee of how can NASA maintain some flexibility and reactivity to new discoveries in the middle of a decadal process? Right. And they do have a National Academies Committee called the Committee for Astrobiology and Planetary Science, CAPS, they are called. And Jim Green, the former Planetary Science Division director, would refer to CAPS as the keepers of the decadal. So if he had a question about it, he would go and ask them. At the time that these new missions were added into the New Frontiers list, CAPS, they weren't able to do studies or write reports that had any weight. They are now, they've changed the type of committee that they are. So they can now actually write letter reports, I think they call them. And so their studies actually have more weight now. So we, I recommend in our report that if something like this comes up in future, that NASA go and

talk to CAPS. And that CAPS itself tries to get as much input from the community as it can. And that's usually done via the assessment groups. So they tend to meet twice a year. So, you know, sometimes there's a timing issue that is just really hard to get around. But if they have time, we strongly urge NASA to get as much community input as it can from these committees that are set up to help them to do just that. So let's talk about Europa Lander then. This is the other kind of big, this is a flagship level mission, a very cool sounding mission. I personally would love to see a Europa lander. You personally would too, I would imagine. But it's, as you point out in the report, not part of the original decadal survey recommendation.

So how did this committee grapple with this project? Same opportunities. You have a member of Congress who is currently proposing lots of money for this. Where did you come down on this? Yeah, and this, when you say grapple, that's exactly the right word, because this was a really, really tough discussion. And we did have many, many hours of discussion about this particular subject, because on the one hand, we are absolutely thrilled at this level of congressional support. I mean, I don't know, certainly in my 20 odd years here, I don't know there's ever been such strong congressional

support for scientific exploration as we're getting from Congress now, you know, just for the pure purposes of doing the science of finding out, are we living in a solar system where there are other habitable worlds? And is there, is there a chance of life out there. So that is such a phenomenal thing and we're so excited and grateful for that support. But at the same time, this comes back to what is the purpose of the decadal if it's not for setting a pathway and staying the course. Generally speaking, we felt that we had to stick to our statement of task. And our statement of task was that we were not to come up with new priorities.

We were also concerned about the question of balance, because the third flagship that was recommended by the decadal was a Uranus orbiter. It was not a lander at Europa. You know, it wasn't send two flagships to Europa. a lander at Europa, you know, it wasn't send two flagships to Europa. There were also concerns about the potential size and complexity of a Europa lander. When it happens, and of course, it will happen at some point, but when it happens, it's probably going to be the most complicated, sophisticated rover we've ever put down on another body, you know, I mean, look at how phenomenal the Mars Science Laboratory is, and then try and do that on a planet with no atmosphere and radiation. You know, you can do it. You could do it now, but there's a lot of risk involved.

So generally speaking, we just went back to the task and compared it to the decadal. It wasn't in the decadal. And we were concerned about, you know, the other things that I just mentioned. And we are recommending that it get assessed by the next decadal survey. So, you know, four or five years from now that they assess it. They assess the science priorities of this lander

among all of the other science priorities that they will be themselves grappling with and see whether it fits there. Because there's a danger that, you know, it is a big mission. I think you mentioned workforce earlier. Just how do you go forward with two? Well, this would be NASA doing three flagship missions, but one of them isn't one that was recommended in the decadal, you know.

So it's just, it was a really tough discussion, but we felt that it just needs to be assessed as part of the decadal process. And it hasn't been through that, unfortunately. How much of James Webb in terms of balance, you're talking about, how much was James Webb on all of your minds during this process? Not a huge amount. I think more, it was more the case the case that on this panel, we had several PIs, right? It was a really good panel. We had a fantastic team of people who have been in this field their whole careers. And many of them have lived through many missions, Mars missions, particularly. We had Scott Bolton, PI of Juno, Scott

Murchie, the PI of CRISM on MRO, Bruce Joukowsky, PI of MAVEN, you know, so, Souss Maka, Deputy PI on Insight, we have all lived through many missions and many missions that have overrun. So I think we're all very aware of the potential for that happening. And especially when you're doing something that is so new. You know, there were cost overruns on MSL, and that was after we had put several rovers, sorry, not several rovers down on Mars, but, you know, we had put rovers down on Mars. We had put several spacecraft down on Mars at that point. So there was a fairly good understanding of the environment there and of the landing site,

you know, a lot of reconnaissance of the landing site. And even there, even with the best of intentions, you know, things can go awry and you can overrun. And so there's just a concern here. But really, it came down to the science priorities. What were the science priorities in the decadal? You could argue that, yes, finding life was called out, finding organics on the surface of Europa was called out as being important, but Alanda specifically was noted as something in the far term,

not in the near term. So the last decadal that just happened did not have Alanda. They did not envisage Alanda as happening in the near future, probably because they were envisaging a you know, a Europa, at that time, Europa orbiter that subsequently turned into the Europa Clipper mission. Yeah, the budget, I imagine, would never have been seen to be so favorable as to support a lander and an orbiter in addition to the sample return at Mars, which is the other big priority underlying the whole caching rover. Right. And even that, you know,

a lot of that has been by its very nature pushed into the next decade. And so, you know, that was something that we discussed as well. What would we be pushing into the next decade? Really it was out of the scope of our task. The bottom line is it was out of the scope of our task. You know, we did have a lot of discussions about it. We were very concerned. We wanted to make sure that we did have a lot of discussions about it. We were very concerned. We wanted to

make sure that we did the right thing. There's one other aspect of the decadal review that I want to touch on. And then I'd like to move on to the Mars report. The last topic is the, you kind of mentioned the third potential flagship missions to the ice giants of Uranus and Neptune. You called for a new report or a new analysis of what types of missions could go out there. And I thought that was really interesting because, you know, maybe you can kind of lay out why do these types of early studies to begin with, and you alluded to this a little bit already, and why do we need a new one for Neptune and Uranus? Right. Well, this was another area of which there was a lot of discussion. So there was a

preliminary study done during the last decadal that laid out a number of different science objectives for and was using or has proposed to use a fairly unproven instrument. So the problem with this, it's a Doppler imager. It's a very, it would be new technology. And so, and it's also very massive. And so the idea is that if this flew, it would be a combined imager Doppler experiment, and then you would get a magnetometer. But because it's so massive, you would not have all of the other instruments and experiments that were laid out by the decadal survey. And so we had heard, certainly from the community, that there was some concern that this new mission study wasn't really aligned with the decadal scientific objectives, and in fact, would be going in a very different

direction. And also concern, there was concern among our panel about the potential risk of flying this very massive, you know, large instrument that currently is only a technology redness level of six like it has never flown all of those things together we are recommending you know this is such an important target Uranus or Neptune this is the third highest priority flagship mission laid out by the decadal but we just felt that the study that had been done which you know I'm sure is a fine study in its own right but it had gone in a different direction from the direction of the decadal. And, you know, you could make the argument, well, maybe this was a pre-study for the next decadal, which it probably will end up being. But nevertheless, you know, the decadal did have

a potential third mission in this decade. And therefore, that mission should be responsive to the science objectives laid out in the decadal. So that's why we are recommending that another study be done that is more closely aligned with the recommendations in the decadal. So it would be like, you know, the very quick one that had been done, but much more detailed than that, and really see if it can be done for less than $2 billion. Is that really the real purpose of these early studies, just to see, it's like a gut check to see if a mission like that is doable within certain timeframes, certain costs, so forth? That's certainly not the only reason, but that was the main reason they were done during

the last decadal. So this is the CATE process, as it's called. And this is basically where these missions are evaluated to see, you know, so if I show up at the decadal and say, hey, I've got a great billion dollar Europa mission, you know, are they going to say, oh, great, we'll put it at the top of the list, because that sounds like a really good deal? Or are they going to say, hang on a minute, we want to go and check that out and see what we think it's going to cost. And so the CAPE process, was it perfect? No, again, you know, these were done very rapidly during the decadal process, but they were very useful because they did help put these missions into the approximate kind of bucket. So we know that an IO mission is going to fit in New Frontiers. It doesn't mean you can't do an IO flagship mission, of course, but we know that, you know, for a billion dollars, you can probably do a pretty decent IO mission or a pretty good South Pole Aiken mission or a pretty good surface sample return mission.

They were incredibly useful in helping the committee put together its overall strategy of balanced missions and balanced targets because you get the two things together. And so the recommendation of the decadal for the last decadal for the next decadal was that they don't wait till the decadal is happening to do these studies, that they start sooner. So there are a lot of smaller studies that could be done and could be done in a more kind of, I will say, laid back fashion, like get a few science experts together instead of just pulling one science expert off the panels that were part of the decadal and go through the process in a more leisurely fashion and do it right. So that by the time the next decadal survey happens, they will have in their back pocket a number of studies already. They had a few, but they tended to be, I think, on the larger missions because the smaller

mission studies, people didn't want to give them up. JPL, APL, they didn't want to show them what their mission studies had come up with if they were going to be competing for discovery on new frontiers, right? That's the whole point, they're competed missions. So if you want to know what one of those studies would be like, you know, where would it fit, you would need to really start your own study because you're then not using a sort of proprietary concept. The CAPS committee that I mentioned earlier, they did recently put out a letter report where they came up with a list of potential studies that NASA should do. And they didn't prioritize them. We didn't prioritize them either. But we said that we

think NASA should try and set aside funds to do eight to ten of these studies. You know, it's not a huge investment in the grand scheme of things, but it really will pay off in making the work of the next decadal considerably easier. They can then go in with some idea in the minds of where these kinds of missions would fit. And of course, the missions weren't supposed to be exact. So the Juno mission originally, you know, that concept was designed to have probes. They found they could do the same science without the probes. So Juno is doing just fine. But the idea is that it gives you a rough idea of what kind of science could you do for an approximate cost target. That's really the message you're trying to give to NASA as they prepare for the next decadal survey, which again, work will start, what, in 2020, 2019? Yeah, we think that they're going to start

thinking about the structure of it as early as next year and maybe start thinking about, you know, who would be a good chair, things like that. So yes, I understand that the panels will probably start to meet in 2020. And beyond doing some of this basic study analysis of some of these mission concepts, is there any other recommendations that this committee had for NASA or for others in preparing for the next process of the next decadal survey? We didn't make a huge number of recommendations to them. survey? We didn't make a huge number of recommendations to them. One was the issue of making sure that they get some community input if changes are to be made, you know, so this idea of how to be flexible if new discoveries come up without messing the whole program up. So we made

a recommendation about that. Okay, so can we talk about Mars now? By all means. So there was kind of a bonus report within this midterm assessment report on the status of the Mars program that was directed by, I believe, the 2017 NASA authorization bill. This is obviously a topic near and dear to my heart here at the Planetary Society. We did our own report on the status of the Mars program last year in 2017. Why don't you kind of summarize some of the basic takeaways of this mini report? How is the Mars program doing? And what are some of the major recommendations that you're making to NASA for them going forward? Right. So as you're probably aware, this was originally going to be a separate report that would have got underway about six months after our report. And so we decided it made no sense when we were going to also be making recommendations about the Mars program. So we merged the two together.

And so we had a few Mars experts added to our panel. And I think we had some really good people on there, very happy with what they came up with. our panel and I think we, you know, some really good people on there, very happy with what they came up with. As far as the Mars program goes, there is concern that right now there is only one mission in the pipeline. You know, one mission does not a program make, and that is the Mars 2020 caching rover. We took a long, hard look at the development of Mars sample return and whether NASA is going to be on track with that, how is the program working together, and is there the infrastructure that can support it. The major findings that we came up with is that there is a lot of value in being able to integrate

across a program. You can integrate with international partners, for example, which has been done very successfully in terms of experiments, using different assets to support other parts of the program as well. There's been a huge amount of precursor work done by some of the existing missions that is paving the way for the future missions. And you can develop technology, things like that, that benefit the whole program. So there is real value in having an integrated program. And we are concerned that right now it's unclear what the future of the Mars program is. So if NASA is serious about having a Mars program, then they need to take a really hard look at it and come up with a path forward that includes, you know, this integrated architecture, what is happening with the partnerships? How are you going to move

forward with sample return, for example? And how are you going to create an infrastructure that supports your existing missions as well? When we build missions and instruments, we build them really well, and they last a long, long time, which is great. But the orbital telecommunications infrastructure is fragile and aging. And so we like the proposal that Thomas Zabuka and the Associate Administrator for Science presented to us at one of our meetings for a rapid and focused mass sample return architecture. And we support that. We think that is a good way to go. But we are concerned that they are relying on orbital spacecraft that are quite old. I mean, MRO, I think is 20 years old now. I liked the way that the report put it,

that MAVEN is the only orbiter that's less than 12 years old. That's right. Right. So that's great. You know, we're getting a lot of value for money here, but you are taking on more risk. So, yes, we didn't go as far as telling NASA that it needed to build a new orbiter, but we are recommending that they take a really good look at what the assets are, including the TGO spacecraft that the Europeans are flying, which can also be used as a telecom relay. And just make sure that they can sustain the Mars sample return architecture as they have laid it out. I've characterized the problem that they're facing which again I think was really nicely captured by the report and I quoted it at length in a blog post that I did for the Society but I really feel like the Mars program is actually a project now. We have the project of its sample

return i guess you could even extend it beyond but that's not a program and the the report very nicely said that the program would be able to react to these new discoveries that we're finding with the existing assets and then further explore them and and that is not happening anymore we we don't have a pathway and And I am glad you made a recommendation for NASA to create an actual exploration structure or plan, long term plan, which in a way is kind of crazy that they don't have for Mars right now that they don't have a long term strategic plan for Mars beyond sample return. And that's something that you know, almost better than anyone else, how long it takes to spin up these missions and to get something from concept to flight hardware,

not to mention actively collecting data. Have you seen a response from NASA on these yet? Or do you feel like people are aware that this is a growing problem? I think they are aware. I think people in the Mars community, maybe even the Mars program, you know, are concerned about it. It's been so incredibly successful for so many years. You know, it leads the way internationally. What happens to it now? Is Mars sample return the end? Is that the holy grail that once we had that rock on the ground, we don't have to worry anymore, right? Of course, that's not the case. But I think there is some concern among the Mars community that the decadal came out and said, Mars self-returned, and this is the main priority for Mars. Mars missions can go into discovery. They are not yet, I think, listed in the New Frontiers list.

Yeah, there's no New Frontiers opportunities. Yep. Yeah. So they're not currently included in New Frontiers. And I think this is going to be a big discussion for the next decadal survey is what happens to Mars. I was on a committee called Complex, which is a National Academies committee that was a precursor of CAPS. And we helped to kind of come up with the basically to make recommendations about how the last decadal should be run. And one of the questions there was, should Mars even be brought back into that decadal process? Because prior to that, it had sort of had its own, you know, it wasn't part of the solar

system. We joke about it wasn't part of the solar system, but it hadn't been treated in the same way. It had a whole separate analysis for it. Right, right. So in 2011, you know, we brought Mars back into the fold, but it did still have its own chapter, its own group. And obviously Mars' self-return was deemed to be the most important

and workable scientific priority. I think it was actually technically joint scientific first priority with Europa, but it was deemed to be doable because it could be split into pieces. So that's what happened. But I know there was a lot of dismay among the Mars community, especially people that don't do sample work about, well, hang on, what's next for us? Like what happens to all this great work that we've been doing and all these people that we've trained up? So, you know, it is a serious problem. And the next decadal survey are going to have to themselves grapple with,

where does Mars go? You know, we're drilling down some of these science questions to a very high degree on Mars. But there are some who would argue that other places in the solar system, like Venus, really are fascinating. And we're learning more and more about exoplanets, for example, that we could learn a lot about exoplanets from studying Venus, but we're just not paying enough attention elsewhere in the solar system. So that is luckily a question our panel did not have to answer. We did say, you know, if you really think this program is important, then you need to figure out what it means, what it means, and where is it going? That's a good, I think, place to leave it because that's really up to NASA and the broader community. That seems like a good decadal question, but also just kind of a strange situation that we find ourselves in. I imagine this is not common in the history of planetary science to say,

we have infrastructure on another planet that we're worried about losing. I know, isn't that great? What a great problem to have. No, and of course, planetary science itself is still, you know, I think of it as a very young science, right? The most senior people in our community tend to be astronomers or physicists, you know, they've come in from other areas. And I think it's fantastic that we're now exploring the solar system to this level. But yes, is it just a blip and then we move on to something else or do we keep going?

Certainly this comes back to the question of human exploration. If we're serious about going to Mars, then I think we really do need to continue. This is just my personal opinion, but we need to continue studying Mars so that we're ready for human exploration in the future. So again, there isn't a gap.

We don't lose all the people that are the experts now. And the answer may be, I think, that this tells you how serious claims are about human exploration of Mars. That word, that this program is being allowed to atrophy. That's the real, when it comes down to it, I think that tells us something. when it comes down to it, I think that tells us something. Real quick here as we wrap up, I just want to get a sense for the work that you and your committee did for this. What type of commitment is this?

I mean, we read these reports that, you know, most people that it's dropped out of the sky. We have a new report. A lot of people will read the executive summary. We'll write this up. I did read the entire report. So I get paid to do that. So it's part of my job. But what is it like to put one of these together? How long have you personally been working on this project? I think I was first approached about it might have even been before the end of 2016. And immediately jumped at the chance. I mean, it's always good to do this kind of service to

the community, but I am a firm believer in the value of the decadal and anything I can do to, you know, make the process better. I'm absolutely on board with that. It then took us a while. So the academies try and put together a very diverse panel. So you need to try and you've got to make it, you know, the right size, you've got to get as much expertise as you can across all of the areas that you're looking at. So in this case, you know, basically the whole solar system. And you also want a very diverse panel in terms of demographics and expertise. And I think they did that. But you also try and get a panel of people that the rest of the community are going to trust. Hopefully, we've done that. I was really impressed with this panel. They were fantastic to work with. Very lucky to have Duane Day at the National Academy is just fantastic director of this study, you know, shepherding us and making sure we didn't go off on tangents we shouldn't have gone on.

off on tangents we shouldn't have gone on. And then the hard work starts. So it takes several months to just get the committee together, get everyone on board, go through all the conflict of interest discussions, make sure that, you know, if there are any conflicts on a panel like this, you announce them. So the rest of the panel and the community knows exactly where any biases lie. It's very, very hard to not have some biases. I mean, I've worked on Europa my whole career, basically trying to get a mission off the ground. So, but everybody knows that. And I was very upfront about it. And so, you know, there's some places where you have that expertise, you are the person, you know what's going on, because you've been living it. But at the same time, you have to keep your biases out of it, when you're trying to just do what's best for the whole community.

So it's kind of tough doing that. It's not always easy to do that, but you've got to do that. Otherwise, you have no credibility. Anyway, so once you have the panel together and you think you've checked all the boxes, you know, you've got everything you need and you've got exactly the right expertise you need. And as I said, we did add some Mars people on because we realized we didn't have enough Mars expertise and we got some great people then. Then you have meetings. And so we actually were originally planned to have four meetings. But we soon realized that with, you know, we had a lot of thorny things to discuss and they were going to take a while. We wanted to get it right. And also with the addition of the Mars task, we had to add a fifth meeting. And so we met over the course of

a year, I think, in various different places. And at each meeting, we would have briefings from NASA, we'd have briefings from other people in the community, like the Deep Space Network, for example, or CAPTEM. We wanted to talk about curation. So we got the CAPTEM chair to come in, all the ag chairs came in and briefed us. And then we'd have a lot of discussion time, closed discussion time, where we would discuss what we'd heard and start thinking about

were there any recommendations to be had and what would those recommendations be? And so when that's all done, after the fifth meeting, we'd actually already started drafting some of the parts of the report, like the science results. We wanted to have a very meaty chapter on the science results over the last five years. And that was something we could kind of start early on. But then we put

this report together. Hopefully, everyone has reviewed it. But you know, it's a big report, you know, you've read it. And then it goes out to reviewers. They're anonymous to us. And they come back with a bunch of comments. Some of them have had quite a lot of comments. And then we try and address those comments that goes through a Space Studies Board member, I believe. And those comments we try and address and, you know, fix up the report, make it just as good as it can be, make any final tweaks. And so then we release it. It's not an official release, but we did go and brief NASA congressional briefings. I will be briefing a member of Congress this week on the Europa lander.

So it'll be fun. Thousands of hours of work, probably? Certainly hundreds of hours for sure. Yeah. I mean, as the co-chair, you know, my other co-chair was... Lots of emails back and forth probably. Oh, yeah. Joe Rothenberg. So he used to be the head of Goddard. He's my co-chair. So he kind of took over the technology parts because that's a little out of my side and I was more responsible for the science parts. I'm pretty happy with the report. Was there more we

could have done if we'd had more time? Yes. But at some point, you know, you've got to cut it off because they're going to start preparing for the next decadal soon. Yeah, you've got to finish it before the next one comes out. Exactly. Otherwise, it's not going to be useful. So at some point, you say, yes, this is good enough and this is going to be of use. And hopefully, I haven't had a lot of feedback yet from the planetary community, but the

feedback I have had, generally, people seem to think that we grappled with things appropriately. As you point out, really, in the opening lines of this report, that this decade has been one of the most important and scientifically productive periods ever in the history of planetary science. That's a quote. That's a really great place to be. And it's very, I guess, the work that your committee did really comes through on a lot of these aspects and recommendations you make. through on a lot of these aspects and recommendations you make. And then also, I think it just shows this is part to me of how government works really well, that you take the experts in the field, and the power of these reports is they're very powerful, they're very influential. And it's really fascinating to hear how these come together, some of the issues that you really worked through, and that the community takes this seriously as well.

Yeah. Well, thank you. I'm glad it reads well. And yes, we hope it's going to be very useful. And it's fun as well. You know, I get to work with a bunch of really smart people and think about exploring the solar system. What could be more fun than that?

That's right. I know, just like reading through, if anyone is listening, there's just the whole chapter two, I believe it is, just all the discoveries that have happened to us. I mean, they're just a spectacular reminder how much is happening out there. And I'd love to end it there, but I have to ask you just one more quick question. Go on. How great is the camera going to be on Europa Clipper?

Because you're on the camera team, right? Oh, it's going to be amazing. We are going to be able to see the surface at 10s of centimeters per pixel. Which is, yeah, I mean, I have no idea what it will look like. And I can't wait to find out. Yeah, it's going to be pretty cool camera. Dr. Proctor, thank you so much for joining us here today on Space Policy Edition. Dr. Louise Proctor is the director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute. She is also co-chair of the brand new report, which I recommend everyone read, Visions into Voyages for Planetary Sciences in the Decade 2013 through 2022, the Midterm Review.

Dr. Proctor, thank you. Thank you, Casey. That's our Casey Dreyer, Director of Space Policy for the Planetary Society, wrapping up his long, excellent conversation with Louise Proctor. Casey, that was terrific. Thanks, Matt. I like how you keep emphasizing how long my conversations are. I just get carried away. I could have talked with her for a couple more hours.

We had lots to delve into. That's what I love about podcasting is that we can go into more depth than you would usually hear. No criticism. Not for this because I thought it was really a fascinating conversation. I also like Casey's extremely long, drawn-out conversations. They're good for this. Well, you do like your topics. I do.

I like them and into those. We can close out for this month, but it sounds like next month, with any luck, we will have a budget to talk about. Or not. We'll have something to talk about. Either way, we'll have something to talk about. Yeah, and I do encourage, though, everyone listening to go to planetary.org slash space advocate.

Right on that front page, there are three things you can do right away. You can write to Congress about these issues right now, if they're still relevant. You can register for the Congressional Visits Day in March of 2019. And you register now. You get a discount on that registration. And then, of course, you can sign up for Space Advocacy 101, a free online course.

And you can just take that anytime at your own pace. So you've got lots of ways to become an advocate this month. While you're sitting there in your browser, why don't you visit planetary.org slash membership as well and stand behind this program and all of the great work that Casey and Jason and Matt Renninger are doing in Washington, D.C.,

plus all of the other terrific work that the Society has underway around the world. And I will also put in a plug for something else that our members support, and that is the weekly edition of Planetary Radio. This week, the episode that went up a couple of days ago, featuring my visit, excellent tour and some conversations at the Marshall Space Flight Center outside of Huntsville, Alabama. It was just last week that we visited the U.S. Space and Rocket Center to, among other things, have a great conversation with the Honorable Doug Jones, Senator from Alabama. And you can check that out

at planetary.org slash radio as well. Thank you guys. Enjoyed this as always. And I look forward to talking to you in October. Absolutely. Talk then. Sounds good. That's it for the Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio for this month, September 2018. We do hope that we will catch you again on the first Friday in October. Until then, enjoy life and Ad Astra, everybody.