EVER get that sense of d茅j脿 vu? The American space agency NASA doesn鈥檛 seem to, but for everyone else there was a strangely familiar ring to the announcement last week of the discovery of water on Mars. For those with short memories, NASA trailed the gist of the finding earlier this year. It made a similar announcement in June 2000, when the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft spotted evidence suggesting vast areas of the planet had once been heavily flooded. And even that wasn鈥檛 new. In the 1970s, the Viking spacecraft beamed back images of dry river beds, pointing to a wetter Martian past. So what鈥檚 going on?
Quite simply NASA has run out of things to say. Worse, the policy designed to get the agency out of this fix鈥攖he 鈥渇aster, better, cheaper鈥� philosophy of the 1990s鈥攈as failed. Exploring the Solar System using hordes of cheap spacecraft instead of a few expensive ones wasn鈥檛 a bad idea. But harsh cost cutting imposed within a culture accustomed to luxury budgets meant the vehicles simply didn鈥檛 work. Meanwhile, NASA鈥檚 only other recent stab at the 鈥渧ision thing鈥�, the International Space Station, is in danger of becoming the agency鈥檚 Vietnam: a financial disaster with unclear aims that鈥檚 slowly sucking it dry of money, expertise and political friends.
To be fair, the latest Mars studies do contain some important new information, about how much frozen water there might be and where it lies (see 鈥淭he wet planet鈥�). But to release these details without making it clear that Martian water itself is no new thing only served to strengthen the cynical view of NASA as an agency obsessed with spin and devoid of new ideas and goals. It also, inevitably, triggered a rash of advance speculation among journalists about the agency reviving proposals for sending astronauts to the Red Planet. That idea is laughable, given that NASA does not even have the funds for a probe that would send a sample back to Earth. But you can hardly blame reporters for getting hungry for real news when they are constantly being offered yesterday鈥檚 warmed-up leftovers.
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Of course there is some hope. NASA鈥檚 Cassini mission could pack a real scientific punch when it drops a probe into the dense atmosphere of Saturn鈥檚 moon Titan. If, as some researchers speculate, Titan鈥檚 surface turns out to have oceans, waves and perhaps even signs of life, NASA really will have something to shout about. But ironically, Cassini is the last of the big missions that the 鈥渇aster, better, cheaper鈥� philosophy was designed to replace. What鈥檚 more, the probe won鈥檛 reach Titan till 2004, and that could be too late for NASA鈥檚 new chief Sean O鈥橩eefe. He desperately needs to find a fresh direction for his demoralised agency and some scientific fanfare for a disillusioned public. And there鈥檚 the dilemma: how to balance the public desire for excitement and spectacle against researchers鈥� demands for scientific substance. It鈥檚 no easy task and if O鈥橩eefe fails, this may not be the last time we learn of the discovery of water on Mars.
