THE SOUND OF SILENCE

December 7, 1999
		After this background report, Gwen Ifill discusses with science experts the future of space missions, after NASA's Mars Polar Lander failed to make contact with Earth.

Online NewsHour Special Report: The Mars Polar Lander Aug. 26, 1999: Chandra Observatory, has relayed spectacular images of exploding stars to NASA Online NewsHour Special Report: One Giant Leap multimedia July 20, 1999: The 30th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon. Dec. 8, 1998: An Online Q and A: The International Space Station Nov. 20, 1998: Russians send the first component of the International Space Station into orbit. March 6, 1998: NASA scientist Alan Binder discusses the new discovery of water on the moon. Feb. 27, 1998: Is the universe evolving more rapidly now than it has in the past? Dec. 31, 1997: The Hubble Telescope's clear images reach Earth. Oct. 15, 1997: NASA begins its seven year mission to explore Saturn. Oct. 2, 1997: Forty years after Sputnik first circled the Earth, historians examine its impact. Sept. 30, 1997: An interview with Mir astronauts. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Science   NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars Polar Lander's Official Deep Space 2 Mars Volaties and Climate Surveyor	SPOKESMAN: I'm sorry to report that all we have is H. K. T. M. At this point. It seems to have been a nominal no contact M.R. Pass. JEFFREY KAYE: Although NASA engineers have not given up hope completely more than likely the missions of the Mars Polar Lander and its companion probes have ended in failure. Early this morning after the 7th failed attempt to contact the Lander, project manager Richard Cook expressed the team's frustration. RICHARD COOK: The fact is the mission is not a success or apparently appears to not be a success is extremely frustrating to me and to the team and to the entire institution. It's not something that we accept. We're going to go about trying to do better the next time. JEFFREY KAYE: The latest setbacks follow the September 23 loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter. In all the cost of the Orbiter, the Lander and the probes was $356 .8 million plus the years of work by hundreds of scientists and engineers. So over the past days as project engineers sought answers to technical issues there are also been questions about management and policy. NASA's philosophy of better, faster cheaper has meant more missions at a lower cost, instead of a few billion dollar projects, but critics question whether the policy carries too much risk. MIKE MILLER, Reuters: The faster, cheaper better policy seems to be breaking down somewhat. You have now had two failed missions presumably at a cost of roughly $300 million which is certainly not cheap. It's not fast and it's not better.
	NASA's internal problems
	RICHARD COOK: Whenever we're doing this business, you have to risk something to get something. And the faster, better cheaper allows us to do a lot of things that we might not ordinarily have the chance to do. We have a lot more missions, a lot more frequently, and I think that that's a benefit. JEFFREY KAYE: A recent NASA audit of the management of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory pointed to problems in the lab's implementation of NASA's better, faster, cheaper philosophy. NASA's successes, notably the Mars Pathfinder mission, have been dramatic, but so have the failures. After the loss of the orbiter two and a half months ago a NASA investigation board confirmed it had failed because engineers at Lockheed Martin, at the company that designed an built the Orbiter and Lander provided data in pounds and feet to and navigators at the JP L. They thought the numbers they were getting were metric measurements. The NASA investigation suggested that error was the tip of an iceberg. It found evidence of inadequate communications between project personnel, less than adequate staffing of the navigation team, inadequate training and testing, and poor attention to navigation risk management. The report into the Orbiter loss followed a separate critical audit, one issued in September by the NASA inspector general. The audit also examined the relationship between JPL and Lockheed Martin, as well as other JPL subcontractors. It found that JPL had not adequately managed and supervised Lockheed, and that Lockheed had not properly staffed the Orbiter or Lander projects. As a result, the audit said there had been poor workmanship, ineffective engineering designs, and hardware that was not built to specifications. The reports prompted the engineering teams to review their calculations for the Mars Polar Lander, and to add more staff. Engineers also responded to investigators concerns about potential landing problems by making eleventh-hour adjustments in a technique never attempted before, one in which 12 rocket thrusters were supposed to fire in perfect unison. At this point, engineers don't know whether the Lander's silence is a result of a preventable technical failure or of bad luck and the difficulty of landing on an unknown surface perhaps sandy, maybe rocky, 157 million miles from earth. Future space missions now under construction by teams from JPL and Lockheed Martin are likely to come under further scrutiny as a result of the Orbiter and Lander failures.