NASA Advisory Council Recommendation 

Mismatch Between NASA's Aspirations for Human Space Flight and Its Budget 

2014-02-01 (Council-01) 

Recommendation: 

The mismatch between NASA's aspirations for human spaceflight and its budget for human 

spaceflight is the most serious problem facing the Agency. NASA should carefully consider what 

steps would have to be taken in the years ahead in order to meet the national goal of sending 

humans to Mars in the 2030s with a realistic budget. The Agency should be prepared to articulate 

these steps publicly. 

Using the best available information for Humans to Mars selected from the past 40+ years of 

studies, NASA should identify the "minimum path" of only those technologies and capabilities 

absolutely required, and perform internal and independent cost estimates of this minimum path. 

The result should be compared to a notional· 25-year budget that only grows with inflation. The 

resultant shortfall should be used to address what combination of budget increase, added 

partnerships, and/or adjustments to NASA portfolio scope would be necessary to attain the goal. 

Addressing this important issue will be an ongoing process. We request that the Agency brief us 

regarding the implementation of this recommendation at our next meeting, and at subsequent ones. 

Major Reasons for Proposing the Recommendation: 

The Council agrees with the recent National Research Council (NRC) report on pathways for 

human exploration1 that sending humans to Mars is an appropriate "horizon goal" for NASA. We 

also agree with the report's conclusion that a budget that does not grow above inflation will never 

allow that horizon goal to be achieved. The only ways to address this mismatch are to: (1) increase 

the NASA budget over projections; (2) adjust NASA's portfolio of activities; (3) offset costs with 

new efficiencies and/or contributions by outside partners; or (4) adopt a different horizon goal for 

the Agency. 

Consequences of No Action on the Proposed Recommendation: 

If this fundamental mismatch is not addressed in a serious way, the Agency runs the risk of 

squandering precious national resources on a laudable but unachievable goal. 

1 Pathways to Exploration- Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of Human Space 

Exploration, National Research Council, 2014. 

NASA Response: 

NASA partially concurs. NASA agrees we should carefully consider what steps would have to be 

taken in the years ahead in order to meet the national goal of sending humans to the Mars vicinity in 

the 2030s with a realistic budget. Further, we agree the Agency should be prepared to articulate 

these steps publicly. 

Enclosure 1 
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NASA recognizes the need to advance the capabilities required to extend hwnan presence into the 

solar system and eventually to Mars within a budget that grows only modestly over present levels. 

International and commercial partnerships are emerging in many areas as space capabilities diffuse 

and grow domestically and around the world. This offers opportunities that will continue to evolve 

over time and that can be leveraged. These capabilities would otherwise have to be provided by 

NASA. This more capabilities-based approach to our exploration strategy implementation means 

that we will hold open more architecture decisions while these external opportunities can be 

assessed, negotiated, and in some cases matured and subsequently added. This, coupled with the 

inherent difficulty with forecasting availability dates for selected technologies, makes it challenging 

to lay out and cost a minimwn path to Mars. But we are, in parallel, actively assessing existing 

design reference approaches and identifying the figures of merit and alternate approaches that will 

lead to affordable and sustainable exploration systems. 

We have identified the key capabilities that must be matured in order to enable future exploration. 

These encompass the technologies identified by the NRC and align well with those identified in 

NASA's Technology Roadmaps. System Maturation Teams made up of experts across NASA 

Centers and programs comprise these teams. In each area, they are identifying what capabilities can 

be advanced using the International Space Station (ISS), using Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) 

and other Space Launch System (SLS)/Orion missions in the Proving Ground of cis-lunar space, 

and using robotic precursor missions to Mars' orbit, moons, and surface. 

Under the framework of the Evolvable Mars Campaign we introduced to the NASA Advisory 

Council (NAC) in June 2014, NASA is studying a split mission Mars approach that utilizes both 

chemical and advanced solar electric propulsion to provide a sustainable path with technologies and 

capabilities absolutely required for crewed missions to the Mars vicinity and Mars surface. This 

links to and informs studies of optimal pre-positioning of assets in cis-lunar space and Mars orbit, as 

well as optimal Mars surface lander sizes and other capability needs to guide technology 

investments. We will brief the early results of this work to the NAC in January 2015. But much 

additional work needs to be done over time as stated above in order to show that we have an 

architecture that can be accomplished both technically and programmatically, including within 

reasonable asswnptions of future budget availability. 

The series of human exploration missions NASA is planning in the Proving Ground follow this 

resilient and evolving approach for human exploration of the solar system. NASA is defining 

mission objectives of Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) and Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2) to 

demonstrate the utility oflunar orbits to enable energy-efficient transfers of large masses to Mars, to 

conduct cis-lunar space operations we will have to master to exploit them, and to test technologies 

and reduce risk for the next missions. We are also using the System Maturation Team (SMT) and 

Evolvable Mars Campaign results to identify the set of objectives that should be accomplished in 

the Proving Ground over the first 5-10 years ofEM flights, including the crewed mission to the 

asteroid redirected there by ARM. 

NASA's reference plan is for this crewed mission to encompass 26-28 days, including 5 days in the 

stable lunar distant retrograde orbit for Orion rendezvous and docking with the ARM robotic 

spacecraft and attached asteroid mass, and implementing the astronauts' Extra-Vehicular Activity 

(EVA). There are many aspects of this crewed mission in the mid-2020's that will build capabilities 

and reduce risk for Mars missions such as: Moving large objects through interplanetary space using 

solar electric propulsion (SEP); integrated crewed/robotic vehicle stack operations in deep space 
orbits, e.g., integrated attitude control, solar alignment and during multi-hour EVAs; lean 

implementation of SEP vehicle builds using clean interfaces, streamlined processes, and common 

Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking (AR&D) systems; and broad scope robotic/crewed 

integration, including crewed system hardware deliveries to and integration and test with robotic 

spacecraft, and joint robotic spacecraft and crewed mission operations. 

In parallel with human exploration missions in the Proving Ground, NASA is continuing its strategy 

of using robotic missions to advance technology and close strategic gaps in knowledge about the 

Martian environment that will be critical for designing future human exploration systems. The 

Curiosity rover continues to monitor the radiation and weather environment on the surface of Mars, 

and in late July 2014, NASA announced that one of the seven instruments selected for the Mars 

2020 rover mission would be an exploration technology investigation that would produce oxygen 

from the plentiful carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere. If demonstrated successfully and done 

on a larger scale in the future, such a system could make oxygen for rocket fuel or for astronauts to 

breathe. Another selected instrument on Mars 2020 will provide measurements of temperature, . 

wind speed and direction, pressure, relative humidity and dust size and shape. Understanding the 

Martian weather and dust characteristics will be valuable data for planning human Mars missions. 

In addition, Mars 2020 will include sensors on the heatshield and aeroshell to collect data during 

entry, descent and landing, as was done on the Mars Science Laboratory mission. The data 

collected ~11 help mission planners design future landing systems human exploration. Improved 

navigation technologies are also being considered for the proposed Mars 2020 rover that could 

improve the ability of future missions related to human exploration - which likely would involve 

multiple payloads- to land close together. 

As NASA extends human presence into the solar system and eventually to Mars in the years ahead, 

additional work is being defined and mission options are being developed. Mission options under 

study include further use of the advanced solar electric propulsion bus used for ARM; addition of a 

deep space habitat; additional return missions to the asteroid for expanded science and/or resource 

utilization; support for commercial and/or international missions in the lunar vicinity; and/or new 

missions to Mars vicinity that accomplish science, technology, and human exploration objectives. 

The past 6-12 months of work has identified options and phasing of capabilities that we had not 

predicted earlier, and we expect our ongoing studies to do more of the same. Over the next months 

and years, we will continue to defme and evolve the set of missions and capability developments 

that accomplish the most forward progress and advance key capabilities taking close account of 

expected resources. In so doing, we will follow the strategic principles for exploration we discussed 

with the NAC in June 2014. We look forward to working with the NAC in its subsequent meetings, 

and discussing the fmdings of our architecture studies as they emerge. 

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