By Katy Human
Camera Staff Writer

Most of the planets in the solar system have stunning head shots — spacecraft have photographed Jupiter with its brilliant red spot and multiple moons, Saturn with its rings, and Mars with dusty rocks lying on its surface.

But even the Hubble Space Telescope's pictures of Pluto are fuzzy smears of gray and white.

Boulder researcher Alan Stern wants to sharpen those images by sending a spacecraft to the distant planet, which he calls "the last frontier."

Stern's team — researchers with the Advanced Physics Laboratory and Boulder's Southwest Research Institute — has a plan, detailed designs and $30 million of the $488 million it needs. This summer, the researchers will learn if Congress can restore $128 million — cut by the Bush administration — needed for a second year of work.

A launch needs to happen by 2006, or it'll be at least a decade later.

"I am baffled that the administration says, 'Let's wait,'" Stern said. "This is an easy mission." And the scientific paybacks could be substantial, he said.

He calls Pluto "King of the Kuiper Belt," a jumble of rock and ice at the edge of the solar system, never visited by a spacecraft. But the distant region contains the fossil remnants of the solar system, unchanged by the harsh radiation of the sun.

Studying Pluto's and other Kuiper Belt objects' composition and structure will help scientists understand the origin of the solar system, Stern said.

"Time stopped there. It's the equivalent of an archaeologist going into a tomb and finding babies," he said.

The quick passage of time elsewhere in the solar system, however, threatens the mission.

Pluto orbits the sun in about 250 years, and it came closest to the star — and Earth — around 1989. Now, the tiny planet is zipping back out away again, becoming more distant, dim and cold.

Another planet, Jupiter, will be in a perfect spot to "slingshot" a spacecraft launched from Earth between 2004 and 2006. Without Jupiter's gravitational boost, researchers would have to design an entirely new power system for the spacecraft. That would take years, Stern frets.

And it will be 2016 before the planet is in the right place again — Stern would be 59.

"I won't be leading the project," he said.

Pluto deserves attention now, when a small spacecraft with a few cameras, imagers and samplers can be sent relatively easily, he insisted.

"And it's been years since NASA has gone anywhere new," he complained.

But that argument no longer sways budget bean-counters, said Jay Bergstralh, associate director for solar system exploration with NASA. "Flags and footprints don't sell too well anymore."

Nevertheless, he agreed with Stern that it is important to learn more about Pluto.

"It is the most extreme example of a major planet," Bergstralh said. "It's an ice dwarf, an interesting thing on its own merit. And then it's the largest member of the Kuiper Belt, which, of course, is debris left over from the very earliest history of the solar system."

NASA is part of the executive branch of government, he said, so he effectively works under the White House and could not comment on his bosses' decision to cut the Pluto mission, dubbed New Horizons.

But it's clear that Congress' decision later this summer will seal its fate.

"If Congress won't appropriate $128 million, it will die this year," Bergstralh said.

Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., chairs the Senate subcommittee that decides NASA appropriations. The senator intends to fight fiercely for the project, said Amy Hagovsky, her press secretary.

"She's always been a huge proponent for exploring space, exploring the frontier, for scientific research," Hagovsky said. "Given the opportunity, the timing, she wants to see it happen."

Last year, Mikulski succeeded. In 2001, the Bush administration cut the Pluto project's first year of funding, and Mikulski led the fight to get the money back. Congress approved the additional appropriation, but it was just $30 million that year. This year's $128 million will be harder, Hagovsky said.

A study expected in July could sway the decision. The National Academy of Sciences is writing a report on planetary science priorities, said NASA's Bergstralh.

Contact Katy Human at (303) 473-1364 or humank@thedailycamera.com.

June 2, 2002

E-mail this story to a friend | Printer-friendly version