Lessons to Learn: JPL and The Competition

Competitive posturing?

But Krimigis is no less enthusiastic about the capabilities of his technology house. And while he agrees that JPL's sheer size makes it best-suited for certain large, complex missions, he's clear that he's not planning to play second fiddle on any mission he deems suitable.

A case in point is the Pluto mission, which has yet to receive a go-ahead but has been winnowed down to two bidders. Guess which two?

"I think that both organizations have strengths and, obviously, weaknesses, but on any one project both organizations could bring a lot of expertise to bear," Krimigis said. "We also aspire to missions that are very, very difficult to do."

McCurdy, the NASA historian, thinks there might be some corporate-like posturing at play. JPL is the clear leader in Mars missions, with a long-term plan to pave the way for human exploration. And JPL has a host of successes and failures in trying to reach the Red Planet, which all add up to a bank of experience that will make it difficult for APL or anyone to get in on the Mars game.

But some in the space industry expect that the first humans to go beyond the Moon will not go to Mars, but rather to an asteroid. Such a mission would serve as a deep-space training ground for eventual travel to the Red Planet.

"The people at Hopkins may be betting that the future is in comet and asteroid rendezvous rather than Mars missions," McCurdy said. My guess is that each group thinks that [its focus] is going to be the wave of the future."

JPL'S STRUCTURE

JPL is operated by the California Institute of Technology, a relatively small (just 2,000 students) but heady university that has produced 22 Nobel laureates. One of these Nobel prize winners is David Baltimore, Caltech's president. So it was Baltimore who announced in January that Charles Elachi would take over as JPL director this past May 1. Elachi, in his new role, also serves as a vice president of Caltech.

Elachi immediately changed the management structure of JPL. He realigned offices responsible for JPL's missions in solar system exploration, Earth sciences, and astronomy and physics into four new offices:

Solar System Exploration Programs Directorate (Firouz M. Naderi)
Planetary Flight Projects Directorate (Chris P. Jones)
Astronomy and Physics Directorate (Larry L. Simmons)
Earth Science and Technology Directorate (Diane L. Evans)

The head of each directorate sits on Elachi's Executive Council. Other new executive-level positions:

Associate director for flight projects and mission success
(Thomas R. Gavin)
Chief technologist (Barbara A. Wilson)

INSIDE JPL

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"These steps are intended to simplify JPL's structure and position us to remain the leader in robotic space exploration and meet the challenges of the next century," said Elachi.