The Discovery Program: Competition, Innovation, and Risk in Planetary Exploration

Abstract

When the Office of Space Science at NASA created the Discovery program in 1993–1994, it was a milestone in lowering the cost of robotic space-science missions. The competitive selection of Principal Investigator–led spacecraft proposals inverted the relationship between NASA centers and mission scientists. The winning Principal Investigator would be completely responsible for delivering the science and the successful mission under a cost cap defined in the program, which was funded as a line in NASA’s budget, rather than one mission at a time. Innovative and risky management approaches were favored. Discovery was the marquee project of Administrator Daniel Goldin’s “faster, better, cheaper” approach. However, after the failures of two Mars spacecraft in 1999 (outside the program) and CONTOUR in 2001 (inside it), that risk-taking approach faltered in the face of political criticism. Overruns and technical crises in Discovery projects (notably MESSENGER, Dawn, and Kepler) further bolstered risk-averse tendencies at NASA, increasing bureaucracy, raising cost, and making flights less frequent. Yet the program has delivered many spectacular successes in solar system exploration on a lean budget (like Mars Pathfinder, Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, Stardust, and Deep Impact) and has inspired the reform or creation of other programs on the competitive model (like Explorer, New Frontiers, and Mars Scout). It demonstrates that competition can work to reduce cost and increase innovation at NASA. (Michael J. Neufeld)