How was the Phoenix Mission born?

In the mid to late ’90s, at Dan Goldin’s insistence, what was then called the Human Exploration program at HQ and the Science Office put together a joint mission to Mars scheduled for launch in 2001. It was a lander mission based on a second copy of the Mars Polar Lander (scheduled for 1998). It had an interesting payload that included instruments selected for relevance to human exploration (including MECA and an oxygen production unit). Dr. Chris McKay had been on the committee that had helped develop the plan for this mission and was a supporter of the mission and the connection to human exploration. Dr. Chris McKay had no direct involvement in any of the instruments selected. None of the instruments on which Dr. Chris McKay was a P.I. or a Co-I. were selected.

When Polar Lander crashed in 1998, NASA HQ understandably canceled the 2001 mission, since it was based on the same lander.

Forward to 2002 and the first call for ideas for a Scout mission to Mars. NASA held a workshop in Pasadena to hear ideas for Scout missions and promised to provide seed funding for a few selected ideas.

Carol Stoker and Dr. Chris McKay thought it would be useful to push the 2001 lander concept. We proposed a Scout mission called Ameba. Here is our summary:
“Ameba is an integrated lander mission that would complement the 2007 lander to investigate the chemical, geological and biological properties of the Martian dust characterize the environment on Mars, and collect data relevant to future robotic and human exploration mission. The existing 2001 lander and its existing soil-analysis instruments form the baseline payload. The following basic questions will be answered by Ameba at low cost and with reduced mission risk: Are there any indications of carbon chemistry and oxidants relevant to life? Are there geological signs that Mars had significant quantities of surface water, or hydrothermal activity? What are the mineralogical and mechanical properties of the dust? How will the soil interact with living organisms? What are the radiation and electrostatic properties of the environment that may be detrimental to life?”

Peter Smith and Mike Hecht were Co-I’s, NASA Ames was the lead institution and would manage the mission, and Dr. Chris McKay was the P.I. At the time of this review of Scout ideas, the word within NASA was HQ would “never let the 2001 lander fly.” Many people thought they were wasting our time trying to reuse that hardware and those instruments.

We were not selected for seed funding at this point, but NASA Ames agreed to provide us with in-house support to develop a proposal for the real Scout competition.

However, soon after the real Scout competition started it was clear that HQ was deciding that essentially all planetary missions would have to be managed by JPL. (In fact the four Scouts selected a year later for further study were all JPL managed). In light of this, Carol and Dr. Chris McKay had a meeting to review the prospects for Ameba and concluded that it had no chance of being selected with an Ames lead. We (correctly) concluded that the only way the 2001 lander would fly again if it was proposed with a highly qualified and experienced member of the original 2001 team as P.I. and with JPL as the managing institution. Peter Smith was the obvious choice. We both know Peter well and we just called him up and had a three-way teleconference, and Peter agreed to be the P.I. Peter did several important things that made the proposal successful: He steered the science rationale into line with the selection criterion combining parts of the 2001 and 1998 landers, he worked effectively with the instrument teams and JPL, and he presented the mission to HQ. The rest, as they say, is history.