The Rock From Mars (18 page)

Under the bullet regarding the search for planets around other stars, Huntress had written: “This program has resonated heavily with the public (show TIME cover) without any public announcements at all from the agency. The Federal Government should consider supporting the idea of ‘Origins’ as a principal (Dan—i.e. ‘Kennedy-like?’) goal for the agency. There are no large immediate resource requirements since the program is current technology-limited and investments in technology development will be required before any missions can be launched; sometime early in the next decade.” In plain English, this meant that the Origins program could get started without a large infusion of bucks up front.

Under the heading “Political,” Huntress had noted: “Dan, your call on this one.” He’d added, “The president could play on the popularity of the space program, and the idea of life in outer space (as demonstrated by the current immense popularity of science fiction in print and movies), by recognizing this discovery as one of the most amazing results of his Administration. He could announce that his new Administration after the election will establish a program in NASA to search for life’s origins in this and other solar systems. America will send small inexpensive robotic missions to Mars at every opportunity to follow up on this discovery.”

The idea was to set the stage for the administration to propose starting up the new Origins program.

With guarded excitement, Goldin walked Panetta through the story, beginning with the rock’s discovery in the Antarctic. He kept technical details to a minimum, turning to Huntress just a couple of times for elaboration. Panetta occasionally nodded and said, “Okay, I understand that.” Goldin described NASA’s official posture on the claims as one of “skeptical optimism.”

When Panetta whipped out a yellow legal pad and started taking prodigious notes, Goldin said, “Leon, this is real ‘classified’ stuff. I don’t want it to leak.” He and Panetta agreed that the commitment to
Science
magazine must be kept. They also resolved, however, that if the story leaked to the “legitimate press,” the government should call an immediate press conference because of the taxpayers’ right to accurate knowledge of the results of tax-funded research.

As they were ready to leave, Goldin asked, “Do you think it would be appropriate for me to brief the president?” Panetta had found the story of the rock arresting enough that he turned to an aide and said, “I want the president to know about this right now.” He asked where the president was. The staffer’s answer was “We’re not sure if he’s awake yet, or if he’s had breakfast.”

Panetta told Goldin the president would speak to him right away.

Among White House concerns that day were a decision on the signing of a bill to overhaul welfare; questions surrounding a bomb detonated in the middle of the Olympics in Atlanta and the baffling explosion of TWA Flight 800 over Long Island; reported Democratic fears, as the party conventions were about to begin, that Clinton’s supporters had grown overconfident about his ability to defeat Republican rival Bob Dole in the presidential race; and the need to cope with various legal proceedings stemming from the so-called Clinton scandals.

Whatever else was going on in the world that day, Huntress thought, this piece of news about a fundamental mystery of nature had become a priority.

Goldin and Huntress waited in a hallway for about fifteen minutes after their meeting with Panetta. At about ten
A
.
M
., Panetta reappeared and said, “C’mon. Follow me.” He led the two NASA men into the Oval Office.

For Huntress, it was like being herded somewhere in a dream. If he hadn’t been a scientist, Huntress had always imagined, he would have gone into some history-related profession—and now he felt he was witnessing a truly historic moment.

Bill Clinton stood alone in the Oval Office. Huntress had never met him before and was bowled over by his sheer physical presence. The president was huge. Huntress noticed that Clinton had a bit of that bleary “morning look” in his eyes. But he was impeccably dressed, and there was nothing else about his demeanor that indicated he was still waking up. The president seated himself in a rocking chair in front of the fireplace as Goldin, Huntress, Panetta, and Skip Johns, of the White House science office, took their places on couches.

As Goldin talked about the rock, repeating what he had told Panetta, Huntress could see the president waking up fast. The president’s posture straightened, and his eyes opened wide. It seemed to be dawning on him that this could be big.

The NASA men were impressed by Clinton’s apparent interest. He asked questions about how the discovery had been made, how they could know the rock was from Mars, and whether the primitive life-forms might have evolved into more complex creatures. The meeting went on for thirty minutes. Goldin thought, “My God, this is going into extra innings.”

When they were ready to leave, Clinton said, “The vice president has got to hear this story. Leon, take ’em in to see the vice president.” It was Huntress’s impression that while the president had wanted to be informed about the story, he was delegating to Gore the decisions on what to
do
about it.

At some point during the discussion, Huntress had shown the president a copy of a magazine with a picture of an Antarctic meteorite in it. As they left the Oval Office, Clinton asked, “Can I keep this?” Huntress turned one last time on his way out the door and glanced back over his shoulder. The president was still standing in front of his desk, looking at the magazine.

Panetta ushered the men past a long line of people waiting to see Gore. Clearly some of them were getting impatient, and there was all sorts of hallway grumbling going on. Panetta spoke to Gore’s secretary, and they went right into the vice president’s office. There was no waiting around. Huntress thought this had to be unusual.

The vice president’s West Wing office seemed more spacious than the historic oval. On one wall, the environmentalist Gore had installed a picture of the “full Earth,” the iconic image of the fragile and isolated blue planet snapped by the
Apollo 17
astronauts (the last men on the moon) in 1972.

Gore greeted his visitors, and Goldin said, “I’ve got something to tell you about. We’ve just been to see the president and he asked us to come tell you.” They crossed the room and sat on couches around Gore’s fireplace. Goldin delivered his revelations for the third time that morning. “Wait a minute,” Gore asked. “Our guys, government scientists, did this?” Their impromptu meeting lasted some forty-five minutes.

Gore peppered them with technical questions. Both NASA men were impressed by Gore’s ease with the subject. The vice president (who was routinely accused of outwonking the wonks, and who some thought was better suited to a professor’s life than a politician’s) asked about the age of the meteorite, when the purported Martian microbes would have been alive, and how that related to the initial bombardment of both Mars and Earth. He asked about the relative conditions that would have existed on Earth and Mars at that time. Goldin answered those questions. Other questions he turned over to Huntress: whether this life-form, if it existed, could have evolved on Mars, how the McKay group’s result related to the Viking experiments of the 1970s, and what this new evidence in combination with the Viking results might mean for the possibility of current life on Mars.

Gore then asked what actions might be taken, what all of this might mean for the future. Huntress was ready with the “origins” pitch. Gore seemed to know about the recent discoveries involving life in extreme environments and pushed for more information about how the evidence in the rock fit in with this emerging picture of “microbial diversity.”

Huntress continued to be amazed by the appreciation both the president and the vice president exhibited for this kind of science and the overall struggle to approach fundamental questions. Goldin, years later, when the Clinton administration was out of power and he himself was on his way out as NASA administrator, would say of these exchanges at the White House, “I’m good. I know stuff. But I gotta tell you, these guys had a depth of knowledge. . . . They took me to deep places. It blew me away.”

At some point in the meeting, Goldin and Panetta broached the politics. They told the vice president there were two issues. One involved the process by which the information would be released. They expressed their concern about what could happen if it leaked prematurely, and wondered “whether we should jump the gun on it ourselves to make sure there’s no problems here and the right story gets out.”

The vice president responded, instantly, “Follow
Science
’s process. Do not make this a political issue. Do not ever make this a political issue. This is a scientific discovery.”

Goldin then told Gore about the timing conflict with the Republican convention. Imagine, he said, if the headlines the next morning are about possible life in a Mars rock instead of “Bob Dole Is Nominated.” The administration could be accused of timing this to detract from Dole.

Gore said, “Don’t even worry about it. Don’t worry about it.” And he repeated: “We cannot make this a political issue.” The politics, it seemed, had all been dealt with—and dismissed in a flash.

Goldin and Huntress exchanged looks of relief. They were impressed. They hadn’t been sure they would get the right answer. This was the right answer.

As soon as he had finished his presentation to the vice president, Goldin tried to reach McKay and Gibson. Neither man was in.

McKay was at home, taking out the garbage, when he got a call from his secretary. The White House was on the line; was it okay to give out his home number? McKay soon found himself talking to the NASA administrator, flanked by Wes Huntress. In the course of this call and a later one the same day, Goldin instructed McKay to get himself and Gibson to Washington right away.

Huntress had met Gibson once but didn’t know McKay. The book on them at this point, his deputies told him, was that they were well-respected members of the geochemists’ tribe, they had done a lot of work with meteorites, and they had one of the world’s best instruments to work with. The only real knock against them was that they were at a NASA center instead of a university. The NASA officials themselves were aware of a widespread perception in scientific circles that if you were at a NASA center, you must not be as good a scientist as somebody at a university. But McKay et al. had university collaborators coauthoring their
Science
paper. They even had Dick Zare from Stanford, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a heavy hitter.

The next morning, McKay and Gibson met with Huntress and other brass and went over the
Science
manuscript, the arrangements for the public announcement, and other issues. When they threw their images on the table, a commotion erupted. “Oh, my God . . . !”

The visiting Texans had been scheduled for a thirty-minute meeting with Goldin, but Goldin sent word that he would need them longer. He would clear his schedule. At two-thirty that afternoon, the visitors took the elevator to the top floor, carrying their written material and pictures with them. Huntress and Laurie Boeder positioned themselves in the back of the room. Huntress felt like a mentor whose students were explaining their research to a Ph.D. examiner.

Goldin allowed McKay and Gibson roughly fifteen minutes to summarize their findings their own way. Then Goldin went to work with his psychological dentist’s drill. The inquisition ended at around five-thirty with the visiting team limping exhaustedly out of the room. Huntress remarked to McKay and Gibson, “You know, he put you two guys through a Ph.D. orals examination.”

Gibson, for one, emerged from the three-hour grilling with a much higher opinion of the feared NASA administrator than the second- and thirdhand impressions he had gone in with. As the session ended, Goldin made a gesture that was turning into something of a personal trademark, an impetuous act that expressed his emotional, sentimental side in stark (and perhaps usefully disorienting) contrast to his harsh, aggressive side. He startled McKay, as he had other visitors on occasion, by asking, “Can I give you a hug?”

Chris Romanek, on his sabbatical from the South Carolina lab, was still at the Houston space center, helping to put the finishing touches on the
Science
paper. That day in Building 31 he went to find Gibson only to discover he was missing, along with McKay. “Where’d they go?” he asked an assistant, who replied, “Uh, they flew up to Washington, D.C., for, like, a double-secret meeting.”

When McKay and Gibson got back, Romanek thought they each looked like they’d lost fifteen pounds. And he noticed they were wearing pagers.

Goldin felt satisfied that the claims—and the claimants—were ready for prime time. Since he had become NASA chief, Goldin had made a point of criticizing the tendency of some at NASA to wallow in Apollo-era nostalgia. The workforce seemed to break down into two groups: those who clung to the past, yearning for the “good old days,” and those who wanted to “start writing history instead of reading it.” It wasn’t gray hair he objected to, Goldin liked to say: “It’s gray minds.”

Now the Houston guys had presented Goldin with a glimmering of evidence that could launch a big revival of public interest in space exploration. It could help the agency start writing history once again.

Immediately after Goldin and Huntress had made their rounds at the White House, someone passed the news on to President Clinton’s close friend and political adviser Dick Morris. Morris had engineered a comeback for Clinton years earlier, as a young Arkansas governor, and in 1994, once again, the president had turned to him for help in rehabilitating his image after humiliating losses in Congress at the hands of the Newt Gingrich–led Republicans.

Morris was the resident Rasputin, a shadowy and influential political mystic with a certain ideological flexibility. He had worked for some of Clinton’s staunchest opponents in Congress. Surfacing back in the Clinton camp, and initially known to the White House staff only by the code name “Charlie,” he secretly helped the president devise a “family values” campaign to take back from the Republicans an issue they had owned for decades.