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Q: What do you think is the meaning of the Stardust mission?
Stardust is in the truest spirit of a Discovery mission. These were the faster, better, cheaper missions that were built in the 1990s. We understand that these are very hard to do, and we are going into more detailed development of our future missions, but Stardust worked, and it worked very well in this faster, better, cheaper environment. That is special.
Stardust was the first sample-return mission launched since the Apollo days. For close to 30 years, we had no sample-return missions. Its goal was to reach back 4.5 billion years in time. These particles have been trapped in a deep freeze out on the outer edges of our solar system. They have not changed since our solar system formed. We have these particles in our hands now, and we can see exactly what the building blocks of our solar system, the sun, the planets and we ourselves are made of. We can see what they were like at the beginning of our solar system.

Q: What do you think of the low-cost NASA Discovery program?
There were several missions in addition to Stardust: the Lunar Prospector, Pathfinder [to Mars] and NEAR [Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous]. The projects were able to stay low-cost and still deliver good science, but we became more and more ambitious. Still within low cost, we wanted to try to push the envelope even further. We were at the edges of the envelope for success on these first missions. But we pushed the envelope more and more, where we were too close to failure. So NASA has reevaluated the position of faster, better, cheaper, and is putting more realism into the programs now. We would like to continue making successful achievements with the experience and knowledge we have gained.
Q: You were involved in the Russian Phobos mission. What do you think of Russian technology in planetary exploration? Do you have any plans to collaborate with Russia in the future?
I had as thrilling an experience as I have just had with Stardust in working with the Soviets in the 1980s on their Phobos mission to Mars. That was close to 20 years ago. So if we look at the technology we use today compared to back then, we can not make a comparison. Two decades have gone by. However, it was thrilling to work with a space agency back then that could send six tons to Mars. We typically send one or two tons of spacecraft and landers and rovers to Mars, but in the 1980s, the Soviets were able to send a six-ton spacecraft. It was quite a capable system they had then.
European Mars Explorer Mars Express
European Mars Explorer Mars Express(Courtesy of ESA)
Since the demise of that mission in 1996, both the Russians and U.S. scientists are now working with the Europeans. The Europeans have the Mars Express Orbiter, which has been in orbit for a few years, since December 2003. This international cooperation with the Europeans is excellent, and the Russians have a plan to go back to Phobos in 2009. They hope to have a sample-return mission, and if they continue on that path, I know that myself and many other American and European scientists hope to be one team again in 2009.

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