To Europa, as Required by Law

Originally published in Field Report (Volume 2).

John Culberson served in the U.S. House of Representatives from January 3, 2001 to January 3, 2019. He’s a Republican, and he represented the 7th district of Texas, in West Houston, where he grew up.

Imagine the artifacts from his time in Congress piled in his study. In boxes: letters sent and received, speeches, internal memos, notes, draft documents, newspaper articles, and Congressional Record transcripts.

Eighteen years serving Texas in the U.S. Congress. How do you make sense of all of that? There are clues on the shelves.

On his shelves there are the photos and recognitions. Of course there are the photos of visitors, graciously received in Washington, from the likes of the Texas Restaurant Association and the Houston Apartment Association. Hosting them and accepting their recognitions is a part of a congressman’s job.

But look at the other, more prominently displayed photos, and notice the pattern. Photos of tours and meetings at the National Institute for Standards and Technology, the Port of Houston, Boeing, the Johnson Space Center, DEA headquarters, Houston International Airport, and NASA Langley; receiving visitors from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and the FBI; accepting NASA’s Distinguished Public Service Medal and the Science Coalition’s Champion of Science Award; announcing a “grand bargain” with Houston METRO and city leaders; and shaking hands with Speaker Ryan over the Hurricane Harvey relief bill.

The organizations in the photos reflected his governing portfolio. Culberson was the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, and Science. It’s possible that you didn’t know that job existed, but it’s a pretty important one. His subcommittee oversees the budget of the Justice Department (hence the FBI and DEA), the Commerce Department (hence the transportation, standards, and trade themes), and various science and technology agencies including NASA.

And in the background of photos taken in the sitting room of his office is the biggest clue into the true meaning of his tenure in Congress: a poster in the style of a retro-futurist travel ad, with the big white letters - “EUROPA”.

To truly understand Culberson’s time in Congress, you have to know that he was 15 years old at the time of the first moon mission. That mission moved him as deeply as anything has in his life. And at that age, sitting alone in his parents’ living room, he baptized himself into the cult of Apollo. In that moment, he let a dream into his heart, that he would carry all his life, to carry forward the noble cause of mankind’s exploration of space. And when he learned, in adulthood, that a moon of Jupiter - Europa - was likely to have enormous oceans under its ice, he realized that there was alien life on Europa and God had chosen him to find it. But how?

They say that when you know your ‘why’ you can suffer any ‘how’. But some ‘how’s will lead to success, and others will lead to failure. The purpose of zealotry is to give you strength on the march. To plot the path requires realism. The challenge for Culberson was that no one taught him how to get a payload to Europa. There were many wrong paths and few right ones.

He could have been an astronaut, so that when they send a mission to Europa, he could pilot it. Or so that he could contribute to space exploration in other ways, then use his prestige as an astronaut to advocate for Europa missions. He says that his eyeglasses prescription closed this path to him, but he surely knew that flight crews don’t set mission objectives.

He could have been an engineer, so that when they send a mission to Europa, he could build the spacecraft. He could have become the head of Jet Propulsion Laboratories or Boeing. It’s true that the Europa missions need engineers, and the recommendations of those engineers shape the contours of the mission plan. But JPL doesn’t greenlight missions, they execute them.

He could have been an aerospace entrepreneur. But he ballparked the cost of a Europa mission and realized it could never be privately funded. And the only organization in the world capable of developing the spacecraft required was and is Jet Propulsion Laboratories, and they only do work for the U.S. government.

He could have become the top planetary scientist, astrobiologist, or astronomer at Harvard (or, better for his purpose, Rockefeller University). He could have started a podcast and written a book. But he understood that the support of scientists alone would fall short.

He could have become privately wealthy and used his means to lobby for the mission. But while whole industries can secure billions for their parochial interests, most observers agree that no individual has that power - except those in Congress.

In reality, there were many paths to success, but they all ran through the Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, and Science in the U.S. House of Representatives. Culberson recognized this.

So Culberson decided to aim for Congress. He found his path - the only path that could work. It would be a long path. He would spend decades waiting. Many key factors would be out of his control. He knew that he might not succeed, but he decided to try anyway.

He studied history, then law. While in law school, in 1987, he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives (which is a part-time job). After law school, he continued to serve in the state legislature while working as a civil defense attorney. All the time, he was waiting for the opportunity to run for Congress.

He had to wait 12 years. In 1999, the incumbent for the 7th district of Texas retired. Culberson ran and won the seat.

The critical next step was to get on the Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, and Science. His committee assignment was not his choice - it was up to his party’s leader, Tom DeLay.

Culberson had some factors going for him. There were 221 Republicans in the House that year, and every one of them wanted something from DeLay. But Culberson was helped by the fact that he and DeLay were both Texans. His district was large, wealthy, and home to many of the top Republican donors in Texas. And it was located in Houston, a major commercial hub known for science and technology in space, medicine, and energy. And Culberson always made fiscal conservatism a keystone of his political brand - essential for a Republican who wants on Appropriations. Culberson asked to be put on Commerce, Justice, and Science, and he got it.

The longest-serving committee member, whose party is in the majority, is usually the committee’s chair. The chair controls the committee through their authority to set the agenda, direct committee staff, select witnesses, and preside over meetings. As a freshman member, Culberson had little power to influence the subcommittee’s work.

Early on, Culberson authorized a Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, but NASA administrator Mike Griffin was not supportive. In 2006, Griffin canceled the mission and reappropriated those dollars to the International Space Station. Culberson didn’t yet have the power for Europa.

Culberson waited on that subcommittee for 14 years. For 14 years, he devoted himself to the daily task of being a good Congressman. He didn’t have the “EUROPA” poster on his wall in those days. And if his colleagues noticed the nervous energy that he put into his work, or the unusual look in his eyes, how one squinched while the other burned and sparkled, they didn’t guess it was because he was animated by a dream he let into his heart as a boy.

In 2013, there was good news. Europa was listed prominently as an exploration target in the prestigious Decadal Survey. Culberson’s fellow travelers, his conspirators of the soul, who had taken the professorial path, had come through. They gave him the firepower he needed.

That year, he put the first $75 million towards Europa. The next year, $80 million. In 2015, Culberson was now the chairman - another $100 million. During this time, he met frequently with leaders at Jet Propulsion Laboratories to help plan the mission. That year, he told a Science reporter, “I know in my heart that there is life on other worlds, and that we will most likely discover it in the oceans of Europa”.

Things were moving too slowly. In 2016, Culberson authorized a second mission to land on Europa, after JPL convinced him that including a lander on the first orbiter was infeasible. A landing mission in parallel with a first orbit mission was unprecedented. And Europa was starting to cost real money - another $175 million that year. So Culberson made a concession to the only man whose NASA ambit overlapped with his, his Senate counterpart, Richard Shelby of Alabama.

Sen. Shelby had a problem. Huntsville, Alabama’s Marshall Space Flight Center was developing the Space Launch System, NASA’s next generation super heavy-lift launch vehicle, but struggling to find nearer-term uncrewed missions ambitious enough to make use of the SLS’s super heavy-lift capacity. They agreed that the Europa mission would launch on SLS.

Culberson faced another obstacle - the persistent resistance of NASA to the Europa mission. Reflecting on 2006, Culberson told a reporter, “when [NASA Administrator] Mike Griffin canceled the Europa mission last decade, it scarred me so badly, I swore I wouldn’t let the bureaucrats cancel this mission again. So, today, the Europa orbiter and lander is the only mission it is still illegal for NASA not to fly.” He required NASA to include a five year proposal for Europa in their next budget request.

In April 2018, one of Culberson’s subcommittee colleagues was made NASA Administrator. An ally was in place, and finally NASA’s resistance was broken. The next month, NASA first began accepting proposals for scientific instruments to include on the Europa lander, a key step in building the buy-in of the scientific community for the lander. That year, Culberson gave $595 million for Europa.

Then in November, Culberson lost re-election. The district he grew up in, that was his platform for national power for 18 years, had drifted leftward. After losing re-election, he said in a committee meeting that it had “always been in my heart, from the time I was a kid, to make this mission happen. I knew that this mission could make a civilization-level discovery if it works as we hope it will.”

Culberson had only left to hope that he’d done enough in the time that he had. The Europa mission would have to survive on institutional momentum, the aid of mission supporters who remained in positions of influence, and its rightness.

The orbiter, Europa Clipper, was already far along, just a few months away from final design and fabrication. Clipper would make it through. In 2021, after years of controversy, NASA announced that the Falcon Heavy would replace the SLS as the launch vehicle for the Europa mission. Clipper is scheduled to launch in October of 2024 and will reach Europa in 2030 to confirm and characterize the oceans beneath its ice and to identify future landing sites.

But without Culberson as chairman, the lander has drifted to NASA’s backburner. In 2018, NASA’s Outer Planets Assessment Group conspicuously omitted to designate the lander mission as high-priority. In 2019, NASA’s Inspector General published a report detailing the insurmountable challenges involved in launching the Europa Lander by the 2024 deadline.

Almost certainly, the lander will be delayed until Clipper begins its reconnaissance of Europa in 2030. But the mission still lives. Sooner or later, America will land a craft on Europa, as required by law.