National Academies Press: OpenBook

Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009 (2010)

Chapter: 5 Summaries of Major Reports

« Previous: 4 Workshops, Symposia, Meetings of Experts, and Other Special Projects
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

5
Summaries of Major Reports

This chapter reprints the summaries of reports that were released in 2009 (note that the official publication date may be 2010).

One report was released in 2008 but published in 2009—Launching Science: Science Opportunities Provided by NASA’s Constellation System was reprinted in Space Studies Board Annual Report—2008.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

5.1
America’s Future in Space: Aligning the Civil Space Program with National Needs

A Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Rationale and Goals of the U.S. Civil Space Program

Summary

From its inception in 1958, much of the U.S. space program was driven by opportunities to serve national interests in a geopolitical environment heavily colored by Cold War threats and fears. Originally, the true potential of space activities was largely speculative. In the ensuing decades, however, early expectations for discovery and technological accomplishment have been richly exceeded. Without a doubt, the first 50 years of the space age have been transformative. Astronauts have stood on Earth’s moon while millions watched. Commercial communications and remote sensing satellites have become part of the basic infrastructure of the world. Satellites support worldwide communications, providing a critical backbone for commerce—carrying billions of global financial transactions daily, for example. Direct broadcasting beams television signals into homes globally, delivering images that bring unprecedented awareness of events occurring throughout the world. Military global positioning satellites provide ubiquitous signals that support a stunning variety of services, from assisting in the navigation of civilian airplanes, shipping, and automobiles to transmitting timing signals that enable cell phone and power grid switching. Remote sensing satellites obtain high-resolution images of Earth’s surface, available now on the Internet for people worldwide to view and use, and provide critical information to monitor changes in our climate and their effects.

Our understanding of every aspect of the cosmos has been profoundly altered, and in the view of many, we stand once again at the brink of a new era. Space observations have mapped the remnant radiation from the Big Bang that began our universe. We have discovered that the expansion of the universe continues to accelerate, driven by a force that we do not yet understand, and that there are large amounts of matter in the universe that we cannot yet observe. We have seen galaxies forming at the beginning of the universe and stars forming in our own galaxy. We have explored the wonders that abound in our solar system and have found locations where life might have occurred or might even now be present. We have discovered planets around other stars, so many that it is ever more likely that there are other Earths comparable to our own.

What will the next 50 years bring? Today we live in a globalized world of societies and nations characterized by intertwined economies, trade commitments, and international security agreements. Mutual dependencies are much more pervasive and important than ever before. Many of the pressing problems that now require our best efforts to understand and resolve—from terrorism to climate change to demand for energy—are also global in nature and must be addressed through mutual worldwide action. In the judgment of the Committee on the Rationale and Goals of the U.S. Civil Space Program, the ability to operate from, through, and in space will be a key component of potential solutions to 21st-century challenges. As it has before, with the necessary alignment to achieve clearly articulated national priorities, the U.S. civil space1 program can serve the nation effectively in this new and demanding environment.

In its initial discussions, the committee concluded that debates about the direction of the civil space program have too often focused on addressing near-term problems and issues without first putting those issues in the context of how a disciplined space program can serve larger national imperatives. In the committee’s view, characterizing the top-level goals of the civil space program and the connection between those goals and broad national priorities is necessary as a foundation on which the nation (both now and in the future) can devise sustainable solutions to nearer-term issues. Therefore, the committee focused on the long-term, strategic value of the U.S. civil space program, and its report does not address nearer-term issues that affect the conduct of U.S. space activities other than to provide a context in which more tactical decisions might be made.

NOTE: “Summary” reprinted from America’s Future in Space: Aligning the Civil Space Program with National Needs, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2009, pp. 1-8.

1

The committee considered “civil space” to include all government, commercial, academic, and private space activities not directly intended for military or intelligence use.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

The national priorities that informed the committee’s thinking include ensuring national security, providing clean and affordable energy, protecting the environment now and for future generations, educating an engaged citizenry and a capable workforce for the 21st century, sustaining global economic competitiveness, and working internationally to build a safer, more sustainable world. A common element across all these urgent priorities is the significant part that research and development can play in solving problems and advancing the national enterprise in each area. Instruments in space have documented an accelerating decline in arctic sea ice; mapped the circulation of the world’s oceans; enabled the creation of quantitative three-dimensional data sets to improve the quality of hurricane forecasting; and created new tools to address a host of agricultural, coastal, and urban resource management problems, to cite only a few examples. Such capabilities demonstrate what can be achieved when technologically challenging space problems stimulate innovation that leads to long-term advances with applications beyond the space sector. Civil space activities are central to the R&D enterprise of the nation, often in a transformational way, and thus present powerful opportunities to help address major national objectives.

Observations from space offering unique capabilities for global environmental and land-use monitoring are essential to informed decision making about energy production and climate change policies, and they help provide the understanding required for wise management. The high visibility of space activities attracts students’ attention to science, technology, and mathematics, and space activities are an exciting focus for teaching those subjects. Commercial space-related ventures now figure significantly in global economic competitiveness, and, while government investments to stimulate the nation’s fragile economy will have short-term impacts, R&D investments can be counted on to make longer-term sustainable contributions to the nation’s economic strength. As has countless times proved the case, research in and from space will continue to lead to important future, and not always currently predictable, benefits that hold the promise of progress toward realizing U.S. as well as shared international goals.

The committee’s overall conclusion is that a preeminent U.S. civil space program with strengths and capabilities aligned for tackling widely acknowledged national challenges—environmental, economic, and strategic—is a national imperative today, and will continue to grow in importance in the future.

GOALS FOR THE CIVIL SPACE PROGRAM

Structured and supported to match multiple responsibilities in serving key national objectives, the U.S. civil space program should be preeminent in the sense that it can influence, by example, nations’ use of space. To be a strategic leader in a globalized world requires that the United States have a civil space program whose breadth, competence, and level of accomplishment ensure that U.S. leadership is demonstrated, accepted, and welcomed.

The committee identified six strategic goals that it regards as basic for guiding program choices and resources planning for U.S. civil space activities. The goals all serve the national interest, and steady progress in achieving each of them is necessary.

  • To reestablish leadership for the protection of Earth and its inhabitants through the use of space research and technology. The key global perspective enabled by space observations is critical to monitoring climate change and testing climate models, managing Earth resources, and mitigating risks associated with natural phenomena such as severe weather and asteroids.

  • To sustain U.S. leadership in science by seeking knowledge of the universe and searching for life beyond Earth. Space offers a multitude of critical opportunities, unavailable in Earth-based laboratories, to extend our knowledge of the local and distant universe and to search for life beyond Earth.

  • To expand the frontiers of human activities in space. Human spaceflight continues to challenge technology, utilize unique human capabilities, bring global prestige, and excite the public’s imagination. Space provides almost limitless opportunities for extending the human experience to new frontiers.

  • To provide technological, economic, and societal benefits that contribute solutions to the nation’s most pressing problems. Space activities provide economic opportunities, stimulate innovation, and support services that improve the quality of life. U.S. economic competitiveness is directly affected by our ability to perform in this sector and the many sectors enabled and supported by space activities.

  • To inspire current and future generations. U.S. civil space activities, built on a legacy of spectacular achievements, should continue to inspire the public and also serve to attract future generations of scientists and engineers.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
  • To enhance U.S. global strategic leadership through leadership in civil space activities. Because of the growing strategic importance of space, all nations that aspire to global political and economic leadership in the 21st century are increasing their space-faring capabilities. Continued U.S. global leadership is tied to continued U.S. leadership in space.

FOUNDATIONAL ELEMENTS

To contribute to realizing critical national objectives, including those just listed, the U.S. space program, both the civil and the national security components, must have a strong foundation and adequate resources. While the breadth of the civil space program has grown, there is also a sense that the program has been unfocused, with corresponding impacts on the organizations and institutions that support it. The United States can no longer pursue space activities on the assumption of its unchallengeable dominance—as evidenced by the view of other nations that the United States is not the only, or in some cases even the best, option for space partnerships. U.S. leadership in space activities and their capacity to serve urgent national needs must be based on preeminent technical capabilities; ingenuity, entrepreneurialism, and a willingness to take risks; and recognition of mutual interdependencies. The time has come to reassess, and, in some cases, reinvent the institutions, workforce, infrastructure, and technology base for U.S. space activities.

The committee identified four foundational elements critical to a purposeful, effective, strategic U.S. space program, without which U.S. space efforts will lack robustness, realism, sustainability, and affordability.

  1. Coordinated national strategies—implementing national space policy coherently across all civilian agencies in support of national needs and priorities and aligning attention to shared interests of civil and national security space activities;

  2. A competent technical workforce—sufficient in size, talent, and experience to address difficult and pressing challenges;

  3. An effectively sized and structured infrastructure—realizing synergy from the public and private sectors and from international partnerships; and

  4. A priority investment in technology and innovation—strengthening and sustaining the U.S. capacity to meet national needs through transformational advances.

Efforts to establish each of these elements to ensure a strong foundation for the nation’s civil space program must overcome several impediments. The issues include a loss of focus on national imperatives, overly constrained resources, inadequate coordination across the federal government, missed opportunities to transition roles from government-led to private-sector-provided services, obstacles to international cooperation, weakened institutional partnerships, and lack of emphasis on advanced technology development programs. Awareness of such issues—and not an effort to resolve specific instances—guided the committee in its development of recommendations to NASA, NOAA, and the federal government at the highest levels.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The committee found that, in spite of their promise and utility, components of the civil space program are not always aligned to fully capitalize on opportunities to serve the larger national interest. Decisions about civil space priorities, strategies, and programs, and the resources to achieve them, are not always made with a conscious view toward their linkages to broader national interests. Accordingly, the committee recommends as follows:

  1. Addressing national imperatives. Emphasis should be placed on aligning space program capabilities with current high-priority national imperatives, including those where space is not traditionally considered. The U.S. civil space program has long demonstrated a capacity to effectively serve U.S. national interests.

    Recommendation 1 provides a broad policy basis on which the committee’s subsequent specific recommendations rest. The recommendations that follow address a set of actions, all of which are necessary to strengthen the U.S. civil space program and reinforce or enhance the contributions of civil space activities to broader national objectives.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
  1. Climate and environmental monitoring. NASA and NOAA should lead the formation of an international satellite-observing architecture capable of monitoring global climate change and its consequences and support the research needed to interpret and understand the data in time for meaningful policy decisions by

    1. Reversing the deterioration of the U.S. Earth observation infrastructure;

    2. Developing and implementing a plan for achieving and sustaining global Earth observations;

    3. Working with the international community to develop an integrated database for sensor information from all Earth-monitoring satellites;

    4. Aggressively pursuing technology development for future high-priority Earth observation missions; and

    5. Actively planning for transitions to continue demonstrably useful research observations on a sustained, or operational, basis.

  1. Scientific inquiry. NASA, in cooperation with other agencies and international partners, should continue to lead a program of scientific exploration and discovery that

    1. Seizes opportunities to advance understanding of Earth, the objects of the solar system, including the Sun, and the vast universe beyond;

    2. Includes searches for evidence of life beyond Earth;

    3. Contributes to understanding how the universe works, who we are, where we came from, and what is the destiny of our star—the Sun—our solar system, and the universe, and of the physical laws that govern them; and

    4. Is guided by peer review, advisory committees, and the priorities articulated by the science communities in their strategic planning reports, such as the NRC’s decadal surveys.2

  1. Advanced space technology. NASA should revitalize its advanced technology development program by establishing a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)-like organization within NASA as a priority mission area to support preeminent civil, national security (if dual-use), and commercial space programs. The resulting program should

    1. Be organizationally independent of major development programs;

    2. Serve all civil space customers, including the commercial sector;

    3. Conduct an extensive assessment of the current state and potential of civil space technology; and

    4. Conduct cutting-edge fundamental research in support of the nation’s space technology base.

  1. International cooperation. The government, under White House leadership, should pursue international cooperation in space proactively as a means to advance U.S. strategic leadership and meet national and mutual international goals by

    1. Expanding international partnerships in studies of global change;

    2. Leading an effort in which the United States and other major space-faring nations cooperate to develop rules for a robust space operating regime that ensures that space becomes a more productive global commons for science, commerce, and other activities;

    3. Rationalizing export controls so as to ensure ongoing prevention of inappropriate transfer of sensitive technologies to adversaries while eliminating barriers to international cooperation and commerce that do not contribute effectively to national security;

    4. Expanding international partnerships in the use of the International Space Station (ISS);

    5. Continuing international cooperation in scientific research and human space exploration;

    6. Engaging the nations of the developing world in educating and training their citizens to take advantage of space technology for sustainable development; and

    7. Supporting the interchange of international scholars and students.

2

 The NRC decadal surveys have been widely used by the scientific community and by program decision makers because they (a) present explicit, consensus priorities for the most important, potentially revolutionary science that should be undertaken within the span of a decade; (b) develop priorities for future investments in research facilities, space missions, and/or supporting programs; (c) rank competing opportunities and ideas and clearly indicate which ones are of higher or lower priority in terms of the timing, risk, and cost of their implementation; and (d) make the difficult adverse decisions about other meritorious ideas that cannot be accommodated within realistically available resources.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
  1. Human spaceflight. NASA should be on the leading edge of actively pursuing human spaceflight, to extend the human experience into new frontiers, challenge technology, bring global prestige, and excite the public’s imagination. These goals should be accomplished by

    1. Setting challenging objectives that advance the frontier, scientific and technological understanding, and the state of the art;

    2. Establishing clear goals for each step in a sequence of human spaceflight missions beyond low Earth orbit that will develop techniques and hardware that can be used in a next step further outward;

    3. Focusing use of the ISS on advancing capabilities for human space exploration;

    4. Using human spaceflight to enhance the U.S. soft power leadership by inviting emerging economic powers to join with us in human spaceflight adventures.

National space policy too often has been implemented in a stovepipe fashion that makes it difficult to recognize connections between space activities and pressing national challenges. Often, senior policy makers with broad portfolios have not been able to take the time to consider the space program in the broader national context. Rather, policies have been translated into programs by setting budget levels and then expecting agencies to manage to those budgets. The committee believes that the process of aligning roles and responsibilities for space activities, making resource commitments, and coordinating across departments and agencies needs to be carried out at a sufficiently high level so that decisions are made from the perspective of addressing the larger national issues whose resolution space activities can help achieve. How this process is accomplished might change from administration to administration, but the need for an approach that will elevate attention to the proper level remains essential.

  1. Organizing to meet national needs. The President of the United States should task senior executive-branch officials to align agency and department strategies; identify gaps or shortfalls in policy coverage, policy implementation, and resource allocation; and identify new opportunities for space-based endeavors that will help to address the goals of both the U.S. civil and national security space programs.

    The effort should include the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and should consider the following elements:

    1. Coordinating budgetary guidance across federal departments and agencies involved in space activities;

    2. Coordinating responsibility and accountability for resource allocations for common services and/or infrastructure;

    3. Coordinating responsibility and accountability for stimulating, nurturing, and sustaining a robust space industrial base, including the commercial space industry;

    4. Coordinating responsibility and accountability for initiatives to recruit and develop a competent aerospace workforce of sufficient size and talent, anticipating future needs;

    5. Identifying, developing, and coordinating initiatives to address long-range technological needs for future programs;

    6. Identifying, developing, and coordinating initiatives to establish and strengthen international space relationships;

    7. Harmonizing the roles and responsibilities of federal agencies to eliminate gaps and unnecessary duplication in the nation’s space portfolio; and

    8. Regularly reviewing coordinated national space strategies and their success in implementing overall national space policy.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

5.2
Approaches to Future Space Cooperation and Competition in a Globalizing World: Summary of a Workshop

James V. Zimmerman, Rapporteur

Summary

With the end of the Cold War, space and Earth science research and space exploration were no longer dominated by competition between two superpowers. Numerous countries and regions now have very active space programs, and the number is increasing. These maturing capabilities around the world create a plethora of potential partners for cooperative space endeavors, while at the same time heightening competitiveness in the international space arena. In assessing the effectiveness of specific past and present cooperation or coordination mechanisms and in seeking to determine how best to proceed in the future, it is important to recognize that the world has become more globalized.

International cooperation and coordination on both a bilateral and multilateral basis have played a significant role in civil space activities since the beginning of the space age. Generally speaking, cooperation involves two or more countries working together, each contributing to the execution of a single mission. Coordination involves two or more countries that keep each other apprised of their activities in order to minimize duplication of effort and to obtain the maximum return through complementary activities. International cooperation and coordination have occurred extensively in Earth and space science research, Earth applications from space, human spaceflight and microgravity science, and to a lesser extent satellite telecommunications, satellite navigation, and launchers.

Currently, most space-faring nations have space-related aspirations that exceed the resources available to them individually. At the same time, more countries are working to enter the field. Thus, it is appropriate to review the models for international cooperation and coordination that have or have not worked in the past to identify the most effective approaches for the future, including how best to involve nations with an emerging space capability. There are also lessons to be learned from the competitive space arena that may have relevance to developing future modes of cooperation.

In opening the November 2008 workshop, Space Studies Board chair Charles Kennel noted that the ongoing globalization in today’s world and the current global financial crisis have implications for space. He expressed the opinion that the international order is going to be restructured, with major shifts in international relationships that will impact space. In his view there will therefore be a need for the space community to respond by working to develop a global approach to space.

While the workshop’s charge covered both cooperation and competition, workshop discussions tended to focus more on cooperation, given the backgrounds of the majority of participants.

WORKSHOP PLENARY DISCUSSIONS

Following keynote presentations by former NOAA administrator Conrad Lautenbacher, entitled “Scientific and Technological Cooperation and Competition in a Globalizing World” (Appendix D), and historian Roger Launius of the National Air and Space Museum, entitled “Governmental Space Cooperation and Competition During and After the Cold War—Lessons Learned” (Appendix E), the workshop moved to panel sessions with four panels addressing different aspects of space cooperation and competition.

The first panel on lessons learned from previous cooperative efforts emphasized space and Earth science cooperation, with the International Space Station (ISS) as one model; the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), seen as a space cooperation inhibitor; and international cooperation within the commercial sector.

The second panel discussed lessons learned from past and present competitive activities. Speakers were drawn from commercial launch services and commercial remote sensing sectors.

NOTE: “Summary” reprinted from Approaches to Future Space Cooperation and Competition in a Globalizing World: Summary of a Workshop, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2009, pp. 1-5.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

The third panel addressed space and national security. Major issues that surfaced related to ITAR, attitudes of the U.S. Congress with regard to international cooperation, and the implications of seeking to engage China in future cooperative space activities.

The fourth panel focused on the potential offered by space cooperation as a tool for the engagement of new and emerging space nations. Particular emphasis was placed on continuing activities within the Global Exploration Strategy/International Space Exploration Coordination Group, U.S.-Japanese space cooperation, and China’s emergence as a major space power.

Following panel presentations, workshop participants collectively discussed the issues raised.

WORKSHOP DISCUSSION GROUPS

Following the plenary discussions, workshop participants were divided into four parallel discussion groups that were each given one of the following topics to address:

  • International space cooperation as a tool for engagement with emerging space power,

  • The role of international cooperation in the future of space exploration,

  • The role of Earth observations in supporting international efforts in climate and sustainability, and

  • New approaches to global space cooperation in a time of limited resources.

The views of discussion group participants were reported back to the final plenary session and are summarized below. They do not represent consensus findings or conclusions on the part of the National Research Council, the Space Studies Board, the workshop as a whole, or any other group.

Engaging New and Emerging Space Powers in International Cooperation

The discussion group on engaging new and emerging space powers in international cooperation observed that new and emerging space powers may desire to cooperate with the United States on space projects for a variety of reasons including:

  • Enhancement of their prestige;

  • Acceleration of their economic and technical development; and

  • Greater access to knowledge, experience, and technology.

From a U.S. perspective, the group identified benefits from collaboration that included:

  • Support for U.S. foreign-policy goals;

  • Increased access to key decision makers;

  • Insight into capabilities, approaches, and plans;

  • Identification of new ideas and new technologies;

  • Reduction in U.S. costs; and

  • Expansion of instrument flight opportunities and data analysis capabilities.

Opportunities for the Future

One particularly valuable effort, the group suggested, could involve the convening of forums through which existing space powers could engage in dialogue with new and emerging space powers. Such forums could provide opportunities to:

  • Improve mutual understanding of capabilities, programs, and plans,

  • Assess the current state of cooperation,

  • Identify potential collaborative programs,

  • Recommend promising mechanisms for continued joint consultations,

  • Promote open participation, and

  • Develop personal and institutional relationships.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

The discussion group members, including participants from Europe and Japan, noted that the Space Studies Board might wish to consider implementing such forums and to do so in a collaborative fashion that involves the European Space Science Committee and a counterpart organization in Japan.

International Cooperation in the Future of Space Exploration

Participants in the discussion group on international cooperation in the future of space exploration observed that with the world becoming increasingly interdependent, space activities need to be conducted in a manner consistent with this reality. For international space activities to offer maximum benefits, they must be conducted in genuine partnerships, where benefits flow to all partners and interdependency underlies the relationships.

The discussion group members also observed that increased space collaboration can provide broad benefits to the United States by making space a routine place for all nations to operate (thereby enhancing the security of space assets), by expanding the economic sphere into space, and by demonstrating that the United States is a cooperative society desiring to work productively with all nations (which could improve the U.S. image).

Opportunities for the Future

The workshop group identified a number of steps that could be taken into account by the United States as it pursues future space exploration projects. These include:

  • Assessing cooperative opportunities on their merits instead of excluding “critical path” roles for potential partners as a matter of policy;

  • Developing a workforce (at all levels) capable of and interested in working on international programs; and

  • Recognizing that U.S. partners need to be able to demonstrate the political and economic benefits of collaboration to the same extent as the United States.

The group observed that the ISS program offers opportunities for engaging new and emerging space powers with human spaceflight capabilities and/or interests. China presents a unique opportunity in this regard, the group observed. They added that if the station becomes a tool for engagement, then ISS operations would necessarily have to be extended beyond 2016—a step could provide greater opportunities for current ISS partners to achieve acceptable returns on investments. The consequences of expanding the ISS partnership to include China and the potential impact on NASA of continuing the program beyond 2016 engendered considerable discussion during the workshop, including the broader political context of U.S. engagement with China and the impact on other NASA program areas.

International Cooperation in Support of Climate Change and Sustainability

Initial discussions in the workshop discussion group on international cooperation in support of climate change and sustainability concerned a redefinition of its title and mandate. The group decided that the topic should be “the role of Earth observations in supporting international efforts in climate change and sustainability,” which would be more consistent with overall workshop objectives. They observed that:

  • Global warming is unequivocal and human actions are contributing to abrupt and irreversible climate changes and impacts;

  • Earth observations are national and global imperatives that are fundamental to monitoring and understanding climate change, achieving sustainability, and protecting our economy and society; and

  • Climate monitoring requires timely access and quality controlled, continuous measurements of the Earth system.

Opportunities for the Future

The workshop group then elaborated a number of potential “paths forward” in international cooperation which included:

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
  • Allocating the necessary resources to establish a national Earth observing system, including vital research and operational elements, as part of a comprehensive global effort;

  • Continuing to provide U.S. leadership and support to the Group on Earth Observations (GEO),1

  • Engaging other GEO member nations to provide adequate resources for space-based Earth-observation systems;

  • Supporting expanded GEO principles for full and open exchange of national data sets;

  • Pursuing, through the Committee on Earth Observations Satellites (CEOS), a global architecture for continuity and coherence of space segment data sets that includes, for example, virtual satellite constellations from multiple providers;

  • Encouraging, through GEO and CEOS among others, nations to promote open utilization of remote sensing data;

  • Seeking improved communications between GEO and industry through establishment of a mechanism for industry representation in GEO; and

  • Making the public aware of impending challenges posed by and consequences expected from global change as well as the necessity of space-based Earth observations to address those challenges.

Approaches to International Cooperation in a Time of Limited Resources

The group discussing approaches to international cooperation in a time of limited resources initially considered several factors that might influence future approaches to global space cooperation and coordination, including the following:

  • Additional country partners (e.g., China, India, and other countries),

  • New potential sponsors (philanthropic and military organizations),

  • New opportunities (e.g., space solar power and participatory technologies), and

  • Threats (e.g., global climate change and asteroids).

They noted that today’s global environment is different from the past. The growth of space capabilities around the world, including those of new players, means that it is not always clear which country is dominant in a particular sphere of space activity.

Opportunities for the Future

The group reviewed various current and prospective models for international space cooperation, including the “benchmark” bilateral or multilateral government-to-government cooperation, and the advantages and disadvantages were noted. The group also discussed the potential for collaboration through public/private utilities (such as INTELSAT), military alliances, and philanthropic initiatives.

Group participants noted that cooperation initiatives that are based on clear threats (e.g., near Earth objects and climate change) might be better served through the establishment of treaty-based collaborative mechanisms. They also noted three questions that merit further consideration, perhaps as discussion topics in a future Space Studies Board workshop:

  • How will emerging space companies, philanthropic initiatives, and so on, interact with traditional organizations pursuing space cooperation?

  • How will participatory technologies2 be incorporated into space collaboration efforts?

  • Can evolutionary paths and approaches lead to better outcomes for space cooperation (e.g., could the ISS program evolve into a treaty organization and eventually into a public/private utility)?

1

See http://www.earthobservations.org/.

2

“Participatory technologies” refers to the popular Google Sky, Google Mars, and other examples of technological tools used as a means of “seeing” space and “almost being there,” from the three-dimensionality of the Google visualization. It also refers to opportunities to see images sent by the cameras on rovers such as Spirit and Opportunity—you can use your computer and pan around for different camera angles. In the future, perhaps people will be able to propose where they would like a rover to go and virtually “drive it” from their computer. In short, people could virtually be in space.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS

During the final workshop plenary session each of the participants offered concluding observations focused on the following themes:

  • Pursuing a dialogue and exploring new opportunities to cooperate with new and emerging space powers.

  • Identifying roles for civil space programs that contribute to broader national goals (space cooperation offers unique opportunities in this regard, several participants noted);

  • Engaging youth in the pursuit of space cooperation;

  • Modifying the U.S. approach to leadership; and

  • Revising ITAR regulations to make them more efficient and effective.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

5.3
Assessment of Planetary Protection Requirements for Mars Sample Return Missions

A Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Review of Planetary Protection Requirements for Mars Sample Return Missions

Summary

NASA maintains a planetary protection policy to avoid the forward biological contamination of other worlds by terrestrial organisms, and back biological contamination of Earth from the return of extraterrestrial materials by spaceflight missions. Forward-contamination issues related to Mars missions were addressed in a 2006 report of the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Space Studies Board (SSB), Preventing the Forward Contamination of Mars.1 However, it has been more than 10 years since back-contamination issues were last examined.

Driven by a renewed interest in Mars sample return missions, this report reviews, updates, and replaces the planetary protection conclusions and recommendations contained in the NRC’s 1997 report Mars Sample Return: Issues and Recommendations.2 It is the understanding of the Committee on the Review of Planetary Protection Requirements for Mars Sample Return Missions that its conclusions and recommendations will be developed at the tactical level by subsequent groups specifically charged with the development of implementable protocols for the collection, handling, transfer, quarantine, and release of martian samples. This is the approach that was taken by NASA after its receipt of the 1997 Mars report. Indeed, the development of broad strategic guidelines by SSB committees and the subsequent development of tactical plans for their implementation by NASA committees is a general approach that has served the space-science community well for most of the past 50 years.

The specific issues addressed in this report include the following:

  • The potential for living entities to be included in samples returned from Mars;

  • Scientific investigations that should be conducted to reduce uncertainty in the above assessment;

  • The potential for large-scale effects on Earth’s environment by any returned entity released to the environment;

  • Criteria for intentional sample release, taking note of current and anticipated regulatory frameworks; and

  • The status of technological measures that could be taken on a mission to prevent the inadvertent release of a returned sample into Earth’s biosphere.

IMPORTANCE OF MARS SAMPLE RETURN

A sample-return mission is acknowledged to be a major next step in the exploration of Mars because it can address so many high-priority science goals. The NRC’s 2003 solar system exploration decadal survey, for example, highlighted three areas where unambiguous answers to key science issues are unlikely without a sample return mission:3

  • The search for life;

  • Geochemical studies and age dating; and

  • Understanding of climate and coupled atmosphere-surface-interior processes.

Returning samples to Earth is desirable for a number of reasons, including the following:

  • Complex sample-preparation issues relating to some high-priority activities are more readily tackled in terrestrial laboratories than they are by robotic means on Mars;

NOTE: “Summary” reprinted from Assessment of Planetary Protection Requirements for Mars Sample Return Missions, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2009, pp. 1-8.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
  • Instrumentation that is not amenable to spacecraft application because of its bulk, mass, or power requirements can be used on Earth to analyze samples; and

  • A greater diversity of instruments can be used on Earth to study samples than can be packaged to fit within the confines of any one robotic spacecraft or series of spacecraft, including instruments that were not available when the sample-return mission was launched.

REPORT ORGANIZATION

Since the purpose of this document is to revise, update, and replace the NRC’s 1997 report Mars Sample Return: Issues and Recommendations, it is most logical to organize it around the basic question, What has changed since the release of the 1997 report?

Changes is scientific understanding can be summarized in the following manner:

  • New insights on the roles played by surface and subsurface water throughout martian history and the potential for habitable environments on Mars—Chapter 2;

  • Advances in microbial ecology that illuminate the limits of adaptability of life on Earth—Chapter 3;

  • New understanding of the physical and chemical mechanisms by which evidence of life might be preserved on Mars and how that life might be detected in martian samples—Chapter 4; and

  • New understanding of pathogenesis and the nature of biological epidemics, as well as additional insights as to the possibility that viable martian organisms might be transported to Earth by meteorites—Chapter 5.

The changes in the technical and/or policy environment can be organized as follows:

  • A significant expansion of the size of the Mars exploration community and broadening of the scope of mission activities by both traditional and new space powers—Chapter 2;

  • Greater societal awareness of the potential for technical activities to cause harmful changes in the global environment—Chapter 5;

  • The de facto internationalization of a Mars sample return mission and subsequent sample-handling, sample-processing, sample-analysis, and sample-archiving policies—Chapter 6;

  • The drafting and publication by NASA, with the assistance of international partners, of initial Mars sample-handling and biohazard-testing protocols based on the recommendations in the NRC’s 1997 Mars report—Chapter 6;

  • The development of nondestructive methods of analysis that can be used to map the microscale spatial distribution of minerals and biological elements in samples—Chapter 6; and

  • The proliferation of biocontainment facilities driven by biosecurity concerns and associated changes in public policy and with public acceptance of such facilities—Chapter 7; and

  • Lessons learned about the practical and logistical aspects of Mars sample return from experience with the Genesis and Stardust missions as well as experience gained from the planning for and commissioning of new biocontainment facilities—Chapter 7.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The committee’s conclusions and recommendations are organized according to the task outlined in the charge it was given by NASA.

The Potential for Living Entities in Samples Returned from Mars

The assessment of martian habitability made by the authors of the NRC’s 1997 Mars report led them to recommend that: “Samples returned from Mars by spacecraft should be contained and treated as though potentially hazardous until proven otherwise. No uncontained martian materials, including spacecraft surfaces that have been exposed to the martian environment, should be returned to Earth unless sterilized” (p. 3).

The present committee finds that the knowledge gained from both orbital and landed missions conducted over the last decade, combined with findings from studies of martian meteorites, has enhanced the possibility

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

that habitable environments were once widespread over the surface of Mars. In addition, the potential for modern habitable environments, both as transient surface environments and as stable habitats in the deep subsurface, is much better understood.

Understanding the range of environmental conditions to which terrestrial life has adapted has directly shaped current views of martian habitability and the potential for samples returned from Mars to contain evidence of life. A substantial and growing body of evidence shows that life not only is present but also frequently thrives under extreme environmental conditions. Consideration of advances in microbial ecology over the past decade led the committee to reach the following conclusions:

  • Biological studies have continued to expand the known environmental limits for life and have led to the discovery of novel organisms and ecosystems on Earth;

  • Some living species on Earth have been shown to survive under conditions of extreme radiation, subfreezing temperatures, high salinity, extremely high and low pH, and cycles of hydration to dehydration present on Mars today;

  • The discovery, in deep subsurface environments on Earth, of microbial ecosystems that are able to survive on inorganic sources of energy has greatly enhanced the potential for chemoautotrophic life in subsurface environments on Mars; and

  • Studies have confirmed the potential for the long-term viability of terrestrial microorganisms sequestered in deposits of some extreme terrestrial environments (e.g., ices and evaporates) that have high relevance for Mars exploration.

Advances in the knowledge of environmental conditions on Mars today and in the past, combined with advances in understanding of the environmental limits of life, reinforce the possibility that living entities could be present in samples returned from Mars. Therefore, the committee concurs with and expands on the 1997 recommendation that no uncontained martian materials should be returned to Earth unless sterilized.


Recommendation: Based on current knowledge of past and present habitability of Mars, NASA should continue to maintain a strong and conservative program of planetary protection for Mars sample return. That is, samples returned from Mars by spacecraft should be contained and treated as though potentially hazardous until proven otherwise. No uncontained martian materials, including spacecraft surfaces that have been exposed to the martian environment, should be returned to Earth unless sterilized.

The Potential for Large-Scale Effects on Earth’s Environment

A key issue of concern is the possibility that a putative martian organism inadvertently released from containment could produce large-scale negative pathogenic effects in humans, or could have a destructive impact on Earth’s ecological systems or environments.

The committee concurs with the basic conclusion of the NRC’s 1997 Mars study that the potential risks of large-scale effects arising from the intentional return of martian materials to Earth are primarily those associated with replicating biological entities, rather than toxic effects attributed to microbes, their cellular structures, or extracellular products. Therefore, the focus of attention should be placed on the potential for pathogenic-infectious diseases, or negative ecological effects on Earth’s environments. Like the 1997 committee, the present committee finds that the potential for large-scale negative effects on Earth’s inhabitants or environments by a returned martian life form appears to be low, but is not demonstrably zero.

A related issue concerns the natural introduction of martian materials to Earth’s environment in the form of martian meteorites. Although exchanges of essentially unaltered crustal materials have occurred routinely throughout the history of Earth and Mars, it is not known whether a putative martian microorganism could survive ejection, transit, and impact delivery to Earth or would be sterilized by shock pressure heating during ejection or by radiation damage accumulated during transit. Likewise, it is not possible to assess past or future negative impacts caused by the delivery of putative extraterrestrial life, based on present evidence.

Thus, the conclusion reached from assessment of large-scale effects resulting from intentional and natural sample return is that a conservative approach to both containment and test protocols remains the most appropriate response.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Scientific Investigations to Reduce Uncertainties

Uncertainties in the current assessment of martian habitability and the potential for the inclusion of living entities in samples returned from Mars might be reduced by continuing activities in the following general areas: spacecraft missions to Mars, combined with related laboratory, theoretical, and modeling activities; investigations of the ecological diversity and environmental extremes of terrestrial life; geobiological studies of both modern and ancient Mars-relevant environments on Earth, with particular emphasis on biosignature preservation; and studies relating to the interplanetary transport of viable organisms.

The committee finds that the following activities are particularly relevant to reducing uncertainties:

  • Remote-sensing and in situ exploration of Mars with the goal of answering questions relating to martian habitability, including those concerned with the presence of water in surface and subsurface environments through time, the distribution of biogenic elements, and the availability of redox-based energy sources (e.g., those based on the oxidation of ferrous iron and reduced sulfur compounds);

  • Studies of martian meteorites to help refine understanding of the history of interactions of Mars’s rock-water-atmosphere system throughout the planet’s history;

  • Studies of the metabolic diversity and environmental limits of microbial life on Earth;

  • Studies of the nature and potential for biosignature preservation in a wide range of Mars-analog materials on Earth;

  • Investigations of the prolonged viability of microorganisms in geological materials;

  • Evaluation of the impacts of post-depositional (diagenetic) processes (deep burial, impact shock, sub-freezing temperatures) on the long-term retention of biosignatures in ancient geological materials;

  • Determination of reliable criteria for the definitive identification of biosignatures in ancient materials;

  • Assessment of the potential for impact-mediated interchanges of viable organisms between Earth and Mars;

  • Development of laboratory-based and in situ analytical approaches for biosignature analysis.

Criteria for Intentional Sample Release

There is a broad consensus in the scientific community that samples collected on Mars and returned to Earth must be contained and treated as potentially biologically hazardous until they are declared safe for release from containment by applying recommended protocols, including rigorous physical and chemical characterization, life detection analyses, and biohazard testing. It is important to emphasize that the high level of containment recommended for the handling and testing of martian samples is based on a deliberate decision to adopt a conservative approach to planetary protection and is not because of the anticipated nature of pristine martian materials or organisms. If anything, however, the discoveries over the past decade about environmental conditions on Mars today and in the past and about terrestrial extremophiles have supported an enhanced potential for the presence of liquid water habitats and, perhaps, microbial life on Mars. Thus it is appropriate to continue this conservative approach.

A factor that could potentially complicate the policies and protocols relating to sample containment and biohazard evaluation is the de facto internationalization of a Mars sample return mission. All serious planning for Mars sample return is founded on the premise that the scope, complexity, and cost of such a mission are beyond the likely resources of any one space agency. Although no major issues have arisen to date, the international interest in of Mars sample return raises the possibility that differences in national policies and legal frameworks of concerned parties might complicate issues relating to sample quarantine and biohazard certification.

Changes to the requirements for sample containment or criteria for sample release were issues of concern in the NRC’s 1997 report Mars Sample Return, which recommended that: “The planetary protection measures adopted for the first Mars sample-return mission should not be relaxed for subsequent missions without thorough scientific review and concurrence by an appropriate independent oversight body” (p. 4). The present committee concurs with the spirit of that recommendation, with three provisos: first, that the protocols for sample containment, handling, testing, and release be articulated in advance of Mars sample return; second, that the protocols be reviewed regularly to update them to reflect the newest standards; and third, that international partners be involved in the articulation and review of the protocols.


Recommendation: Detailed protocols for sample containment, handling, and testing, including criteria for release from a sample-receiving facility (SRF), should be clearly articulated in advance of Mars sample return.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

The protocols should be reviewed periodically as part of the ongoing SRF oversight process that will incorporate new laboratory findings and advances in analytical methods and containment technologies. International partners involved with the implementation of a Mars sample return mission should be a party to all necessary consultations, deliberations, and reviews.


The NRC’s 1997 Mars report recommended that: “Controlled distribution of unsterilized materials returned from Mars should occur only if rigorous analyses determine that the materials do not contain a biological hazard. If any portion of the sample is removed from containment prior to completion of these analyses, it must … be sterilized” (p. 4). Subsequent NRC and NASA reports have made related, but in some cases conflicting, statements. Irrespective of these conflicts, there are critical issues concerning the selection of the aliquots for biohazard testing and the nature of the tests to be employed.

The discussion of advances in geobiology and biosignature detection in Chapter 4 raises the possibility that viable organisms might be preserved over a prolonged span of time within certain geological deposits. The discussion in Chapter 6 led the committee to conclude that the distribution of extant and fossil organisms and biomolecules in rocks, soils, and ices is heterogeneous at microscopic scales of observation, and this heterogeneity requires careful consideration because it complicates the selection of representative aliquots for biohazards testing.


Recommendation: Future protocol guidelines should carefully consider the problems of sample heterogeneity in developing strategies for life detection analyses and biohazards testing in order to avoid sampling errors and false negatives.


The limited amount of material likely to be returned from Mars demands that nondestructive means of analysis be employed to the maximum extent possible in sample characterization and biohazards testing.


Recommendation: The best nondestructive methods must be identified for mapping the microscale spatial distributions of minerals, microstructures, and biologically important elements within returned martian samples.


It is highly likely that many of the appropriate nondestructive methods will require the use of techniques that cannot feasibly be implemented within the confines of an SRF. Thus, a critical issue concerns the design of secondary containers for transporting samples to outside laboratory facilities where they can be analyzed (under containment) using advanced analytic techniques.


Recommendation: Sample characterization in laboratories outside the primary sample-receiving facility will require the design of secondary containers for safely transporting samples and interfacing with a potentially wider variety of instruments.

Technological Measures to Prevent the Inadvertent Release of Returned Samples

Planetary protection considerations require that martian materials be securely contained within a sample canister for their journey from Mars, through their collection and retrieval on Earth, and in subsequent transport and confinement in an SRF. With respect to the journey from Mars to an SRF, the NRC’s 1997 Mars report concluded that the integrity of the seal of the sample canister should be verified and monitored during all phases of a Mars sample return mission. The present committee found this requirement to be overly prescriptive. Establishing the technical means to verify containment has proven to be a stumbling block in past mission studies. Elaborate steps must be taken to guarantee that the sample canister is sealed at every stage of its journey from Mars to an SRF. Resources might be better spent in simply improving containment (e.g., by using multiple seals) rather than designing elaborate means of monitoring. The first priority should be to ensure that the samples remain reliably contained until opened in an SRF. The means by which this result is achieved will best be determined by those designing the implementation of a Mars sample return mission.


Recommendation: The canister(s) containing material returned from Mars should remain sealed during all mission phases (launch, cruise, re-entry, and landing) through transport to a sample-receiving facility where it (they) can be opened under strict containment.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

No facility currently exists that combines all of the characteristics required for an SRF. However, the committee found that there is a long, well-documented history of both the successful biocontainment of pathogenic and infectious organisms and a capability for maintaining the scientific integrity of extraterrestrial and planetary materials. Thus, the committee concluded that the requirement for handling and testing returned martian materials in a single facility combining both biocontainment and integrity-maintaining functions is both appropriate and technically feasible, albeit challenging.

The NRC’s 1997 Mars report contained a four-part recommendation relating to various aspects of the establishment and operation of an SRF. The first part concerned the need for such a facility: “A research facility for receiving, containing, and processing returned samples should be established as soon as possible after serious planning for a Mars sample-return mission has begun” (p. 5). Although the present committee supports the intent of this recommendation, it emphasizes that the initiation of planning for an SRF must also include the initiation of planning for, and development of, the activities that will take place there.


Recommendation: Because of the lengthy time needed for the complex development of a sample-receiving facility (SRF) and its associated biohazard-test protocol, instrumentation, and operations, planning for an SRF should be included in the earliest phases of the Mars sample return mission.


The second part of the 1997 recommendation discussed the timescale for the establishment of an SRF: “At a minimum the facility should be operational at least 2 years prior to launch [of a Mars sample return mission]” (p. 5). The phrase “2 years prior to launch” is ambiguous because it could imply launch from Earth or launch from Mars. More specificity is needed as to the duration of the SRF’s running-in period and the activities to be undertaken during that period. Recent experience with the design, construction, and/or commissioning of new BSL-4 facilities in the United States and overseas suggests that a 2-year running-in period is too optimistic. Facilities may become “operational” at BSL-2 or BSL-3 levels 2 years after completion but do not become fully operational as BSL-4 facilities for several additional years. Thus, it is essential to specify that an SRF be fully operational at least 2 years prior to the return of samples to Earth.


Recommendation: Construction and commissioning of a sample-receiving facility should be completed and fully operational at least 2 years prior to the return of samples to Earth, in order to allow ample time for integrated testing of the facility, the overall test protocol, and instrumentation well in advance of receiving returned martian materials.


The third part of the 1997 recommendation concerned the roles and responsibilities of an SRF’s staff: “The facility should be staffed by a multidisciplinary team of scientists responsible for the development and validation of procedures for detection, preliminary characterization, and containment of organisms (living, dead, or fossil) in returned samples and for sample sterilization” (p. 5). The present committee concurs with this recommendation.


Recommendation: A sample-receiving facility should employ multidisciplinary teams of scientists to develop, validate, and perform a rigorous battery of tests that will be used to determine whether and when unsterilized materials returned from Mars may be approved for controlled distribution, or full release from containment.


The final part of the NRC’s 1997 recommendation concerning an SRF dealt with scientific oversight: “An advisory panel of scientists should be constituted with oversight responsibilities for the facility” (p. 5). The committee concurs with this recommendation, but in addition recommends including technical issues relating to an SRF within the oversight committee’s terms of reference. The oversight committee’s independence should also be specified.


Recommendation: An independent science and technical advisory committee should be constituted with oversight responsibilities for materials returned by a Mars sample return mission.

Related Issues

Two additional important issues not specifically related to an SRF concern independent oversight of planetary protection policies and public engagement in activities related to Mars sample return.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

The NRC’s 1997 Mars report saw a need for high-level oversight of all planetary protection requirements associated with Mars sample return: “A panel of experts, including representatives of relevant governmental and scientific bodies, should be established as soon as possible once serious planning for a Mars sample-return mission has begun, to coordinate regulatory responsibilities and to advise NASA on the implementation of planetary protection measures for sample-return missions. The panel should be in place at least 1 year prior to the establishment of the sample-receiving facility (i.e., at least 3 years prior to launch)” (pp. 5-6).

The committee does not believe that this recommendation is appropriate given the potential conflicts between planetary protection concerns and scientific or operational issues inherent in NASA’s current advisory structure—i.e., with the Planetary Protection Subcommittee (PPS) reporting to the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) via the NAC’s Science Committee. There is a critical need for the PPS, or its equivalent, and the NASA planetary protection officer to be formally situated within NASA in a way that will allow for the verification and certification of adherence to all planetary protection requirements at each stage of a Mars sample return mission, including launch, re-entry and landing, transport to an SRF, sample testing, and sample distribution. Clear lines of accountability and authority at the appropriate levels within NASA should be established for both the PPS (or an equivalent group) and the planetary protection officer, in order to maintain accountability and avoid any conflict of interest with science and mission efforts.


Recommendation: To ensure independent oversight throughout the lengthy and complex process of planning and implementing a Mars sample return mission, planetary protection policy and regulatory oversight for all aspects of sample return should be provided by both the Planetary Protection Subcommittee (or an equivalent group) and the NASA planetary protection officer, each having suitable authority and accountability at an appropriate administrative level within NASA.


Finally, the NRC’s 1997 Mars report recommended that: “Throughout any sample-return program, the public should be openly informed of plans, activities, results, and associated issues” (p. 6). The present committee concurs with this recommendation and believes that it is also important to explicitly extend the policy of openness to encompass both the sample-return mission and the construction, testing, and operation of an SRF.


Recommendation: The public should be informed about all aspects of Mars sample return, beginning with the earliest stages of mission planning and continuing throughout construction, testing, and operation of a sample-receiving facility.

NOTES

  

1. National Research Council, Preventing the Forward Contamination of Mars, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2006.

  

2. National Research Council, Mars Sample Return: Issues and Recommendations, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1997.

  

3. National Research Council, New Frontiers in the Solar System: An Integrated Exploration Strategy, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2003, pp. 198-199.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

5.4
An Enabling Foundation for NASA’s Earth and Space Missions

A Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Role and Scope of Mission-Enabling Activities in NASA’s Space and Earth Science Missions

Summary

NASA’s space and Earth science missions have achieved an extraordinary record of accomplishments during the 50-year history of the space age. Spacecraft have provided in-depth, global observations of Earth’s land surface, biosphere, cryosphere, oceans, and atmosphere; unraveled many mysteries about the behavior of the Sun and its influence on Earth and other solar system bodies; explored planets, comets, and asteroids and approached the region where the solar system interacts with the local interstellar medium; and carried astronomical observatories above Earth’s atmosphere to permit studies of the cosmos across the full electromagnetic spectrum. Much of the success of these spaceflight missions has been due to an underlying foundation of mission-enabling research and technology. Mission-enabling activities have framed the scientific questions on which plans for the flight missions have been based; developed advanced technologies that have made new, complex missions feasible; provided supporting terrestrial facilities and observations necessary to complement and interpret spaceflight data; and synthesized and translated the data from spaceflight missions into new scientific understanding.

In 2007 Congress called for the National Research Council (NRC) to examine issues regarding balance between mission-enabling activities and spaceflight missions, and this report presents the conclusions of the NRC Committee on the Role and Scope of Mission-Enabling Activities in NASA’s Space and Earth Science Missions, which was organized to undertake that task. The committee defined mission-enabling activities to be the ensemble of non-spaceflight-mission-specific programs that create the scientific and technological expertise and associated infrastructure necessary to define, execute, and benefit from the spaceflight missions. (See Box S.1.) In some cases these activities can lead directly to significant scientific accomplishments that advance the strategic goals of NASA without being linked to a spaceflight mission. All of these activities are managed by four science divisions—astrophysics, heliophysics, planetary science, and Earth science—within the NASA headquarters Science Mission Directorate (SMD). The same SMD divisions also manage the spaceflight missions for the corresponding scientific discipline areas.

Chapter 1 of this report discusses each of the purposes of mission-enabling activities, relates them to specific elements of SMD’s programs, and provides examples of how mission-enabling activities have contributed to NASA space and Earth science programs. These activities play essential roles in maximizing the scientific return on investment in space and Earth science spaceflight missions and in providing a foundation for an effective and robust program for the future, and they also constitute an integral part of the nation’s overall research and development (R&D) effort. Therefore, the committee’s first major finding and recommendation are as follows:


Finding 1. The mission-enabling activities in SMD—including support for scientific research and research infrastructure, advanced technology development, and scientific and technical workforce development—are fundamentally important to NASA and to the nation.


Recommendation 1. NASA should ensure that SMD mission-enabling activities are linked to the strategic goals of the agency and of SMD and that they are structured so as to

  • Encompass the range and scope of activities needed to support those strategic goals,

  • Provide the broad knowledge base that is the context necessary to interpreting data from spaceflight missions and defining new spaceflight missions,

  • Maximize the scientific return from all spaceflight missions,

  • Supply a continuous flow of new technical capabilities and scientific understanding from mission-enabling activities into new spaceflight missions, and

NOTE: “Summary” reprinted from An Enabling Foundation for NASA’s Earth and Space Missions, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2009, pp. 1-6.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

BOX S.1

Defining Mission-Enabling Activities

NASA’s space and Earth science program comprises two principal components:

  1. Spaceflight projects, including the design, development, launch, and operations of Earth-orbiting and deep-space missions, and

  2. Activities that are not dedicated to a single specific spaceflight mission but that provide a broad enabling foundation for NASA’s scientific spaceflight projects. The committee refers to this latter component as mission-enabling activities.

The principal purposes of mission-enabling activities are to provide

  • A knowledge base that allows NASA and the scientific community to explore new frontiers in research and to identify, define, and design cost-effective space and Earth science missions required to address the strategic goals of the agency;

  • A wide range of technologies that enable NASA and the scientific community to equip and conduct spaceflight missions to pursue the agency’s scientific goals; and

  • A robust, experienced technical workforce to plan, develop, conduct, and utilize the scientific missions.

NASA’s principal programs to accomplish these purposes are as follows:

  • Research projects (especially via the research and analysis grants programs) and special research facilities (including suborbital flight payloads and operations, ground-based telescopes and dedicated laboratories, and high-end computer systems and data archives);

  • Development of advanced sensors, research instruments, and spaceflight mission system technologies;

  • General data analysis (including archival data studies and synthesis of new and/or long-term data sets from multiple spaceflight missions); and

  • Earth science applications (including research to apply NASA Earth science results to fields such as agriculture, ecology, and public health and safety).

  • Enable the healthy scientific and technical workforce needed to conduct NASA’s space and Earth science program.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT

During its review of SMD’s mission-enabling activities the committee identified aspects of current approaches to managing science division research and technology portfolios where proven practices did not appear to be widely or adequately applied and where there appear to be opportunities for improvement so that mission-enabling activities can most effectively fulfill their roles. (See Chapter 2.) An effectively structured program would have the following attributes:

  1. Mission-enabling activities, and the criteria for establishing their priorities and resource allocations, that are clearly traceable to division mission statements and strategic goals.

  2. Portfolio allocations based on systematic criteria and metrics of program effectiveness.

  3. Continual interaction with and assessment by the science community via a well-structured advisory apparatus.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
  1. Transparent budget structure in which all mission-enabling activities are aggregated into visible budget lines so as to facilitate more effective portfolio management decisions and communication about the value and impacts of mission-enabling programs.

  2. Explicit statement of the role of mission-enabling activities in sustaining a capable technical workforce in the overall program strategy.

  3. Adequate staff to devote an appropriate amount of time to the responsibilities of properly managing mission-enabling activities.

PRINCIPLES AND METRICS FOR EFFECTIVE MISSION-ENABLING PORTFOLIOS

The committee was charged to make recommendations regarding portfolio allocation criteria and metrics of program effectiveness. In addressing this task, the central roles of mission-enabling activities enumerated in Recommendation 1 provide the basis for guiding principles to be considered in planning, conducting, and evaluating the program. Workable metrics also need to be framed and applied from the perspective of the following implementation principles:

  1. Investment needs will be different across SMD divisions. Each SMD science division has distinct strategic goals, different kinds of spaceflight missions, and different dependencies on supporting research and data analysis.

  2. Division-level mission statements should clearly articulate the division’s strategic priorities and should provide a rational framework for assessing how the division’s portfolio ensures support for the full range of activities.

  3. Balance between mission-enabling and spaceflight mission portfolios is never rigid. The principle of balance does not mean using a fixed ratio across all programs; it does not mean that all components of an overall program should receive equal funding; and it need not be constant over time.

  4. Programmatic relationships of mission-enabling activities to spaceflight programs should be clearly communicated so that mission-enabling portfolios can be effectively prioritized and managed.

  5. Balance within portfolios requires active management. Determining whether investments are appropriately balanced within schedule and budget constraints to achieve the intended near-, mid-, and far-term goals and objectives requires continuing assessment.

  6. Budget transparency enhances active management by facilitating analysis, advocacy, and stability.

Performance metrics are essential tools for making effective portfolio management decisions. Establishing metrics for each component of mission-enabling activities also helps inform the administration, Congress, and the science community of the purpose of the component and the extent to which it is being successful. Such transparency, when properly established, provides justification for the essential roles of mission-enabling activities in the success of SMD, while also allowing the broad national science community to engage with NASA in providing the most effective mission-enabling program. The committee presents the following template for what should be provided by a metric for each of an SMD division’s mission-enabling activities:

  1. A simple statement of what the component of the mission-enabling activity is intended to accomplish and how it supports the strategic or tactical plans of the division.

  2. A statement as to how the component is to accomplish its task.

  3. An evaluation of the success of the activity relative to the stated mission, unexpected benefits, and lessons learned.

  4. A justification for the resource allocation that is being applied to the component vis-à-vis other mission-enabling activities within the division.

This report discusses examples of how this template could be applied to the different, individual kinds of mission-enabling activities.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
MAXIMIZING PROGRAM EFFECTIVENESS VIA STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

The committee identified several elements of an effective portfolio management approach that NASA officials should consider as they address concerns identified in the committee’s assessment of the mission-enabling programs. The committee’s second and third findings and recommendations address these items.


Finding 2. Adoption of an active portfolio management approach is the key to providing an effective program of mission-enabling activities that will satisfy the intent of this committee’s first finding and recommendation.


Recommendation 2. NASA’s Science Mission Directorate should develop and implement an approach to actively managing its portfolio of mission-enabling activities.

Active portfolio management should include the following elements:

  • Clearly defined science division mission-enabling mission statements, objectives, strategies, and priorities that can be traced back to the overall strategic goals of NASA, SMD, and the division.

  • Flexibility to accommodate differences in the scientific missions and programmatic options that are most appropriate to the different science discipline divisions.

  • Clearly articulated relationships between mission-enabling activities and the ensemble of ongoing and future spaceflight missions that they support.

  • Clear metrics that permit program managers to relate mission-enabling activities to strategic goals, evaluate the effectiveness of mission-enabling activities, and make informed decisions about priorities, programmatic needs, and portfolio balance.

  • Provisions for integrating support for innovative high-risk/high-payoff research and technology, interdisciplinary research, and scientific and technical workforce development into mission-enabling program strategies.

  • Active involvement of the scientific community via an open and robust advisory committee process.

  • Transparent budgets that permit program managers to effectively manage mission-enabling activity portfolios and permit other decision makers and the research community to understand the content of mission-enabling activity programs.

Finding 3. The NASA SMD headquarters scientific and technical staff is not adequately sized to manage mission-enabling activities effectively.


Recommendation 3. NASA should increase the number of scientifically and technically capable program officers so that they can devote an appropriate level of attention to the tasks of actively managing the portfolio of research and technology development that enables a world-class space and Earth science program.


In making this recommendation the committee is convinced that having mission-enabling program managers divide their time between mission-enabling activities and duties related to spaceflight programs is desirable and that management of mission-enabling activities is properly a NASA headquarters, not a NASA field center, function.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

5.5
Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies: Interim Report

A Report of the Ad Hoc Committee to Review Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies

Summary

The United States is currently the only country with an active, government-sponsored effort to detect and track potentially hazardous near-Earth objects (NEOs). At congressional direction, NASA funds several ground-based observatories primarily dedicated to conducting NEO surveys. Several new or proposed observatories with other non-NEO objectives can also contribute to the NEO survey task. Congress has mandated that NASA detect1 and track 90 percent of NEOs that are 1 kilometer in diameter or larger. These objects represent a great potential hazard to life on Earth and could cause global destruction. NASA is close to accomplishing this goal. Congress has more recently mandated that by 2020 NASA should detect and track 90 percent of NEOs that are 140 meters in diameter or larger, a category of objects that is generally recognized to represent a very significant threat to life on Earth if they strike in or near urban areas. Achieving this goal may require the building of one or more additional observatories, possibly including a space-based observatory.

Congress directed NASA to ask the National Research Council to review NASA’s near-Earth object programs. This interim report addresses some of the issues associated with the survey and detection of NEOs. However, the Committee to Review Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies continues its information collection and deliberations and will address a broader range of issues in its final report, due for delivery at the end of 2009. During its study so far, the committee has determined that the issues of survey and detection and characterization2 and mitigation are closely linked and should be addressed as a whole. For example, NEOs detected by ground-based telescopes can be better tracked by the Arecibo Observatory when within its range. Thus this observatory plays a key role in determining physical characteristics of NEOs, important in determining how to mitigate the effects of NEOs on Earth. In part because of this interrelationship, and because the interim report does not address mitigation issues, the committee has deferred proposing an optimum approach to the survey and detection problem until its final report. The final report will contain findings and recommendations for survey and detection, characterization, and mitigation of near-Earth objects based on an integrated assessment of the problem.

This interim report contains five findings:


Finding: Congress has mandated that NASA discover 90 percent of all near-Earth objects 140 meters in diameter or greater by 2020. The administration has not requested and Congress has not appropriated new funds to meet this objective. Only limited facilities are currently involved in this survey/discovery effort, funded by NASA’s existing budget.


Finding: The current near-Earth object surveys cannot meet the goals of the 2005 NASA Authorization Act directing NASA to discover 90 percent of all near-Earth objects 140 meters in diameter or greater by 2020.


Finding: The orbit-fitting capabilities of the Minor Planet Center are more than capable of handling the observations of the congressionally mandated survey as long as staffing needs are met.


Finding: The Arecibo Observatory telescope continues to play a unique role in characterization of NEOs, providing unmatched precision and accuracy in orbit determination and insight into size, shape, surface

NOTE: “Summary” reprinted from Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies: Interim Report, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2009, pp. 1-2.

1

The committee notes that the statement of task uses the term “detect,” but detection includes spotting asteroids that have previously been discovered. The committee therefore uses the more appropriate term “discover” to refer to the locating of previously unknown objects.

2

Characterization of a near-Earth object involves determining its physical characteristics, such as mass, density, porosity, composition, and so on.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

structure, multiplicity, and other physical properties for objects within its declination coverage and detection range.


Finding: The United States is the only country that currently has an operating survey/detection program for discovering near-Earth objects; Canada and Germany are both building spacecraft that may contribute to the discovery of near-Earth objects. However, neither mission will detect fainter or smaller objects than ground-based telescopes can detect.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

5.6
A Performance Assessment of NASA’s Heliophysics Program

A Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Heliophysics Performance Assessment

Summary

Since the 1990s, the pace of discovery in the field of solar and space physics has accelerated, largely owing to prior and continuing NASA investments in its Heliophysics Great Observatory fleet of spacecraft.1 These enable researchers to investigate connections between events on the Sun and in the space environment by combining multiple points of view. The field of solar and space physics comprises the phenomenology and physics of space plasmas and neutral gases, both individually and as coupled, nonlinear interacting systems driven from the Sun to Earth, to other members of the solar system, and out to the very edge of the heliosphere. Through NASA’s current Heliophysics Great Observatory, researchers use 12 spacecraft to address the basic science of variable solar outputs, their transmission to the geospace environment and beyond, and their impacts on technological systems.

Solar and space physics requires synergy between observational and theoretical initiatives, and between basic research and targeted research programs. Investments by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Department of Defense (DOD) in space weather instruments, ground-based observatories, research, technology, and education have been important to sustaining progress. Collectively, they enable humanity’s deepest understanding of our nearest star and its interactions with all members of the heliosphere, including the technologies that sustain and nurture our presence in geospace and beyond.

Recognizing the importance of distributed observations of all elements of the Sun-to-Earth system and the synergies between observation and theory and between basic and targeted research, the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) 2003 solar and space physics decadal survey2 laid out an integrated research strategy that sought to extend and augment what has now become the Heliophysics Great Observatory as well as to enhance NASA, NOAA, NSF, and DOD’s other solar and space physics research activities. The Integrated Research Strategy provided a prioritized list of flight missions and theory and modeling programs that would advance the relevant physical theories, incorporate those theories in models that describe a system of interactions between the Sun and the space environment, obtain data on the system, and analyze and test the adequacy of the theories and models. As directed by Congress in the NASA Authorization Act of 2005, the purpose of this report is to assess the progress of NASA’s Heliophysics Division at the 5-year mark against the NASA goals and priorities laid out in the decadal survey.

In addition to the Integrated Research Strategy, the decadal survey also considered non-mission-specific initiatives to foster a robust solar and space physics program. The decadal survey set forth driving science challenges as well as recommendations devoted to the need for technology development, collaborations and cooperation with other disciplines, understanding the effects of the space environment on technology and society, education and public outreach, and steps that could strengthen and enhance the research enterprise.

Unfortunately, very little of the recommended NASA program priorities from the decadal survey’s Integrated Research Strategy will be realized during the period (2004-2013) covered by the survey. Mission cost growth, reordering of survey mission priorities, and unrealized budget assumptions have delayed or deferred nearly all of the NASA spacecraft missions recommended in the survey. As a result, the status of the Integrated Research Strategy going forward is in jeopardy, and the loss of synergistic capabilities in space will constitute a serious impediment to future progress.

Some of these factors were largely outside NASA’s control, but as the assessments in Chapter 2 of this report detail, many factors were driven by subsequent NASA decisions about mission science content, mission size, and mission sequence. Overcoming these challenges, as well as other key issues like launch vehicle availability, will be critical if NASA is to realize more of the decadal survey’s priorities over the next 5 years as well as priorities

NOTE: “Summary” reprinted from A Performance Assessment of NASA’s Heliophysics Program, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2009, pp. 1-9.

1

See Box 1.1 of this report for a detailed description of NASA’s Heliophysics Great Observatory.

2

National Research Council, The Sun to the Earthand Beyond: A Decadal Research Strategy in Solar and Space Physics, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2003 (hereinafter called the “decadal survey” or the “2003 decadal survey”).

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

in solar and space physics research in the long term. Chapter 3 of this report provides recommendations about how NASA can better fulfill the 2003 decadal survey and improve future decadal surveys in solar and space physics.

ASSESSMENT

In Chapter 2 of this report the Committee on Heliophysics Performance Assessment evaluates NASA’s progress against the 2003 decadal survey recommendations. To make its assessment, the committee employed the following grading system:


A—Achieved or exceeded the goal established in the decadal survey.

B—Made significant progress toward the goal.

C—Made some progress toward the goal.

D—Made little progress toward meeting the decadal goal.

F—Made no progress toward meeting the decadal goal or actually regressed from it.


The committee developed a summary finding to support each grade in this report. Chapter 2 provides additional information supporting each grade, including reprintings of the specific recommendations from the decadal survey and a more detailed assessment of the NASA program response to those recommendations.

Table S.1 summarizes the committee’s assessment, which consists of 21 grades, divided into 7 area assessments covering each chapter of the 2003 decadal survey and 14 program assessments covering the NASA program priorities recommended in the decadal survey.

TABLE S.1 Committee Assessment of NASA Progress Over 5 Years Against Recommendations Made in the 2003 Solar and Space Physics Decadal Survey

Area or Program

Grade

Areaa

 

Milestones and Science Challenges

B

Integrated Research Strategy

C

Technology Development

C

Connections Between Solar and Space Physics and Other Disciplines

F

Effects of the Solar and Space Environment on Technology and Society

C

Education and Public Outreach

C

Strengthening the Solar and Space Physics Research Enterprise

C

Programb

 

Solar Probe

A

Magnetospheric Multiscale

B

Geospace Network

D

Jupiter Polar Mission

B

Suborbital Program

B

Explorer Program

C

Small Programs

A

Vitality Programs

B

Supporting Research and Technology

C

Coupling Complexity Initiative

C

Solar and Space Physics Information System

A

Guest Investigator Program

A

Theory and Data Analysis Program

B

Virtual Sun

B

aDecadal survey chapters and areas in which recommendations were made.

bNASA programs recommended in Chapter 2, “Integrated Research Strategy for Solar and Space Physics,” of the 2003 decadal survey.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Area Assessments

Seven of the committee’s grades correspond to the seven chapters in the decadal survey, which covered the following areas:

  1. Milestones and Science Challenges

  2. Integrated Research Strategy

  3. Technology Development

  4. Connections Between Solar and Space Physics and Other Disciplines,

  5. Effects of the Solar and Space Environment on Technology and Society

  6. Education and Public Outreach (E/PO)

  7. Strengthening the Solar and Space Physics Research Enterprise.

The committee provided a summary grade of NASA’s progress against the recommendations made in each chapter of the decadal survey. The grades and findings for each of these areas are as follows:

Milestones and Science Challenges Grade: B

Finding: The highest-level objectives and research focus areas in the NASA Heliophysics Roadmap align with the decadal survey science challenges. However, there are several science questions in the decadal survey—most notably, coronal heating, magnetospheres and ionospheres of other planets, and interaction with the interstellar medium—that receive little or no attention in the roadmap.

Integrated Research Strategy Grade: C

Finding: Progress in almost all the programs is seriously compromised by mission cost growth and rescoping and by reductions in funding for programs that provide regular mission opportunities. In addition, decisions to reorder the mission sequence recommended in the decadal survey undermined the Integrated Research Strategy set forth in the decadal survey, which was built around a set of spacecraft missions coordinated to afford opportunities to examine complex, interacting Sun-Earth subsystems from different regions simultaneously. The originally conceived program cannot be recovered before the next decadal survey. Thus, the status of the Integrated Research Strategy going forward is in jeopardy, with the potential for loss of synergistic space research capabilities.

Technology Development Grade: C

Finding: NASA is planning to add new small and medium launch capabilities and has made some progress in developing advanced spacecraft systems and command-and-control and data acquisition technologies for spacecraft constellations. But NASA’s progress in developing solar sails is limited, and NASA has only recently begun studying the feasibility of advanced space nuclear power systems and the availability of the necessary radioactive isotopes. These technologies have been identified as strategic needs for upcoming missions. It is also unclear if the rate of technological progress in spacecraft systems can be sustained in the absence of a replacement for NASA’s canceled New Millennium Program, which provided a testbed for new technologies. NASA has also not followed up on decadal survey recommendations regarding advanced scientific instrumentation.

Connections Between Solar and Space Physics and Other Disciplines Grade: F

Finding: NASA has taken no specific action on the connections recommendations, which remain valid. However, community interest in interdisciplinary interactions remains strong, and supporting research and technology programs continue to elicit interdisciplinary interest.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

Effects of the Solar and Space Environment on Technology and Society Grade: C

Finding: NASA/NOAA/NSF joint efforts on modeling and simulations are excellent examples of successful and close interagency coordination. However, the use of scientific spacecraft like NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer for operational purposes by other agencies at L1 is ill-advised and is a potential obstacle to an independent space weather monitoring program.

Education and Public Outreach Grade: C

Finding: NASA’s E/PO programs are regarded as generally successful, with several notable successes among the mission-associated programs. However, NASA programs have emphasized elementary-school and public education despite the decadal survey recommendation that educational efforts should focus on college and university-level training, a goal that remains poorly addressed.

Strengthening the Solar and Space Physics Research Enterprise Grade: C

Finding: Some initiatives to strengthen the solar and space physics enterprise have made progress. NASA has processes in place to capitalize on existing research assets, has allocated funding to revitalize the Suborbital Program, includes space physics instruments in Planetary Division missions, and continues to have an open-door data policy. However, there has been limited or no progress on other initiatives. Launch capabilities continue to be inadequate, NASA has not undertaken an independent review of its relationship with academia, and some Announcements of Opportunity could better tailor mission rules to mission scope. Moreover, International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) continue to hamper international cooperation on missions.

Program Assessments

In its chapter on the Integrated Research Strategy, the decadal survey recommended a prioritized list of programs. The present committee graded NASA’s progress on 14 of the recommended programs that have entered formulation or implementation. For NASA programs that were recommended by the decadal survey but have not entered formulation, the committee provided no grade.

Solar Probe Program Grade: A

Finding: NASA is to be commended for reconstituting the Solar Probe science definition team and producing a Solar Probe Plus mission implementation plan that could be conducted with a restricted cost profile. Although its mission design is promising, Solar Probe Plus sequencing is in conflict with the decadal survey, which conditioned Solar Probe implementation on the implementation of all the moderate missions recommended in the survey or on a budget augmentation to accelerate Solar Probe implementation. Neither condition has been met. Solar Probe received the highest possible grade due to efforts to control cost via intelligent mission redefinition. However, NASA has compromised the decadal survey’s mission sequence by advancing Solar Probe ahead of the fourth (Multi-Heliospheric Probes), fifth (Geospace Electrodynamic Connections), and seventh (Magnetospheric Constellation) moderate-mission priorities identified in the survey, an approach that has reduced the overall grade given to implementation of the Integrated Research Strategy.

Magnetospheric Multiscale Program Grade: B

Finding: Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) is the number-one-priority moderate mission, with a science focus on reconnection as a fundamental plasma physical process. MMS is scheduled for launch in 2014 and has an

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

estimated cost of $990 million. The launch date places it outside the time frame addressed by the decadal survey (2004-2013), and the cost places it well outside the moderate mission category of the decadal survey. Changes in payload capability, launch vehicles, and project requirements have all contributed to the increases in time and cost. Although it is encouraging to see MMS moving forward, its problems have necessitated the re-programming of subsequent moderate missions.

Geospace Network Program Grade: D

Finding: As originally conceived, the Geospace Network mission aimed at exploring the synergy and coupling between the radiation environment in the inner magnetosphere and the underlying ionosphere and thermosphere, key regions for space weather effects. It has not been implemented, and the present plan essentially eliminates it from consideration.

Jupiter Polar Mission Program Grade: B

Finding: Although there are some limitations due to mission design, instrumentation on the recently selected New Frontiers Juno mission will allow the main objectives of the decadal survey Jupiter Polar Mission to be accomplished.

Suborbital Program Program Grade: B

Finding: NASA significantly increased its funding request for the Suborbital Program in FY 2009 in response to multiple findings over the years from the community. If passed, this increase appears to be sufficient to bring the support level back above the critical threshold for a viable program. This increased support for operational engineering, infrastructure, and inventory is in line with the relevant recommendation from the decadal survey. Meeting the decadal survey recommendation for a revitalized Suborbital Program will also require an increase in science investigations to take advantage of the increased flight rate.

Explorer Program Program Grade: C

Finding: The Explorer Program is characterized by high science return and a minimum of cost overruns and mission expansion. However, reductions in Explorer Program funding have reduced the mission flight rate from one or more missions per year at the time of the decadal survey to one mission every 4 years, with serious implications for the vitality and balance of programs within the Heliophysics Division. The reinstatement of the Small Explorer and Mission of Opportunity competition in 2007 reversed a downward trend but has not restored funding to levels assumed by the decadal survey.

Small Programs Program Grade: A

Finding: Significant enhancements to scientific productivity in heliophysics are being achieved with relatively small resource commitments, including NASA cooperation on the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter mission.

Vitality Programs Program Grade: B

Finding: Although some of the specific initiatives recommended by the decadal survey were not undertaken, NASA’s Research and Analysis budget has effectively addressed the needs of present and future flight programs while continuing to foster new ideas and innovation.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

Supporting Research and Technology Program Grade: C

Finding: The decadal survey recommended that funding for the Supporting Research and Technology (SR&T) program be increased to maximize the productivity of existing resources and ensure a sound foundation for the development of future programs. However, funding for this key activity was cut severely in FY 2006. In FY 2008, funding amounts have only recovered to their levels at the time of the decadal survey.

Coupling Complexity Initiative Program Grade: C

Finding: No federal agency has led the way in creating new, interagency theory and modeling programs, such as the Coupling Complexity Initiative recommended by the decadal survey. However, within constrained budgets, NASA has supported the development of some portion of these activities through existing programs, such as its Targeted Research and Technology (TR&T) and its Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC).

Solar and Space Physics Information System Program Grade: A

Finding: The capabilities of a Solar and Space Physics Information System are being realized through the CCMC and the emerging capabilities of virtual observatories. However, these projects are in their infancy, and continuous, careful examination should be undertaken to identify needed capabilities and specific weaknesses that could hamper their productivity.

Guest Investigator Program Program Grade: A

Finding: The importance of the Guest Investigator Program in maximizing scientific returns from mission data sets and from the Heliophysics Great Observatory by broadening the types and range of scientific investigations is well recognized by NASA, and funding has been increased to maximize the program’s effectiveness.

Theory and Data Analysis Program Program Grade: B

Finding: The heliophysics Theory and Data Analysis Program has labored under an inflationary funding profile. To fulfill the program’s mission of supporting groups of critical mass without increasing resources, the number of awards made every 3 years has been decreased. While such funding at least stems deterioration of capabilities in theory and modeling, it cannot foster the bold advances envisioned by the decadal survey.

Virtual Sun Program Grade: B

Finding: While no new program element has been created in response to the Virtual Sun recommendation, which proposes an interagency program to develop the theoretical and modeling framework to represent the major elements of the Sun-Earth system, some of the recommendation’s objectives have been achieved through existing programs. Living With a Star (LWS) TR&T, for example, supports elements of Virtual Sun that will eventually lead to improvements in space weather applications.

RECOMMENDATIONS

In addition to assessing NASA’s progress against the decadal survey recommendations, the committee was charged with delivering guidance that could optimize the value of NASA’s heliophysics programs without altering the priorities and recommendations of the 2003 decadal survey and that could improve the next decadal survey.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

Based on the information and grades provided in Chapters 1 and 2 of this report, the committee makes nine recommendations and offers eight guidelines.

Recommendations to Fulfill the Integrated Research Strategy

The central recommendation of the decadal survey was the Integrated Research Strategy. Although it would be extremely difficult now to restore all of the content anticipated in the Integrated Research Strategy, the committee makes five recommendations that could help restore key features before the end of the decade.


Recommendation 1: (a) If no budget augmentation is forthcoming that is large enough to support the planned Solar Probe launch date of 2017 without impacting other Heliophysics Division missions, NASA should consult with the community through a formal review mechanism (such as committees of the NASA Advisory Council or other independent, external, community priority-setting bodies) to determine Solar Probe’s priority relative to that of other decadal survey recommendations and its launch date. (b) An implementation plan for the science objectives of the Geospace Network that includes both ionosphere-thermosphere and magnetosphere components should be developed as soon as possible in advance of lower-ranked moderate missions in the 2003 decadal survey’s recommended mission queue.


Recommendation 2: Funding for the Heliophysics Explorer Program should be restored to recommended levels as rapidly as possible. The ramp-up in the current 5-year-projection budget is encouraging and should be accelerated as soon as possible.


Recommendation 3: Funding for the Solar-Terrestrial Probes flight program should be restored to enable the recommended coordination of investigations.


Recommendation 4: Future Solar-Terrestrial Probes and Living With a Star missions should reduce mission requirements that exceed those assumed in the decadal survey to match resource constraints.


Recommendation 5: The mission management mode (principal-investigator-led versus center-led) on future Solar-Terrestrial Probe and Living With a Star missions should match resource constraints. Changes in management mode and in associated overhead costs that depart from the original decadal survey should be matched by changes in mission budgets.

Other Recommendations to Fulfill the Decadal Survey

In addition to the Integrated Research Strategy, the 2003 decadal survey provided guidance on science challenges and made other recommendations on technology development, societal effects, education and public outreach, and supporting activities. The committee makes four recommendations to improve NASA’s execution of the decadal survey recommendations in these areas.


Recommendation 6: NASA’s mission roadmapping activities should seek to retain the balance and synergy of the decadal survey’s Integrated Research Strategy.


Recommendation 7: NASA should continue to aggressively pursue the recovery of a range of launch capabilities, including replacement or restoration of the Delta II medium-lift launch vehicle, secondary payload capabilities, and access to foreign launch capabilities.


Recommendation 8: The future of key measurements at L1 needs to be resolved between NASA and NOAA at the earliest possible time.


Recommendation 9: NASA should emphasize the involvement of undergraduate and graduate students in educational outreach grants. NASA should also consider restoring facilitator positions for coordinating educational

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

outreach efforts between researchers and NASA, and it should improve the coordination of education efforts between NASA’s Heliophysics Division and its Office of Education.

Guidance to Improve the Next Decadal Survey

The committee provides eight guidelines to improve the quality of the next decadal survey in solar and space physics. These guidelines are not formal recommendations to NASA, but they do give important advice for negotiating the statement of task for the next decadal survey and its committee.


Guideline 1: Schedules for future NASA roadmapping exercises should be phased to follow future NRC decadal surveys and midterm assessments.


Guideline 2: The next decadal survey should reconsider any missions from the 2003 decadal survey that have not begun development at the time of the next decadal survey.


Guideline 3: The next decadal survey should incorporate cost thresholds beyond which NASA must consult with the community through a formal mechanism (such as committees of the NASA Advisory Council or other independent, external, community priority-setting bodies) to review a mission’s continued priority.


Guideline 4: The next decadal survey should develop a methodology to preserve mission coordination when mission coordination is equal to or greater than the importance of the missions themselves.


Guideline 5: In addition to refining cost estimates for mission development, the next decadal survey should improve cost estimates for mission operations and data analysis.


Guideline 6: The next decadal survey should explicitly budget for all recommendations, not just those associated with missions, mission operations and data analysis, and research.


Guideline 7: The next decadal survey should maintain the practice of providing a prioritized consensus list of program recommendations.


Guideline 8: The next decadal survey should include a sufficient number of scientists with spaceflight investigation experience from each of the relevant subdisciplines.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

5.7
Radioisotope Power Systems: An Imperative for Maintaining U.S. Leadership in Space Exploration

A Report of the Ad Hoc Radioisotope Power Systems Committee

Summary

For nearly 50 years, the United States has led the world in the scientific exploration of space. U.S. spacecraft have circled Earth, landed on the Moon and Mars, orbited Jupiter and Saturn, and traveled beyond the orbit of Pluto and out of the ecliptic. These spacecraft have sent back to Earth images and data that have greatly expanded human knowledge, though many important questions remain unanswered.

Spacecraft require electrical energy. This energy must be available in the outer reaches of the solar system where sunlight is very faint. It must be available through lunar nights that last for 14 days, through long periods of dark and cold at the higher latitudes on Mars, and in high-radiation fields such as those around Jupiter. Radioisotope power systems (RPSs) are the only available power source that can operate unconstrained in these environments for the long periods of time needed to accomplish many missions, and plutonium-238 (238Pu) is the only practical isotope for fueling them. The success of historic missions such as Viking and Voyager, and more recent missions such as Cassini and New Horizons, clearly show that RPSs—and an assured supply of 238Pu—have been, are now, and will continue to be essential to the U.S. space science and exploration program.

Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (MMRTGs) are the only RPS currently available. MMRTGs convert the thermal energy that is released by the natural radioactive decay of 238Pu to electricity using thermocouples. This is a proven, highly reliable technology with no moving parts.

The Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG) is a new type of RPS that is still being developed. An ASRG uses a Stirling engine (with moving parts) to convert thermal energy to electricity. Stirling engine converters are much more efficient than thermocouples. As a result, ASRGs produce more electricity than MMRTGs, even though they require only one-fourth as much 238Pu. It remains to be seen, however, when development of a flight-qualified ASRG will be completed.

THE PROBLEM

Plutonium-238 does not occur in nature. Unlike 239Pu, it is unsuitable for use in nuclear weapons. Plutonium-238 has been produced in quantity only for the purpose of fueling RPSs. In the past, the United States had an adequate supply of 238Pu, which was produced in facilities that existed to support the U.S. nuclear weapons program. The problem is that no 238Pu has been produced in the United States since the Department of Energy (DOE) shut down those facilities in the late 1980s. Since then, the U.S. space program has had to rely on the inventory of 238Pu that existed at that time, supplemented by the purchase of 238Pu from Russia. However, Russian facilities that produced 238Pu were also shut down many years ago, and the DOE will soon take delivery of its last shipment of 238Pu from Russia. The committee does not believe that there is any additional 238Pu (or any operational 238Pu production facilities) available anywhere in the world. The total amount of 238Pu available for NASA is fixed, and essentially all of it is already dedicated to support several pending missions—the Mars Science Laboratory, Discovery 12, the Outer Planets Flagship 1 (OPF 1), and (perhaps) a small number of additional missions with a very small demand for 238Pu. If the status quo persists, the United States will not be able to provide RPSs for any subsequent missions.

Reestablishing domestic production of 238Pu will be expensive; the cost will likely exceed $150 million. Previous proposals to make this investment have not been enacted, and cost seems to be the major impediment. However, regardless of why these proposals have been rejected, the day of reckoning has arrived. NASA is already making mission-limiting decisions based on the short supply of 238Pu. NASA is stretching out the pace of RPS-

NOTE: “Summary” reprinted from Radioisotope Power Systems: An Imperative for Maintaining U.S. Leadership in Space Exploration, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2009, pp. 1-4.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

powered missions by eliminating RPSs as an option for some missions and delaying other missions that require RPSs until more 238Pu becomes available. Procuring 238Pu from Russia or other foreign nations is not a viable option because of schedule and national security considerations. Fortunately, there are two viable approaches for reestablishing production of 238Pu in the United States. Both of these approaches would use existing reactors at DOE facilities at Idaho National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory with minimal modification, but a large capital investment in processing facilities would still be needed. Nonetheless, these are the best options in terms of cost, schedule, and risk for producing 238Pu in time to minimize the disruption in NASA’s space science and exploration missions powered by RPSs.

IMMEDIATE ACTION IS REQUIRED

On April 29, 2008, the NASA administrator sent a letter to the secretary of energy with an estimate of NASA’s future demand for 238Pu.1 The committee has chosen to use this letter as a conservative reference point for determining the future need for RPSs. However, the findings and recommendations in this report are not contingent on any particular set of mission needs or launch dates. Rather, they are based on a conservative estimate of future needs based on various future mission scenarios. The estimate of future demand for 238Pu (which is about 5 kg/year) is also consistent with historic precedent.

The orange line [hollow square data points] in Figure S.1 shows NASA’s cumulative future demand for 238Pu in a best-case scenario (which is to say, a scenario in which NASA’s future RPS-mission set is limited to those missions listed in the NASA administrator’s letter of April 2008, the 238Pu required by each mission is the smallest amount listed in that letter, and ASRGs are used to power OPF 1). The green line [solid square data points] shows NASA’s future demand if the status quo persists (which is to say, if OPF 1 uses MMRTGs).

Once the DOE is funded to reestablish production of 238Pu, it will take about 8 years to begin full production of 5 kg/year. The red and blue lines [triangular data points] in Figure S.1 show the range of future possibilities for 238Pu balance (supply minus demand). A continuation of the status quo, with MMRTGs used for OPF 1 and no production of 238Pu, leads to the largest shortfall, and the balance curve drops off the bottom of the chart. The best-case scenario, which assumes that OPF 1 uses ASRGs and DOE receives funding in fiscal year (FY) 2010 to begin reestablishing its ability to produce 238Pu, yields the smallest shortfall (as little as 4.4 kg). However, it seems unlikely that all of the assumptions that are built into the best-case scenario will come to pass. MMRTGs are still baselined for OPF 1, there remains no clear path to fight qualification of ASRGs, and FY 2010 funding for 238Pu production remains more a hope than an expectation. Thus, the actual shortfall is likely to be somewhere between the best-case curve and the status-quo curve in Figure S.1, and it could easily be 20 kg or more over the next 15 to 20 years.

It has long been recognized that the United States would need to restart domestic production of 238Pu in order to continue producing RPSs and to maintain U.S. leadership in the exploration of the solar system. The problem is that the United States has delayed taking action to the point that the situation has become critical. Continued inaction will exacerbate the magnitude and the impact of future 238Pu shortfalls, and it will force NASA to make additional, difficult decisions that will reduce the science return of some missions and postpone or eliminate other missions until a source of 238Pu is available.

The schedule for reestablishing 238Pu production will have to take into account many factors, such as construction of DOE facilities, compliance with safety and environmental procedures, and basic physics. This schedule cannot be easily or substantially accelerated, even if much larger appropriations are made available in future years in an attempt to overcome the effects of ongoing delays. The need is real, and there is no substitute for immediate action.


HIGH-PRIORITY RECOMMENDATION. Plutonium-238 Production. The fiscal year 2010 federal budget should fund the Department of Energy (DOE) to reestablish production of 238Pu.

  • As soon as possible, the DOE and the Office of Management and Budget should request—and Congress should provide—adequate funds to produce 5 kg of 238Pu per year.

  • NASA should issue annual letters to the DOE defining the future demand for 238Pu.

1

Letter from the NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin to Secretary of Energy Samuel D. Bodman, April 29, 2008 (reprinted in Appendix C).

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
FIGURE S.1 Potential 238Pu demand and net balance, 2008 through 2028.

FIGURE S.1 Potential 238Pu demand and net balance, 2008 through 2028.

DEVELOPMENT OF A FLIGHT-READY ADVANCED STIRLING RADIOISOTOPE GENERATOR

Advanced RPSs are required to support future space missions while making the most out of whatever 238Pu is available. Until 2007, the RPS program was a technology development effort. At that time, the focus shifted to development of a flight-ready ASRG, and that remains the current focus of the RPS program. The program received no additional funds to support this new tasking, so funding for several other important RPS technologies was eliminated, and the budget for the remaining RPS technologies was cut. As a result, the RPS program is not well balanced. Indeed, balance is impossible given the current (FY 2009) budget and the focus on development of flight-ready ASRG technology. However, the focus on ASRG development is well aligned with the central and more pressing issue that threatens the future of RPS-powered missions: the limited supply of 238Pu. The RPS program should continue to support NASA’s mission requirements for RPSs while minimizing NASA’s demand for 238Pu. NASA should continue to move the ASRG project forward, even though this has come at the expense of other RPS technologies.

Demonstrating the reliability of ASRGs for a long-life mission is critical, but it has yet to be achieved. The next major milestones in the advancement of ASRGs are to freeze the design of the ASRG, conduct system testing that verifies that all credible life-limiting mechanisms have been identified and assessed, and demonstrate that ASRGs are ready for flight. In lieu of any formal guidance or requirements concerning what constitutes

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

flight readiness, ongoing efforts to advance ASRG technology and demonstrate that it is flight ready are being guided by experience gained from past programs and researchers’ best estimates about the needs and expectations of project managers for future missions. While this approach has enabled progress, the establishment of formal guidance for flight certification of RPSs in general and ASRGs in particular would facilitate the acceptance of ASRGs as a viable option for deep-space missions and reduce the impact that the limited supply of 238Pu will have on NASA’s ability to complete important space missions.


RECOMMENDATION. Flight Readiness. The RPS program and mission planners should jointly develop a set of flight-readiness requirements for RPSs in general and Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generators in particular, as well as a plan and a timetable for meeting the requirements.


RECOMMENDATION. Technology Plan. NASA should develop and implement a comprehensive RPS technology plan that meets NASA’s mission requirements for RPSs while minimizing NASA’s demand for 238Pu. This plan should include, for example:

  • A prioritized set of program goals.

  • A prioritized list of technologies.

  • A list of critical facilities and skills.

  • A plan for documenting and archiving the knowledge base.

  • A plan for maturing technology in key areas, such as reliability, power, power degradation, electrical interfaces between the RPS and the spacecraft, thermal interfaces, and verification and validation.

  • A plan for assessing and mitigating technical and schedule risk.,.,

RECOMMENDATION. Multi-Mission RTGs. NASA and/or the Department of Energy should maintain the ability to produce Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators.


HIGH-PRIORITY RECOMMENDATION. ASRG Development. NASA and the Department of Energy (DOE) should complete the development of the Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG) with all deliberate speed, with the goal of demonstrating that ASRGs are a viable option for the Outer Planets Flagship 1 mission. As part of this effort, NASA and the DOE should put final-design ASRGs on life test as soon as possible (to demonstrate reliability on the ground) and pursue an early opportunity for operating an ASRG in space (e.g., on Discovery 12).

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

5.8
Uncertainty Management in Remote Sensing of Climate Data: Summary of a Workshop

Martha McConnell and Scott Weidman, Rapporteurs

Introduction

Great advances have been made in our understanding of the climate system over the past few decades, and remotely sensed data have played a key role in supporting many of these advances. Improvements in satellites and in computational and data-handling techniques have yielded high quality, readily accessible data. However, rapid increases in data volume have also led to large and complex datasets that pose significant challenges in data analysis (NRC, 2007). Uncertainty characterization is needed for every satellite mission and scientists continue to be challenged by the need to reduce the uncertainty in remotely sensed climate records and projections. The approaches currently used to quantify the uncertainty in remotely sensed data, including statistical methods used to calibrate and validate satellite instruments, lack an overall mathematically based framework. An additional challenge is characterizing uncertainty in ways that are useful to a broad spectrum of end-users.

In December 2008, three standing committees of the National Academies held a workshop to survey how statisticians, climate scientists, and remote sensing experts might address the challenges of uncertainty management in remote sensing of climate data. The emphasis of the workshop was on raising and discussing issues that could be studied more intently by individual researchers or teams of researchers, and on setting the stage for possible future collaborative activities. Issues and questions that were addressed at the workshop include the following:

  1. What methods are currently used to compare time series at single points in space with instantaneous but sparsely sampled area averages to “validate” remotely sensed climate data? Are there more sophisticated or advanced methods that could be applied to improve validation tools or uncertainty estimates? Are there alternative means of measuring the same phenomena to confirm the accuracy of satellite observations?

  2. How can fairly short-term, spatially dense remote sensing observations inform climate models operating at long time scales and relatively coarse spatial resolutions? Are there remotely sensed data that could, through the use of modern statistical methods, be useful for improving climate models or informing other types of climate research?

  3. What are the practical and institutional barriers (e.g., lack of qualified statisticians working in the field) to making progress on developing and improving statistical techniques for processing, validating, and analyzing remotely sensed climate data?

In her introductory remarks at the workshop, planning team chair Amy Braverman from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory presented Table 1-1 to illustrate how statistical methods (rows) can help address three major challenges in the use of remotely sensed climate data (the columns). The first of these three major challenges is the validation of remote sensing retrievals. When a remote sensing instrument retrieves a measurement that is used to infer a geo-physical value (e.g., atmospheric temperature), uncertainties exist both in the measured values and in the statistical model used to validate the remotely sensed parameter. The second challenge is improving the representation of physical processes within all types of climate models. Workshop participants stressed the need to better represent physical processes within global earth system models, a critical component to projecting future climate accurately, reducing uncertainty, and ultimately aiding policy decisions. The third major challenge in climate research where statistics plays an important role is aggregating the observed and modeled knowledge, each with their associated uncertainties, to develop a better understanding of the climate system that can lead to useful predictions.

Complex and multifaceted relationships in the physics of the climate system contribute uncertainty over and above that which is normally present in making inferences from massive, spatio-temporal data. Isolating and quantifying these uncertainties in the face of multiple scales of spatial and temporal resolution, nonlinear relationships,

NOTE: “Introduction” reprinted from Uncertainty Management in Remote Sensing of Climate Data: Summary of a Workshop, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2009, pp. 1-10.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

feedbacks, and varying levels of a priori knowledge poses major challenges to achieving the linkages shown in Table 1-1. A formal statistical model that articulates relationships among both known and unknown quantities of interest and observations can sharpen the picture and make the problem more tractable. Random variables can represent uncertain quantities and describe relationships through joint and conditional distributions. Random variables can also be infused into systems of physical equations, to carry information about uncertainties along with information provided by physical knowledge.

Crafting such hybrid physical-statistical models to capture the essence of our understanding is not easy. The climate system is inherently nonlinear and includes feedback loops where variables directly and indirectly affect one another. Figure 1-1, presented at the workshop by William Rossow from the City College of New York, is a simple diagram of the energy and water cycles of the climate system that demonstrates how the system is interconnected. In order to gain a true understanding of climate feedbacks it is important to understand multiple variables in the climate system and their interactions. Clouds and precipitation, for example, play a crucial role in both the water cycle and the earth’s energy balance, affecting the sources and sinks of heat in the climate system. The release of latent heat during precipitation events provides energy that drives atmospheric circulations, and, in turn, atmospheric circulation processes that affect the distribution of water vapor and the formation of clouds have a pronounced effect on the transfer of radiation through the atmosphere. Therefore, analyzing the interrelationships between multiple variables in the climate system is key to understanding processes of interest.

Large volumes of remote sensing data are available to assist in refining models of physical systems like that shown in Figure 1-1. Data provide information about physical mechanisms at work in the atmosphere, and also about the uncertainties or gaps in our understanding of how those mechanisms operate. To make use of data in this way, however, requires that inherent uncertainties and biases in the data themselves be known and quantified. Therefore, the problem requires a holistic approach to uncertainty management beginning with data collection and validation strategies that are cognizant of the uses of the data. These challenges can be addressed in two ways:

  1. By identifying data collection and analysis methods that minimize the uncertainties; and

  2. By identifying the contributions to uncertainty at the various steps in collection and analysis, thereby pointing out the most promising targets for improvement.

TABLE 1-1 Three Major Challenges in the Use of Remotely Sensed Climate Data (Columns) and Three Roles Played by Statistical Methods (Rows)

 

Challenge: Validation of remote sensing retrievals

Challenge: Improving physical representations and understanding

Challenge: Extrapolating to future climate predictions

Role for statistics: Clarify and characterize sources of uncertainty in remote sensing data

Characterize spatio-temporal mismatches, retrieval algorithm differences; address sparseness or absence of ground truth

Develop new statistical methods to make the most of new data types to address new science questions

Maximize value of limited data and hard-to-formalize assumptions about relationships among past, present, and future

Role for statistics: Develop statistical methods to quantify and reduce uncertainty

Develop formal statistical error measures for both bias and variance

Develop new methods to exploit massive datasets in an inferential setting

Develop formalisms for combining output from different models in light of available data

Role for statistics: Provide an overarching framework

Overcome mismatches by statistical modeling of relationships between observed and unobserved quantities.

Pose problems as formal questions of statistical inference

Combine physical and statistical models

SOURCE: Table courtesy of Amy Braverman, JPL.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
FIGURE 1-1 Schematic of energy and water cycles. Red represents transfers of energy while blue lines show transfers of water. Figure courtesy of William Rossow, City College of New York.

FIGURE 1-1 Schematic of energy and water cycles. Red represents transfers of energy while blue lines show transfers of water. Figure courtesy of William Rossow, City College of New York.

Uncertainty quantification, in the broadest sense, is to account for not only uncertainty in individual parameters within the models that are used, but also to account for the uncertainty inherent in the actual models themselves, which are only approximate representations of physical processes. Workshop participants emphasized that improving physical process representation is critical for both improving climate models and for better characterizing their uncertainties. Statistics can contribute to solving this problem by moving beyond linear analysis for individual parameters to capture more complex relationships that have a physical meaning. A good statistical model is built in a way that captures some of the physical processes that control elements of the climate system, or alternative hypotheses about those processes.

The classical method, described at the workshop, for characterizing uncertainty in earth science modeling is through sensitivity analysis. Simply, this method includes changing parameter values in a model to learn how much that parameter affects the model output. This method does not account for the possibility that more than one process represented in the model might rely on the parameter itself, which will affect the uncertainty estimate. In addition, the compounding effect of different sources of uncertainty on different parameters is difficult to quantify through sensitivity analyses.

Alternative statistical approaches define uncertainty through joint probability distributions of parameters. While it is difficult to use this approach to identify the correct parameters and distributions when datasets are small, advances in data collection, management, and processing technologies are increasingly resulting in large datasets. Statistical distributions and their parameters can be estimated accurately when large volumes of data are available. Scientists in the satellite era have this luxury, but are concomitantly faced with massive data volumes that create challenges for processing and analysis techniques. In principle, large, complex, and detailed datasets offer the promise of new knowledge from which to better understand the climate system. Statistical methods that are developed specifically for new data types can better exploit these large, complex datasets that traditional methods (i.e., sensitivity analysis) cannot.

Understanding the uncertainties of different processes in the climate system requires a variety of approaches. Collaborations involving climate scientists and statisticians were identified at the workshop as an effective way to promote the development of targeted new methods that would aid the science community to question all aspects of the data, and geophysical and statistical models. Workshop participants also remarked that modern statistical methods can be useful for fusing data from two different instruments, which is a more challenging problem than

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×

is generally appreciated. For example, data assimilation techniques are one approach to addressing the spatial and temporal mismatch between models and observations (Daley, 1991; Luo et al., 2007). As described by workshop participant Anna Michalak from the University of Michigan, such approaches need to account for the spatial and temporal structure of the dataset to allow a better understanding of the physical processes that make up the climate system.

WHY WORRY ABOUT STATISTICAL STRUCTURE: AN EXAMPLE FROM MODELING SNOW DEPTH

Anna Michalak at the University of Michigan described how the statistical properties in remote sensing datasets offer both a challenge and an opportunity. For example, understanding and accounting for statistical dependence, including spatial and temporal correlations, can improve the utility of observational datasets. The opportunity is that by skillfully handling these complexities, we can better take advantage of the full information content of the available data, and use this information to guide high-payout improvements in models of the Earth system.

In some cases, statisticians and earth scientists use similar techniques to evaluate, and take advantage of, the spatial and temporal structure of observations of environmental parameters. For example, spatial statistical techniques allow one to interpolate (the earth scientist’s term) or predict (the statistician’s term) the value of specific environmental parameters at unsampled locations. The vast majority of environmental parameters (e.g., clouds, precipitation, winds) exhibit spatial and/or temporal correlation, with associated characteristics of scales of variability. As stated by Tobler as the “first law of geography”: “Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things” (Tobler, 1970). Both statisticians and earth sciences have used quantitative tools to assess the spatial autocorrelation exhibited by sampled data. Both use variograms and/or covariance functions to quantify the degree of spatial autocorrelation. An accurate assessment of the spatial variability of observed parameters can be used to better understand the underlying physical processes.

Figure 1-2 illustrates how understanding and exploiting the spatial and temporal structure of data can be useful. In this example, a limited number of measurements that are clustered in a non-ideal way are used to estimate the mean snow depth in a valley. Simply averaging the ten measurements of snow depth does not provide a good representation of mean snow depth. Instead, the clustered observations in the left portion of the valley clearly need to be weighted less relative to the isolated observation in the right region. However, how much weight should be assigned to each data point? Spatial statistics methods can be used to determine the degree of spatial variability in the snow-depth distribution based on an analysis of how similar nearby measurements are to one another, and how dissimilar far-away measurements are to one another. This information, in turn, can be used to quantify the optimal weights to be assigned to each measurement. This simple method in spatial statistics allows one to calculate an unbiased estimate of mean snow depth in the valley based on an uneven distribution of measurements.

In Figure 1-3, we look at a hypothetical dataset describing snow depth as a function of elevation, and assuming that the snow depth is also autocorrelated in space (top panel). These synthetic data were generated in such a way that, in reality, there is no overall trend of snow depth with elevation, and any observed trend is therefore the result of randomness introduced in generating the data. This hypothetical dataset is then used to test whether two competing approaches are able to correctly conclude that there is no relationship between snow depth and elevation (middle panel). In the first approach (red line), classical linear regression is used, which ignores the spatial correlation in the data. In the second approach (green line), the spatial correlation is accounted for in the estimation process. In the example shown in the figure, the classical approach incorrectly rejects the null hypothesis that there is no trend between snow depth and elevation, whereas the approach based on spatial statistics correctly does not reject this hypothesis at the 95 percent confidence level. As the experiment is repeated multiple times with new synthetic data (bottom panel), we observe that the linear regression approach incorrectly concludes that there is a trend between elevation and snow depth approximately 20 percent of the time, which is much too high given that the test was run in a way that should have yielded only a 5 percent chance of incorrectly concluding that there was a trend. The approach that accounts for spatial correlation, concludes that there is a trend 5 percent of the time, as expected. Overall, this example illustrates that statistical approaches that ignore spatial and/or temporal correlation inherent in environmental data carry with them an increased risk of erroneously concluding that significant relationships exist between physical phenomena (snow depth and elevation, in this case), and, more generally, yield biased estimates due to their assumption of independent observations.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
FIGURE 1-2 Example of sampling snow depth in a watershed. Top: aerial map of an alpine basin with sample locations Bottom: snow depth at sampling location versus distance from the left edge of the valley. The red line represents the biased estimate of average snow depth obtained from a simple average of the available observations. The green line represents the unbiased estimate obtained by assigning weights to the observations based on an understanding of the scales of spatial variability of the snow depth in the valley. Figure courtesy of Anna Michalak, University of Michigan. Original figure by Tyler Erickson, Michigan Tech Research Institute.

FIGURE 1-2 Example of sampling snow depth in a watershed. Top: aerial map of an alpine basin with sample locations Bottom: snow depth at sampling location versus distance from the left edge of the valley. The red line represents the biased estimate of average snow depth obtained from a simple average of the available observations. The green line represents the unbiased estimate obtained by assigning weights to the observations based on an understanding of the scales of spatial variability of the snow depth in the valley. Figure courtesy of Anna Michalak, University of Michigan. Original figure by Tyler Erickson, Michigan Tech Research Institute.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
FIGURE 1-3 Hypothetical data on snow depth as a function of elevation. Top: illustrates one case of the generated data, and the estimated slope between snow depth and elevation, using simple linear regression (red line), and an approach that accounts for the spatial correlation of the data (green line). Middle: illustrates the probability distribution of the trend of snow depth with elevation using the two approaches. Bottom: demonstrates that if the experiment were repeated many times, one would erroneously conclude that there was a relationship between snow depth and elevation too often if using simple linear regression. Figure courtesy of Anna Michalak, University of Michigan. Original figure by Tyler Erickson, Michigan Tech Research Institute.

FIGURE 1-3 Hypothetical data on snow depth as a function of elevation. Top: illustrates one case of the generated data, and the estimated slope between snow depth and elevation, using simple linear regression (red line), and an approach that accounts for the spatial correlation of the data (green line). Middle: illustrates the probability distribution of the trend of snow depth with elevation using the two approaches. Bottom: demonstrates that if the experiment were repeated many times, one would erroneously conclude that there was a relationship between snow depth and elevation too often if using simple linear regression. Figure courtesy of Anna Michalak, University of Michigan. Original figure by Tyler Erickson, Michigan Tech Research Institute.

Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 44
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 45
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 46
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 47
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 48
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 49
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 50
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 51
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 52
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 53
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 54
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 55
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 56
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 57
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 58
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 59
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 60
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 61
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 62
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 63
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 64
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 65
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 66
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 67
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 68
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 69
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 70
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 71
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 72
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 73
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 74
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 75
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 76
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 77
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 78
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 79
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 80
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 81
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 82
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 83
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 84
Suggested Citation:"5 Summaries of Major Reports." National Research Council. 2010. Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12918.
×
Page 85
Next: 6 Congressional Testimony »
Space Studies Board Annual Report 2009 Get This Book
×
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

The Space Studies Board (SSB) was established in 1958 to serve as the focus of the interests and responsibilities in space research for the National Academies. The SSB provides an independent, authoritative forum for information and advice on all aspects of space science and applications, and it serves as the focal point within the National Academies for activities on space research. It oversees advisory studies and program assessments, facilitates international research coordination, and promotes communications on space science and science policy between the research community, the federal government, and the interested public. The SSB also serves as the U.S. National Committee for the International Council for Science Committee on Space Research (COSPAR).

The present volume reviews the organization, activities, and reports of the SSB for the year 2009.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!