3
Ad Hoc Study Committees:
Activities and Membership
When a sponsor requests that the National Research Council (NRC) conduct a study, an ad hoc committee is established for that purpose. The committee terminates when the study is completed. These study committees are subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, Section 15, because they provide advice and recommendations to the federal government. The Space Studies Board (SSB) and/or one of its standing committees provide oversight for ad hoc study committee activities. Four ad hoc study committees were active during 2013; their activities and membership are summarized below. SSB collaborated on one study with the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB).
In addition, the NRC’s second decadal survey in solar and space physics, Solar and Space Physics: A Science for a Technological Society, from the ad hoc Committee on A Decadal Strategy for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics), which was released on August 15, 2012, was printed on August 23, 2013.
Also in 2013, at the request of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, work began on forming the ad hoc Committee for an Assessment of the Astrophysics Focused Telescope Assets (AFTA) Mission Concepts to assess whether NASA’s proposed AFTA design reference mission is responsive to the overall strategy to pursue the science objectives of New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics decadal survey, and, in particular, the survey’s top-ranked, large-scale, space-based priority: the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope. The committee will hold its first and only in-person meeting in January 2014.
ASSESSMENT OF THE NASA SCIENCE MISSION DIRECTORATE 2014 SCIENCE PLAN
The ad hoc Committee on the Assessment of the NASA Science Mission Directorate 2014 Science Plan was appointed in early August and held its one and only meeting in Irvine, California, on September 10-12. A draft of the committee’s report was assembled in late-September/early-October and sent to 10 external reviewers on October 3. The committee’s report, Review of the Draft 2014 Science Mission Directorate Science Plan, was approved by the NRC for release on 19 November. The report was delivered to NASA on November 22 and released to the public on December 2. The Summary of the report is reprinted in Chapter 5.
Membership1
James P. Bagian, University of Michigan (chair)
John M. Klineberg, Space Systems/Loral (retired) (vice chair)
Lennard A. Fisk, University of Michigan
___________
1 All terms end on December 31, 2013.
Lee-Lueng Fu, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
Sarah Gibson, National Center for Atmospheric Research
J. Todd Hoeksema, Stanford University
Stephen Mackwell, Lunar and Planetary Institute
Marcia J. Rieke, University of Arizona
Meenakshi Wadhwa, Arizona State University
Belinda Wilkes, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
Steven C. Wofsy, Harvard University
Staff
David Smith, Senior Program Officer (study director)
Abigail Sheffer, Associate Program Officer
Dionna Williams, Program Coordinator
F. Harrison Dreves, Lloyd V. Berkner Space Policy Intern, Summer 2013
CONTINUITY OF NASA-SUSTAINED REMOTE SENSING OBSERVATIONS
OF THE EARTH FROM SPACE
Approval of the membership of ad hoc Committee on a Framework for Analyzing the Needs for Continuity of NASA-Sustained Remote Sensing Observations of the Earth from Space occurred in August 2013. Instruments on NASA research and NOAA “operational” spacecraft measure numerous variables relevant to Earth’s biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and oceans and their interactions on various scales. However, there is a growing tension between the need for measurement continuity of data streams that are critical components of Earth science research programs, (including, but not limited to, areas related to climate), and the development of new measurement capabilities. While there is an increasing societal need for information products derived from Earth observations, the federal agencies responsible for providing these measurements face a near-perfect storm of diminished fiscal resources (the result of increasing costs, flat or declining budgets, and other challenges, including recovery from the launch failure of OCO and GLORY and the substantive increase in cost, diminished capabilities, and delay of the JPSS spacecraft). Many Earth-observing satellites are in their extended mission phase nearing the end of their useful lives growth in program costs, and a coming loss of heritage assets. These circumstances prompted a request from NASA’s Earth Science Division (ESD) to the SSB (through the Committee on Earth Sciences and Applications from Space) to assemble an ad hoc committee of the NRC to provide a framework to assist in the determination of when a measurement(s) or dataset(s) initiated by ESD should be collected for extended periods.
The first in-person meeting of the committee occurred on November 12-14, 2013, in Washington, D.C. At the meeting, the committee had extensive discussions with Michael Freilich, Director, NASA ESD. The committee also heard presentations from Tom Karl, Director, NOAA National Climatic Data Center; Tim Newman, Acting Land Remote Sensing Program Coordinator, USGS; and Peter Colohan, Office of Science and Technology Policy. In closed session, the committee reviewed the task statement and developed a preliminary plan to address its elements. Several internal working groups were formed, which reported back to the full committee at its next in-person meeting on January 29-31, 2014, in Washington, D.C.
At the second meeting, committee members received presentations from Adrian Simmons, Chairman of the Global Climate Observing System Steering Committee; Toshiyoshi Kimura, Associate Director for Engineering, Earth Observation Research Center, Satellite Applications Mission Directorate, JAXA; Duane Waliser, Chief Scientist, Earth Science and Technology Directorate, Jet Propulsion Laboratory; and Thomas Piekutowski, Program Manager for Sun-Earth System Sciences, and Stella Melo, Senior Program Scientist, from the Canadian Space Agency. In closed session, the committee continued to refine the report structure and content and process for moving forward with report development.
The committee’s third meeting will be held in Irvine, California on April 23-25, 2014. That meeting will be entirely closed session and devoted to writing the report. If needed—and resources allow for it—the committee may hold a fourth writing meeting later in 2014.
Membership
Byron D. Tapley, University of Texas, Austin (chair)
Michael D. King, University of Colorado, Boulder (vice chair)
Mark R. Abbott, Oregon State University
Steven A. Ackerman, University of Wisconsin, Madison
John J. Bates, NOAA NESDIS National Climate Data Center
Rafael L. Bras, Georgia Institute of Technology
Robert E. Dickinson, University of Texas, Austin
Randall R. Friedl, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Lee-Lueng Fu, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Chelle L. Gentemann, Remote Sensing Systems
Kathryn A. Kelly, University of Washington
Judith L. Lean, Naval Research Laboratory
Joyce E. Penner, University of Michigan
Michael J. Prather, University of California, Irvine
Eric J. Rignot, University of California, Irvine
William L. Smith, Hampton University
Compton J. Tucker, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Bruce A. Wielicki, NASA Langley Research Center
Staff
Arthur A. Charo, Senior Program Officer (study director)
Lewis Groswald, Associate Program Officer
Anesia Wilks, Project Assistant
Under the auspices of the ASEB and SSB, the ad hoc Committee on Human Spaceflight was formed to review the long-term goals, core capabilities, and direction of the U.S. human spaceflight program and make recommendations to enable a sustainable U.S. human spaceflight program. The study commenced on August 1, 2012, and the committee first meeting was on December 19, 2012, in Washington, D.C.
Study activities continued in 2013 with a closed session meeting of the committee on January 8 at Stanford University to deliberate on the information received previously and to consider future plans. At this meeting, the committee also discussed a preliminary list of technical and operational issues for further investigation by the Technical Panel. The Public and Stakeholder Opinions Panel was formed to collect and analyze public and stakeholder inputs regarding the motivations, goals, rationales, and possible evolution of human spaceflight. The committee also formed two internal working groups, which met via telecon in preparation for the committee’s April meeting.
The Technical Panel held its first two meetings in Washington, D.C., on February 4-5 and March 27-28. The panel received extensive briefings from NASA on current human exploration activities as well as long-term technical challenges. The panel also heard from experts in industry and academia regarding their perspectives on current and future human exploration activities by NASA and the private sector. At one of these briefings, representatives of the Keck Institute of Space Studies at Caltech reviewed their study of a mission to capture a small near-Earth asteroid and move it into a cis-lunar orbit to facilitate human exploration. The President’s budget request for FY 2014 includes $100 million for NASA to initiate an asteroid retrieval mission. Also in the first quarter, the Public and Stakeholder Opinions Panel began preliminary work on reviewing the extensive past survey literature.
The full committee met on April 22-24, in Washington, D.C., to hear presentations from NASA and invited speakers on topics such as robotics, commercial spaceflight, security, and international relations. These discussions included perspectives on the future of human spaceflight from Roscosmos and ESA. Following that meeting, several committee members conducted two scheduled site visits to the Johnson Space Center and the Kennedy Space Center (the final site visit is scheduled in August to the Marshall Space Flight Center). Also during the second quarter, the
committee continued to coordinate closely with its panels, working groups gathered data in relevant focus areas, and members participated in conferences.
In June, the committee issued a widely disseminated a call for interested parties to submit papers that described their own ideas on the role of human spaceflight and their vision for a suggested future, with a submission deadline of July 9. These papers were requested in order to broaden the scope of the committee’s information-gathering process, particularly with regard to the benefits and challenges of human spaceflight. Papers submitted to the committee are available at http://www8.nationalacademies.org/aseboutreach/publicviewhumanspaceflight.aspx.
The Technical Panel held its second meeting on June 19-21 in Irvine, California, to hear presentations about the challenges in reducing the cost of exploration in in-space propulsion and the technical challenges for the asteroid redirect and piloted missions to the outer planets. The panel began drafting a report of its work for the full committee.
The Public and Stakeholder Opinions Panel held meetings on April 5 and June 19, in Washington, D.C., focusing on extensive literature reviews and planning and development of data-gathering efforts. At the June meeting, the committee heard from NASA regarding their research on public and stakeholder opinions. The panel worked on developing and launching a survey of stakeholders.
The committee met in closed session at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, on July 24-26 to receive progress reports from the Technical Panel and the Public and Stakeholder Opinions Panel and review white papers submitted by the public and stakeholders. The panel also deliberated on rationales for human spaceflight, development of task statement findings, and on the outline for the committee’s final report. In August, a group of members conducted their third site visit to a NASA center (Marshall Space Flight Center). In addition to work that continued in this period via subgroup telecons, the full committee was also briefed by NASA in August on the new version of the Global Exploration Roadmap via an open teleconference call.
During October, the committee conducted an outreach event calling for tweets from the public in response to the question: What are your best ideas for creating a NASA human spaceflight program that is sustainable over the next several decades? The committee also met in Washington, D.C., on October 21-23 and heard briefings regarding NASA’s current human spaceflight plans and challenges, historical perspectives, and the benefits and tradeoffs from a sustained human spaceflight exploration program. The committee also reviewed reports and progress from both of its supporting panels at this meeting and continued preliminary report development.
The Technical Panel held its final meeting in closed session on October 15-16 in Washington, D.C., and delivered a summary of their findings to the full committee in October. The Public and Stakeholder Opinions Panel met on October 4 in Washington, D.C., to conduct analysis and develop materials related to poll and survey results. When the Stakeholder Survey was complete, the panel held its final meeting on December 12 in Washington, D.C., to finalize their draft and present the results of their analysis to the full committee.
The committee held its final meeting in closed session in Irvine, California, on January 13-15.
Committee Membership
Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr., Purdue University (co-chair)
Jonathan I. Lunine, Cornell University (co-chair)
Bernard F. Burke, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mary Lynne Dittmar, Dittmar Associates, Inc.
Pascale Ehrenfreund, George Washington University
James S. Jackson, University of Michigan
Frank G. Klotz, Council on Foreign Relations
Franklin D. Martin, Martin Consulting, Inc.
David C. Mowery, University of California, Berkeley (emeritus)
Bryan D. O’Connor, Independent Aerospace Consultant
Stanley Presser, University of Maryland
Helen R. Quinn, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (emeritus)
Asif A. Siddiqi, Fordham University
John C. Sommerer, Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory
Roger Tourangeau, Westat, Inc.
Ariel Waldman, Spacehack.org
Cliff Zukin, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Sandra J. Graham, Senior Program Officer, SSB (study director)
Abigail A. Sheffer, Associate Program Officer, SSB
Amanda R. Thibault, Research Associate (until January 2013)
Dionna Williams, Program Coordinator, SSB
F. Harrison Dreves, Lloyd V. Berkner Space Policy Intern, Summer 2013
Cheryl Moy, Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellow, Fall 2012
Sierra Smith, Lloyd V. Berkner Space Policy Intern, Fall 2013
Padamashri Suresh, Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellow, Winter 2014
Public and Stakeholder Opinions Panel Membership
Roger Tourangeau, Westat, Inc. (chair)
Molly Andolina, DePaul University
Jennifer L. Hochschild, Harvard University
James S. Jackson, University of Michigan
Roger D. Launius, Smithsonian Institution
Jon D. Miller, University of Michigan
Stanley Presser, University of Maryland, College Park
Cliff Zukin, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Krisztina Marton, Senior Program Officer, Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT)
Constance Citro, Director, CNSTAT
Jacqui Sovde, Program Associate, CNSTAT
Technical Feasibility Panel Membership
John C. Sommerer, Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory (chair)
Douglas S. Stetson, Space Science and Exploration Consulting Group (vice chair)
Arnold D. Aldrich, Aerospace Consultant
Douglas M. Allen, Independent Consultant
Raymond E. Arvidson, Washington University, St. Louis
Richard C. Atkinson, University of California, San Diego (emeritus)
Robert D. Braun, Georgia Institute of Technology
Elizabeth R. Cantwell, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
David E. Crow, University of Connecticut (emeritus)
Ravi B. Deo, EMBR
Robert S. Dickman, Independent Consultant, RD Space, LLC
Dava J. Newman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
John R. Rogacki, Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (Ocala)
Guillermo Trotti, Trotti and Associates, Inc.
Linda A. Williams, Wyle Aerospace Group
Alan Angleman,2 Senior Program Officer, ASEB
Dionna Williams, Program Coordinator, SSB
IMPLEMENTATION OF A SUSTAINED LAND IMAGING PROGRAM
The ad hoc Committee for the Implementation of a Sustained Land Imaging Program was formed to assess the needs and opportunities to develop a space-based operational land imaging capability. In particular, the committee will examine the elements of a sustained space-based Land Imaging Program with a focus on the Department of Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) role in such a program.
___________
2 Staff from other NRC Boards who are shared with the SSB.
The committee held four meetings in 2012, and a draft report was completed in the first quarter of 2013. The prepublication report was delivered to the sponsor on July 30 and released on August 8. The report, Landsat and Beyond: Sustaining and Enhancing the Nation’s Land Imaging Program, was printed in December. The Summary of the report is reprinted in Chapter 5.
Membership3
Jeff Dozier, University of California, Santa Barbara (chair)
Carlos E. Del Castillo, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Jack D. Fellows, EnviroGen International Foundation and G2Groups, Inc.
Kathleen O. Green, Kass Green & Associates
John R. Jensen, University of South Carolina
Dennis P. Lettenmaier, University of Washington
Berrien Moore III, University of Oklahoma
Diane E. Pataki, University of Utah
David S. Schimel, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Walter S. Scott, Digital Globe, Inc.
William F. Townsend, Independent Aerospace Consultant
Howard A. Zebker, Stanford University
Mary Lou Zoback, Stanford University
Staff
Abigail A. Sheffer, Associate Program Officer, SSB (study director)
Arthur A. Charo, Senior Program Officer, SSB
Joseph K. Alexander, Jr., Senior Program Officer, SSB
Linda M. Walker, Senior Program Assistant, SSB
3 All terms ended on August 31, 2013.
