Review of the Science Mission Directorate's (SMD's) Draft Science Plan Letter Report (2006) / Chapter Skim
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A Review of NASA'S 2006 Draft Science Plan
A Review of NASA'S 2006 Draft Science Plan
Pages 1-19
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1 NASA Science Plan, Draft 3.0, June 23, 2006. 2 For the most recent NRC reviews see "Assessment of NASA's Draft 2003 Space Science Enterprise Strategy," letter report, 2003, and "Assessment of NASA's Draft 2003 Earth Science Enterprise Strategy," letter report, 2003.
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Although the NRC has produced decadal surveys in astronomy and astrophysics for four decades, equivalent surveys in the other disciplines have been instituted more recently. The first Earth science decadal survey is currently underway, with the final report due in December 2006, and will not be complete in time for consideration in the final version of the current NASA Science Plan.
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In the committee's opinion, the current draft plan overemphasizes mission-specific work at the expense of strategies and steps for achieving goals in such mission-enabling areas as research and analysis and technology development. The committee is aware that Congress specifically asked NASA to develop a single prioritized list of missions across the scientific disciplines, and it notes that NASA has not produced such a list in the current draft Science Plan.
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This is discussed in the section below titled "Threats to Science Plan Execution." • Planetary science. The planetary decadal survey called for significant technology development and "an increase over the decade in the funding for fundamental research and analysis programs at a rate above inflation that parallels the increase in the number of missions, amount of data, and diversity of objects studied."7 The draft Science Plan does not respond to these recommendations.
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Finding 1 of that report states that NASA is being asked to accomplish too much with too little. Based on recent NASA experience, numerous science missions have experienced significant cost growth that will destabilize a science plan as tightly integrated as the current draft plan.
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The draft Science Plan does not address the problems of the post-EarthObserving-System era or the implications of problems with NPOESS, nor does it provide a strategy for sustaining the discipline until the recommendations of the decadal survey can be implemented. While the committee recognizes that strategies for Earth science will be developed in the upcoming decadal survey, their absence in the current draft Science Plan means that including them in NASA's plans will require significant programmatic changes.
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The draft plan responds well to other recent NRC reports, and the committee commends NASA for this. Examples include the instigation of the decadal survey for Earth sciences and applications from space, recommended by the NRC in 2003.10 The agency also adopted 2005 NRC advice to conduct senior reviews of extended Earth observing missions to determine if such missions were worth continuing or had outlived their usefulness.11 The committee commends NASA for responses by the agency to issues raised in previous recent NRC reviews of NASA science plans.
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boundaries: lunar exploration, astrobiology, and Earth sciences. The committee believes that all three need additional attention within the draft Science Plan.
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The draft plan does not mention or take account of NASA's Astrobiology Roadmap, which is the primary source of information on the field and its scientific objectives, as defined by the community. The committee suggests that this roadmap be included in the Science Plan as a list or table.15 The text box in Chapter 6 of the draft plan asserts that while the Planetary Science Division provides the institutional home for the core astrobiology R&A program, integrating its efforts, answers are pursued in the research programs and flight missions of "all four SMD Divisions." The committee could find no explicit mention of astrobiology programs or missions in the Earth science or heliophysics sections.
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In short, the Earth science section does not provide the historical context for Earth remote sensing and does not appropriately capture the significance of NASA's accomplishments to date in Earth remote sensing. The committee notes that the Earth science section of the draft plan appears to reflect less community input than other sections, and trusts that this will be rectified following publication of the Earth science decadal survey.
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The committee recognizes that the Earth science decadal survey to guide NASA's research priorities in this area will not be completed until the end of 2006 and that, at that time, the agency expects to incorporate decadal survey report recommendations into a revised Science Plan. However, other than the reinstatement of the Glory mission, the committee is troubled to see no reference in the current plan to the findings and recommendations in the Earth sciences decadal survey interim report that was issued more than one year ago.
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The committee notes that the NRC recently produced a report on the future of robotic Mars exploration and suggests that the Science Plan incorporate the recommendations of this report.20 The committee recommends that Mars should remain the prime target for sustained science exploration; the NASA Science Plan should acknowledge that missions to other targets in the solar system should not be neglected. Furthermore, the committee wishes to repeat the recommendations of the 2006 NRC report Review of Goals for NASA's Space and Earth Sciences, which reviewed NASA's science roadmaps, concerning the role that habitability should serve as an objective for exploration.
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The Balance report concluded that "the major missions in space and Earth science are being executed at costs well in excess of those estimated at the time when the missions were recommended in the National Research Council's decadal surveys for their disciplines. Consequently, the orderly planning process that has served the space and Earth science communities well has been disrupted, and balance among large, medium, and small missions has been difficult to maintain" (p.
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. This assessment should be the first step in a strategy for resolving the current mission cost growth problem and ensuring that future missions can be executed within manageable costs, schedules, and content.21 The committee further recommends that NASA improve mechanisms for managing and controlling mission cost growth so that if and when it occurs it does not threaten the remainder of the program, and also that NASA consider costcapping flagship missions.
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This is especially true for Earth science and heliophysics, which are working toward developing operational models, but the draft plan does not present a plan and a schedule for achieving them. The committee recommends that NASA develop a strategic plan to address computing and modeling needs, including data stewardship and information systems.
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The committee encourages NASA to seek an alternative strategy to accomplish such cooperation.23 5 GENERAL READABILITY AND CLARITY OF PRESENTATION The draft NASA Science Plan is a lengthy document, and it could benefit from an executive summary that concisely outlines the contents of the report. The committee suggests that the Science Plan include graphics such as roadmap timelines and checklists, in each of its four disciplines -- astrophysics, Earth science, heliophysics, and planetary exploration.
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In addition, although the committee makes discipline-specific recommendations for the planetary and Earth sciences, it stresses that the astrophysics and heliophysics sections of the draft plan are also addressed in the more general recommendations and require equal attention. The committee's recommendations on the implementation and viability of the draft NASA Science Plan are as follows: 17
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Although NASA already does seek to manage and control mission cost growth, these efforts have been inadequate and the agency needs to evaluate them, determine their failings, and improve their performance. NASA should undertake independent, systematic, and comprehensive evaluations of the cost-to-complete of each of its space and Earth science missions that are under development, for the purpose of determining the adequacy of budget and schedule.
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NASA/SMD should incorporate into its Science Plan the recommendations of the NRC Earth science decadal survey interim report,25 and should incorporate the recommendations of the Earth science decadal survey final report when it is completed.
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