While interdisciplinary activities that cross the boundaries between the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) divisions have always been there, the recent past has seen increasing emphasis on the advantages of joint participation in research and mission opportunities. In particular, the Kepler mission to study exoplanets started as a Discovery mission in SMD’s Planetary Science Division (PSD) before moving to the Astrophysics Division; the results of that mission remain of great interest to scientists in both disciplines. Space weather activities cross boundaries between Heliophysics, Planetary Sciences, and Earth Sciences; and comparative climatology bridges all disciplines. The draft Science Plan acknowledges these interconnections by including a series of interdisciplinary science boxes between the discipline sections in Chapter 4. The inclusion of these boxes is a useful way to highlight the interactions across disciplinary boundaries.
There are six interdisciplinary boxes: Comparative Climatology, Earth and Space Science from ISS, The Science of Exploration, Planetary Protection, Origins of Solar Systems, and Exoplanets. The Science of Exploration box discusses connections between the various science disciplines and NASA’s Human Program. This box does not do justice to the synergies between the programs, failing to mention several—e.g., the Joint Robotics Precursor Activity (JRPA) and the new Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute, joint activities of NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) and SMD’s PSD. Nor is there any mention of the strong heritage of joint lunar activities including the transfer of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter from HEOMD to PSD and joint planning activities identifying strategic knowledge gaps for exploration destinations.
The Planetary Protection box, as written, is not couched in terms of activities spanning more than one of SMD’s four divisions. While planetary protection is an excellent example of an activity linking aspects of the physical, chemical, and biological sciences, the text describes no specific connection to the activities outside of SMD’s PSD and its Astrobiology program. The Exoplanets box contains only a brief discussion of synergies of between the activities of SMD’s Astrophysics and Planetary Science divisions. As written, this text is very oriented toward astrophysics and would be improved significantly by greater inclusion of the planetary science aspects.
One key interdisciplinary activity that cuts across many of the SMD divisions, as well as the larger goals for NASA and the human program is the Astrobiology program, which provides a broad multidisciplinary approach to the issue of life in the universe.
Although all of SMD’s divisions support interdisciplinary work to some extent, perhaps none is more dependent on the effective coordination and integration of data and models across so many disciplinary boundaries as are the activities of the Earth Science Division. In order to address climate change and its consequences, for example, research is conducted across the boundaries of the six focus areas: atmospheric composition, weather, carbon cycle and ecosystems, the water and energy cycle, climate variability and change, and Earth’s surface and interior. The draft Science Plan lacks a clear strategy for enabling and supporting such inherently interdisciplinary interactions on either the national or international level.
The boxed items are not universally successful in describing the interdisciplinary linkages between the activities of SMD’s four divisions or between SMD and other NASA directorates. Some
boxes (e.g., Planetary Protection) only discuss activities conducted within a single division, and others (e.g., Exoplanets) concentrate on the activities of one to the near exclusion of others.
Recommendation: The interdisciplinary boxes in the Science Plan should explicitly indicate how the activities described therein link the activities of two or more NASA divisions and/or directorates.
