Thriving in Space Ensuring the Future of Biological and Physical Sciences Research: A Decadal Survey for 2023-2032 (2023) / Chapter Skim
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7 Strategy and Challenges for Disciplinary Balance, Infrastructure, and Access and a Vibrantly Sustained Space Science Community
7 Strategy and Challenges for Disciplinary Balance, Infrastructure, and Access and a Vibrantly Sustained Space Science Community
Pages 195-233
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, seizes the opportunity of the coming decade to ensure a future for space exploration by addressing these challenges through fundamental discovery and technology innovation in this always aspirational and inspirational endeavor. In response to the prior decadal survey, Recapturing a Future for Space Exploration: Life and Physical Sciences Research for a New Era (NRC 2011)
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SOURCE: Courtesy of NASA, https://www.flickr.com/photos/ nasacommons/52476555977/in/album-72157634974000238. and the workforce enabling BPS research -- is now in need of significant expanded investment if the science is to thrive and contribute to ambitious future space exploration missions and Earth benefits of research outcomes.
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As discussed below, the BPS Division at NASA and BPS research community across the nation are severely underfunded with respect to the scope and technical challenge of science that is required to meet the national needs for space exploration, as well as other U.S. national competitiveness and national security interests that depend on advancement of the same science.
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Based on recent and current experience, navigating these engagements will not be easy. GRAND OPPORTUNITIES FOR BIOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES IN SPACE Strategic Overview The next decade will provide unparalleled prospects for BPS in space.
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Key Scientific Questions and Research Campaigns The grand BPS opportunities over the next decade emerged in this report to encompass three themes and 11 KSQs spanning, and often linking, the biological and physical sciences. (See Table S-1.)
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Campaigns are aimed at the most important aspects of the KSQs that would require more integrated planning and team coordination, and that would include ideally reusable, extensible capabilities and infrastructure beyond the central campaign goals to enable the broader community to accelerate space science inquiries. Research campaigns need to both inspire and enable space exploration, as well as both capture the imagination of Earth-bound citizens and return benefits of knowledge, products, or technological capabilities to society.
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found in extraterrestrial environments to enable long-term, sustained human and Short suborbital experiments and robotic space exploration? technology maturation • What are the relevant chemical and physical properties and phenomena that govern the behavior of fluids in space environments?
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public and all stakeholders about the value provided by the BPS program through advances in fundamental scientific knowledge, new technologies critical to expanded space exploration, and capabilities that can improve life on Earth. A challenge internal to the scientific community, including both NASA-employed scientists as well as NASAfunded researchers in academia and industry, is the discipline to end research pursuits deliberately and gracefully.
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Such management will require regular evaluation of scientific, technology, and programmatic progress, including an evolving assessment of the key scientific questions, research campaigns, ground-based programs, and recommendations in this and future decadal surveys and mid-decadal assessments. It will also be essential to have expert assessment of and input on non-technical challenges such as managing the public–private partnerships, competitions, and transition of publicly funded invention to industry and ensuring a vibrant, diverse, and sustained BPS community.
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or Research Campaigns, Relative to Prior Year 1. NASA is appropriated more or less federal funding for the BPS Division: If the NASA BPS Division receives more federal funding than anticipated, it is allocated to research programs and teams that documented at least one published milestone that was demonstrated to the general public, and that documented maintenance or increase in diversity of research project participants per NASA's definition and strategic plan.
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• Lead. NASA's needs and timing for a BPS research area and enabling technology are predominant and essential for the core NASA BPS mission -- for example, in subject areas addressing key questions or necessary for research campaigns outlined in this decadal survey.
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However, BPS does not regularly offer access to those vehicles as a dedicated part of its grant portfolio. Instead, NASA BPS Division in SMD relies on the space science community to fund such efforts through separate applications to the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD)
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These are indicated in Figure 7-2. 1 See NASA Science, "Space Biology Program," https://science.nasa.gov/biological-physical/programs/space-biology.
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Any mission addressing KSQs, a research campaign, or an integrated service will use a subset of these types of infrastructure and the platforms in Figure 7-2. Recommendation 7-4: Because key scientific questions identified in this study support the effective utilization of, and benefit from access to, deep-space exploration platforms, NASA should ensure that scientific opportunities are maximized within the range of spaceflight and spaceflight-related platforms intended for lunar, cislunar and Mars transit solutions.
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. Increasing access to crewed suborbital research flights is expected through the coming decade.
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A Space-Oriented Data Science Ecosystem This decadal survey concludes in the Year of Open Science, but the NASA BPS Division has dedicated resources to the managed yet open sharing of BPS research data well before this federal government proclamation.
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Indeed, making data acquired in past and future space missions and ground-based analogs more accessible through data set curation and user-friendly interfaces can promote education and talent recruitment in space science. To ensure that these data are stored, organized, curated, and openly available to the public, data repositories need to be maintained by and for the broader research community.
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Coordination Between Other Government Agencies Within the United States Many federally funded research organizations within the United States have goals that are synergistic to varying degrees with the mission of the BPS community. The most obvious of these are within NASA (including HRP, HEO, and STMD)
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Growing a community well-informed about the practical limitations or bottlenecks in the implementation of its proposed plans and technologies is increasingly important as the BPS community and broader U.S. space exploration community plan longer and more complicated missions.
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for both biological and physical sciences, as Figure 7-4 shows. Figures 7-4 and 7-5 also show that, although the BPS Division budget was slowly increasing at least for some time since 2006, it has plateaued or decreased since 2020.
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, tangibly recognizing the tremendous human and commercial interest in space exploration, the expansion of the BPS program beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) , and the development of the space economy.
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• Recommended funding levels: Research campaigns can be pursued only with funding provided well beyond the current funding levels, and research campaigns can be funded outside of and in addition to what is the current science funding strategy within the BPS Division. The KSQs scale into and are addressed by the research campaigns.
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from the BPS Division by year. SOURCE: Committee created based on NASA data.
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Stressors well known to the current BPS community that affect continuity of research and researchers, beyond the above findings of historically decreased research expenditures and irregular funding opportunities, include the following: • Mission/flight delays can dissolve research teams and dampen scientific impact. Flight delays can have drastic effects on the funding environment in individual laboratories, particularly when these delays occur over years rather than weeks to months.
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The Space Biology Program has also focused on understanding how to mitigate adverse changes caused by the space environment by developing novel treatment approaches to promote healing and regeneration (NASA 2023b; White House 2023) .5 The BPS Division's Physical Science Program has promoted open science via the PSI data repository for experiments performed on the ISS, space shuttle flights, and free-flyers.
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education that can garner favorable public support at local, national, and global levels. The BPS Division currently participates in several educationally oriented programs that are designed to broaden participation and knowledge of space sciences.
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that anticipate surprise and manage outcomes in the research program itself, the next 5 years of this decadal time horizon must build momentum in public awareness and appreciation of practical impact provided by BPS research, and build sensitivity to external shocks that affect the BPS research community. Recommendation 7-12: NASA should identify mechanisms to compete new or additional research campaigns within 5 years, in light of anticipated changes to access to low Earth orbit and the in evitable but unknown changes in research, technology, funding, and space mission directives that will ensue after this report is issued.
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As of this report, the United States ranks only fourth among nations in R&D intensity, expressed as percentage of R&D investment relative to gross domestic product (Zimmermann 2023)
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Long term, the projections for a BPSready STEM workforce are more uncertain, owing to persistent gaps in STEM degree achievement by historically underrepresented groups. Graduate programs have relied on a strong international presence that is expected to decline, leaving graduate programs with fewer students to sustain research and teaching in S&E academic departments.
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• Environmental protection: Considerations of the potential impact of human space exploration on the environment in space and on other planets and the potential impact of bringing extraterrestrial materials back to Earth. 14 Quote from Ellen Ochoa, former NASA astronaut and former director of Johnson Space Center; also first Hispanic woman to go to space, on Space Shuttle Discovery, National Science Foundation, https://www.nsf.gov/nsb/publications/2021/nsbct042821.pdf.
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An ethical BPS workforce is essential to fulfill the BPS mission in support of national competitiveness and advancement of human knowledge for society. However, BPS Division guidelines for responsible conduct in research were not easily accessible on the BPS/NASA website.15 Workforce or Collaboration Weaknesses at Present or Anticipated A robust BPS STEM workforce is vital to develop innovative breakthroughs and engage in spacerelated activities that will grow the economy and uphold national leadership during the next decade.
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In 2020, women in the STEM workforce had lower median earnings than men in S&E, S&E-related, and middle-skill occupations, and historically underrepresented minorities had lower median earnings as compared with White or Asian STEM workers.19 Across all groups, persons with a bachelors' degree or higher earned significantly higher wages. (See Figure 7-9.)
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The U.S. STEM workforce is characterized by decades of persistent disparities in STEM degree achievement among demographic groups.20 In 2019, historically underrepresented groups received a disproportionally lower share of all degrees with one exception: Hispanics achieved a greater share of AA degrees in comparison to their representation in the general population.
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Space exploration requires well-trained scientists, engineers, and technicians. Demand may outpace the ability of the current STEM workforce to fill positions, and those already employed in STEM and non-STEM fields may need to reskill or specialize to remain competitive.
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Recommendation 7-13: NASA should ensure diversity, equity, inclusivity, and accessibility in the pursuit of the nation's space exploration science priorities, including instituting a requirement of documented progress in diversity among NASA-sponsored research teams seeking multi-year funding or multiple sponsorship requests over the coming decade. This inclusivity should be in tentionally broad in concept, with respect to visible and less visible characteristics of historically underrepresented groups in biological and physical sciences research and leadership.
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-- Tresa Mitchell and Eric Holmes, IDEA Working Group Co-Chairs Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity that oversees diversity and civil rights policies and services and supports several special emphasis programs. In 2022, NASA leadership participated in a national taskforce that issued a roadmap with goals for interagencywide action to build STEM education and the STEM workforce (NSTC 2022)
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Diversity Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility at SMD/BPS SMD, which oversees the BPS Division, maintains a diversity unit that produced SMD's own IDEA-focused strategic plan in February 2022 and produced a report that is openly accessible.22 SMD proposes to promote DEIA through many potentially transformational activities and practices such as the initiation of an SMD Bridge program to partner with MSIs; a PI Launchpad that will support first-time proposers; adoption of a dual anonymous peer review; codes of conduct for mission teams; and collection, evaluation, and publication of demographics of Research Opportunities in Earth and Science Program (ROSES) proposers and awardees.23 SMD also is promoting GEM Fellowships for underrepresented minorities in STEM graduate programs, and maintains a page that disseminates space research opportunities for the high school students, graduates, and postdoctorates.24 However, the DEIA strategic plan does not state whether diversity and representation in SMD research will be tracked, nor does the Science by the Numbers portal provide disaggregated information specific for BPS research.
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Outcomes of such commitment can be substantiated by longitudinal data collection, regular periodic and public sharing of those data, and leadership-supported celebration of more inclusive research workplaces and communities. OUTLOOK The coming decade of biological and physical science research in space environments is one in which the United States has the opportunity to thrive, lead, and foster positive collaborations with industry and international partners.
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SOURCES: Courtesy of NASA Ames Research Center. Art work by Don Davis.
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