NASA's Game Plan for Solar-System Exploration

Planetary exploration at a crossroads. On one hand, right now the pace of discovery is head-spinningly rapid. Robotic explorers are orbiting Venus, Mars, Saturn, and the Moon, with another days away from arriving at Mercury. Spacecraft heading to solar-system destinations near and far are queued for launch later this year. It's a great time to be a planetary scientist.

The black line shows the rosy budget projection for NASA's solar-system explorations, and colored wedges indicate the funds needed for specific projects. However, in the fiscal year 2012 budget submitted to Congress by the Obama administration, interplanetary missions take a steep cut.

NASA

But there's writing on the wall, and it isn't very positive. While the Obama administration has requested $1.54 billion for NASA's solar-system activity in fiscal 2012 budget, up 11% from fiscal 2011, it'll start dropping in the years thereafter. By 2016 NASA's planet-chasers will working with only $1.25 billion.

Against this backdrop, today the National Research Council's Space Studies Board (part of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences) released an exhaustive, 400-page report that lays out a strategy for planetary exploration from 2013 to 2022. The NRC released similar assessments for astrophysics and heliophysics last year.

Although technically these "decadal surveys" assess the entire scope of a space-science discipline — NSF-funded activities, new directions for research, and which new technologies are worth developing — their real raison d'être is to decide which space missions should be A-listed for funding. And NASA counts on the panels to represent the consensus of each particular scientific community — once the rankings are made, that's pretty much it.

You have to give credit to Steven Squyres and his 15-person steering committee: since getting their marching orders two years ago, they've collectively digested 199 position papers representing the views of nearly 1,700 individuals. For purposes of manageability, the task force carved up the solar system into five domains: Mars; other terrestrial worlds (Mercury, Venus, and the Moon); giant planets; satellites; and primitive bodies (comets and asteroids).

Click here to hear Sky & Telescope's exclusive interview with Steven Squyres, who led the Space Studies Board's Vision and Voyages assessment of NASA's proposed planetary-science missions.

S&T: J. Kelly Beatty

"First and foremost, we're trying to take the pulse of the community," Squyres explains. But at the same time it's all got to fit within NASA's projected budget, and to ensure that the candidates' costs were estimated both by their proponents and by an independent aerospace contractor. "The good news is that these costs are probably realistic," he notes. "The bad news is that you're going to see some sticker shock."

NASA flies three classes of interplanetary craft: low-cost Discovery missions; moderate-cost New Frontiers missions; and uber-costly Flagship missions. Although it didn't weigh in on Discovery candidates, the panel recommends continuing this highly productive program at its current level ($500 million per year). Also reaffirmed is the decision to build the Mars Trace Gas Orbiter in partnership with the European Space Agency.

For a suitable venue to unveil the report, titled Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the Decade 2013-2022, the Space Science Board chose the Lunar & Planetary Science Conference, whose 1,500 attendees have much to gain — or lose — from the panel's picks for Flagship and New Frontiers consideration. And here they are:

With an estimated price tag of $4.7 billion, the proposed Jupiter Europa Orbiter is ranked highly important by planetary scientists but probably too expensive for NASA to undertake within the next decade.

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NASA found Evidence of alien life

WE are not alone and alien life forms may have more in common with life on Earth than we had thought, according to a NASA scientist. The out-of-this-world research by Dr Richard B. Hoover, an astrobiologist with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre, was published in the March edition of the Journal of Cosmology.
In the report, Dr Hoover describes the latest findings in his study of an extremely rare class of meteorites, called CI1 carbonaceous chondrites - only nine such meteorites were known to exist on Earth.
The scientist was convinced that his findings revealed fossil evidence of bacterial life within such meteorites and by extension, suggests we are not alone in the universe.
"I interpret it as indicating that life is more broadly distributed than restricted strictly to the planet Earth," Dr Hoover said.

"This field of study has just barely been touched because quite frankly, a great many scientists would say that this is impossible."In what he called "a very simple process," Dr Hoover fractured the meteorite stones under a sterile environment before examining the freshly broken surface with the standard tools of the scientist: a scanning electron microscope and a field emission electron scanning microscope, which allowed him to search the stone's surface for evidence of fossil remains.
He found the fossil remains of micro-organisms not so different from ordinary ones found underfoot on Earth.
"The exciting thing is that they are in many cases recognisable and can be associated very closely with the generic species here on earth," Dr Hoover said.

But not all of them. "There are some that are just very strange and don't look like anything that I've been able to identify, and I've shown them to many other experts that have also come up stumped."
Other scientists say the implications of this research were shocking, describing the findings variously as profound, very important and extraordinary.
But Dr David Marais, an astrobiologist with NASA's AMES Research Centre, said he was very cautious about jumping on the bandwagon.
These kinds of claims have been made before, he noted and found to be false.

"It's an extraordinary claim, and thus I'll need extraordinary evidence," he said.

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Obama urges Americans to use words that heal, not wound

In Tucson to eulogize the victims of last weekend's tragic shooting, President Obama somberly called for an end to the political blame game that erupted in the wake of the tragedy and urged Americans not to use it as "one more occasion to turn on each other."

Instead, Obama told an overflow crowd of more than 14,000 people at the University of Arizona the moment should prompt Americans to step back and reflect on how they lead their own lives and how they deal with one another.
"At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized--at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently than we do--it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds," Obama said.
Referencing the finger-pointing that has taken place over the last several days, Obama warned of trying to find "simple explanations" in the aftermath. "Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding," the president said.
The truth, he said, is that "none of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped these shots from being fired or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man's mind."

The emotional high point came early in the speech, as the president drew an exultant cheer from the crowd by breaking from his prepared remarks to announce that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, shot in the attack on Saturday, had opened her eyes for the first time.
"Gabby opened her eyes. So I can tell you, she knows we are here," Obama said. "And she knows that we love her and she knows that we are rooting for her through what is undoubtedly going to be a difficult journey." The president spoke shortly after visiting the bedside of  Giffords, who was shot and critically injured while meeting constituents at a Tucson grocery.

Obama also used the speech to return the nation's focus to the six people who lost their lives last Saturday, noting that they were fulfilling "a central tenet of the democracy envisioned by our founders" by attending the Giffords event.
"The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better in our private lives — to be better friends and neighbors, co-workers and parents," Obama said. "And if… their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse, let's remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy, but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud."
In particular, Obama focused on the life of 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, who was killed at the event. Green, who is the same age as Obama's youngest daughter, Sasha, attended the event out of her growing curiosity about democracy, the president noted, at times becoming emotional.
He urged Americans to view democracy and their role in the country as Green did in her final days.
"She saw all of this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often take for granted," Obama said. "I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it."

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