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Committee on an Assessment of Balance in NASA's Science Programs, National Research Council

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AN ASSESSMENT OF BALANCE IN NASA'S SCIENCE PROGRAMS

NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS

Contents

SUMMARY....................................................................11 INTRODUCTION.............................................................5NASA 2006 Strategic Plan,..................................................8NASA Science Provisions for FY 2007 and Beyond,............................82 HEALTH OF THE DISCIPLINE PROGRAMS........................................11Astrophysics,..............................................................11Heliophysics,..............................................................15Planetary Science,.........................................................17Astrobiology,..............................................................20Earth Science,.............................................................21Microgravity Life and Physical Sciences,...................................243 FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS.............................................29APPENDIXESA Statement of Task........................................................37B Meeting Agenda...........................................................38C Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff.....................40D Acronyms and Abbreviations...............................................44

Chapter One

Congress, in the report accompanying the FY 2005 appropriation bill for NASA, directed "the National Academies' Space Studies Board (SSB) to conduct a thorough review of the science that NASA is proposing to undertake under the space exploration initiative and to develop a strategy by which all of NASA's science disciplines, including Earth science, space science, and life and microgravity science, as well as the science conducted aboard the International Space Station, can make adequate progress towards their established goals, as well as providing balanced scientific research in addition to support of the new initiative." This report provides the third and final component of the National Research Council's (NRC's) advisory response to that mandate. It presents the NRC's assessment of NASA's integrated strategy and proposed science program, as indicated in materials that accompany the NASA FY 2007 budget request.

More than four decades of extraordinary achievements of NASA science have captured the imaginations of people throughout the world, and those achievements continue to astonish us and expand our appreciation for the Earth, our solar system, and the universe beyond. The technology that must be created to accomplish such ambitious scientific endeavors finds its way into other terrestrial applications and stimulates other technological accomplishments. Consequently, NASA's science programs have succeeded on many levels, thereby winning valuable prestige and support for the agency from both the public and the government. NASA's science programs have served the nation broadly in ways that expand our intellect, enhance our culture, improve our economic security, and generally enrich the nation and the world.

Plans for programs in space and Earth science in NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD) differ markedly from planning assumptions of only 2 years ago. The impact on the SMD program is most dramatically illustrated when one compares the rate of growth that had guided science program planning in 2004 compared to the present. The total funding available for SMD programs in 2007-2011 is to be reduced by $3.1 billion below program projections that accompanied the FY 2006 budget (corresponding to a reduction of about 10 percent for the period FY 2006-2010). At the time that the Vision for Space Exploration ("the Vision") was announced in 2004, the programs that are now in SMD were projected to grow robustly from about $5.5 billion in 2004 to about $7 billion in 2008 to accommodate the development of new scientific missions. As recently as the time of the FY 2006 budget request, the SMD budget for FY 2007 was projected at $5.96 billion. The actual request for SMD in FY 2007 is $5.33 billion, which is about $200 million less than was appropriated in 2004 even before taking inflation into account. Subsequent years have a projected growth of 1 percent, which is again less than the projected rate of inflation. Changes in plans for microgravity life and physical sciences in the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate are more pronounced. That program was supported at about $950 million in 2002 and was expected to grow to over $1.1 billion in 2008, but the new plan calls for a reduction to under $300 million in 2007 with little growth thereafter.

The committee reviewed NASA's plans for research programs over the next 5 years in each of six areas-astrophysics, heliophysics, planetary science, astrobiology, Earth science, and microgravity life and physical sciences-and reached the following conclusions in response to the study charge.

Finding 1. NASA is being asked to accomplish too much with too little. The agency does not have the necessary resources to carry out the tasks of completing the International Space Station, returning humans to the Moon, maintaining vigorous space and Earth science and microgravity life and physical sciences programs, and sustaining capabilities in aeronautical research.

Recommendation 1. Both the executive and the legislative branches of the federal government need to seriously examine the mismatch between the tasks assigned to NASA and the resources that the agency has been provided to accomplish them and should identify actions that will make the agency's portfolio of responsibilities sustainable.

Finding 2. The program proposed for space and Earth science is not robust; it is not properly balanced to support a healthy mix of small, medium, and large missions and an underlying foundation of scientific research and advanced technology projects; and it is neither sustainable nor capable of making adequate progress toward the goals that were recommended in the National Research Council's decadal surveys.

The committee used four criteria to assess NASA's science programs in response to the committee's charge (see Chapter 1), and the committee's conclusions with respect to those criteria are as follows:

Capacity to make steady progress. The proposed SMD mission portfolio will fall far short of what was recommended by the NRC's decadal surveys. The space and Earth science programs will be forced to terminate or delay numerous flight missions, curtail advanced technology preparations for other future missions, and significantly reduce support for the research projects of thousands of scientists across the country. The net result of these actions will be that NASA will not be able to make reasonable progress-in any of the major space research disciplines-toward the scientific goals that were set out for the decade, and our nation's leadership in Earth and space research and exploration will erode relative to efforts of other nations.

Stability. The science program has become fundamentally unstable. As Figures 1.1 and 1.2 illustrate (see Chapter 1), there have been dramatic changes in the projected resource trajectories for all science programs over the past 3 years. Consequently, it has not been possible to follow an orderly plan for sequencing missions and projects, developing advanced technology, sizing and nurturing a research and technical community, or meeting commitments to other U.S. or international partners.

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