A Mars Odyssey

The new director of NASA’s space science division, Dr. S. Alan Stern, took office last April with a position that has helped NASA complete their government projects at their originally-stated budget cost. Known as a planetary scientist, he was formerly the Executive Director of the Southwest Research Institute’s (SwRI’s) Space Science and Engineering Division and later on was the Director of the Department of Space Studies at SwRI for seven years. Numerous positions after this brought him to the associate administrative position of NASA at a time when financial problems were almost bringing it to its knees.

In order to better understand what his role is, a look at NASA’s Science Mission Directorate position shows that he “engages the Nation’s science community, sponsors scientific research, and also develops and deploys satellites and probes in collaboration with NASA’s partners around the world to answer fundamental questions requiring the view from and into space.” Stern’s responsibility is to better understand the origins and evolution of the universe, in addition to its destiny and the nature of the strange phenomena that has shaped it.

Other major areas listed on the NASA SMD website involve:

• the nature of life in the universe and what kinds of life may exist beyond Earth;

• the solar system, both scientifically and in preparation for human exploration; and

• Understand the history of Mars and the formation of the solar system. By understanding the formation of diverse terrestrial planets (with atmospheres) in the solar system, researchers learn more about Earth’s future and the most promising opportunities for habitation beyond our planet. For example, differences in the impacts of collisional processes on Earth, the Moon, and Mars can provide clues about differences in origin and evolution of each of these bodies.

• Search for Earth-like planets and habitable environments around other stars. SMD pursues multiple research strategies with the goal of developing effective astronomically-detectable signatures of biological processes.

• The study of the Earth-Sun system may help researchers identify atmospheric biosignatures that distinguish Earth-like (and potentially habitable) planets around nearby stars. An understanding of the origin of life and the time evolution of the atmosphere on Earth may reveal likely signatures of life on extrasolar planets.

• Explore the solar system for scientific purposes while supporting safe robotic and human exploration of space. For example, large-scale coronal mass ejections from the Sun can cause potentially lethal consequences for improperly shielded human flight systems, as well as some types of robotic systems.

• SMD’s pursuit of interdisciplinary scientific research focus areas will help predict potentially harmful conditions in space and protect NASA’s robotic and human explorers.

• the Sun and Earth, changes in the Earth-Sun system, and the consequences of the Earth-Sun relationship for life on Earth.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 at 7:12 am and is filed under Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.