Space Life Science: Where You Stand Depends on Where You SIt

Thinking About NASA’s Future, Letters, Science

“The legitimacy of basic life sciences research should stand alone.” – Michael Barratt, NASA Johnson Space Center

“Without forging ahead in research supporting healthy space travel now, all the efforts to bring people to the Moon and Mars will have been in vain. We will lose valuable time, people, and resources that must be reinvented later at a much higher cost.” – Andrea Hanson, President, ASGSB-SA, University of Colorado

“The primary programmatic objective of Griffin is to set the agency on a course with the long-term goal of the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE). Without such a long-term goal, NASA is likely to simply disappear. The costs and risks of sending humans to the International Space Station on the Shuttle simply to spend time there cannot be sustained, nor should they.” – Jeffrey Plescia, Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University