Worden on Science and Missions

Pete Worden ‘Ames’ for the Moon and Beyond , Science

“On how scientists can help: I’m an advocate of small, fast missions that could do 80% of the capability for 10% of the cost. What would be useful is for the scientific community to prioritize missions within the budget we’ve got, so we can get more science, better science, by doing more smaller missions and fewer bigger ones.”

On exploration versus science: We are faced with a crisis in exploration. The vehicle we have is being phased out for a lot of good reasons, and there’s an investment to make. Once the shuttle is phased out, I would anticipate scientific opportunities will go up quickly with a much more flexible system.”