NRC Slams NASA SMD Draft Science Plan

NRC Panel Pans NASA’s Draft Science Plan
“A panel of scientists from fields NASA spends $5 billion a year to address finds that the draft strategic plan fails to tackle the agency’s uncertain funding outlook in a meaningful way. This means important exploration capabilities could fall by the wayside and “a generation of scientists” may be lost in some disciplines, they say. … The panel’s report, requested by Associate Administrator John Grunsfeld, the Hubble-servicing astronaut who runs SMD, underscores the problems NASA faces in sustaining the space-science program it built over 50-plus years. It was prepared by the Space Studies Board panel that was chaired by the University of Michigan’s Dr. James P. Bagian, who conducted biomedical research as an astronaut-scientist on two shuttle missions.”
Review of the Draft 2014 Science Mission Directorate Science Plan, NRC SSB
“As discussed in Chapter 8, the draft Science Plan is uneven with respect to the level of detail and clarity across disciplines as well as in its use of examples and graphics that clearly communicate the salient points. It appeared as if the document was written by a committee without the benefit of a cohesive editing effort to ensure that the important points were made in a clear, concise, and compelling manner and that the facts had been appropriately checked. There are numerous factual and other errors in the draft Science Plan (see Appendix B for examples) as well as the absence of a consistent style or level of detail across the document. The draft Science Plan does not contain a clear description of how the program, as now proposed, is consistent with or varies from past NASA plans and the recommendations from the various decadal surveys.”