Life And Physical Sciences Moved From HEOMD To SMD
The Biological & Physical Sciences program leads vital research being done in the microgravity environment of @Space_Station + other platforms. I'm excited that Congress has approved their transition into the #NASAScience Mission Directorate. Human Research Program remains in HEO pic.twitter.com/PlOdjxUHSi
— Thomas Zurbuchen (@Dr_ThomasZ) June 12, 2020
Congress has also approved a new structure for the management of Mars Sample Return, which will be consistent with lessons learned from other high-visibility and complex missions. This collaboration with @ESA will attempt to return samples from Mars to Earth for further study.
— Thomas Zurbuchen (@Dr_ThomasZ) June 12, 2020
Keith’s note: FWIW NASA just Re-created The Office Of Space Science and Applications (OSSA)
I'm certain that your University of Michigan compatriot Lennard Fisk will be interested to know that you have now re-created the old @NASA Office of Space Science and Applications (OSSA). Just sayin'
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) June 12, 2020
I had the pleasure of joining OSSA when Dr. Fisk was AA. He was a great leader as he started to get the entire science community to work together…rising tide lifts all boats. He started the growth to everyone’s benefit.
Not sure this is a great move in all areas. Human space life sciences was placed in the exploration and operations code because they wanted the human life scientists to have a major role in the design of human operated spacecraft. The interiors, architecture and modules accommodating the humans were the life scientist’s legacies on shuttle and station. They did not come out of the engineering organizations. About 20 years ago the shortsighted life scientist’s out of Houston, having little knowledge of their organization’s role in spaceflight programs decided they’d rather be doing research.
You do understand ( and I speak from person experience having work in NASA Life Science) that this is much, much more than just “human life science”.
You remember a different history than I do.
Skylab’s interior design was a ‘battle’ between the crew accommodation folks in Houston (who wanted to create a workable living space for the astronauts) and the MSFC engineers (who considered such particulars part of a habitability experiment).
Shuttle’s crew cabin design had little to do with life sciences and lots to do with operational/functional expediency inside the aeroshell outline of the forward fuselage.
ISS was probably the first spacecraft wherein crew comfort and health had equal weight at the design table, but even so it still got majorly squeezed (e.g., the shower went away) by other factors.
Life sciences per se (as far as I’ve ever seen, admittedly, which isn’t deep) is a different layer in the mix, more in line with ‘science’ experimentation with the crew standing in as specimens…kinda like I’ve been in the world of medicine.
It was.In part because of the Skylab experience that NASA managers felt the human aspects needed more attention. Not only the shower went away, the entire Hab module, which was the focus of the effort for years, went away. The refrigerated/frozen menu went away. But there were successes like the cupola, individual crew quarters….
I think they had Skylab in mind when they made this change. The Houston crew accommodations people were first consolidated I to a single group called Man-Systems. Those people did the design of the Shuttle crew module. Then they moved the group into the science organization. After Challenger, despite moving responsibility for the Station modules to MSFC, they left the Houston group in charge of the module design and layout. The Cupola was one of their greatest achievements. Engineering was against it. Man-Systems was for it.
Within HEOMD the ‘science’ had a specific application, which was in the design of the spacecraft. That was the emphasis. Of course if NASA moves towards the commercial space structure, turning DDT&E over to a Space X, then perhaps NASA does not need engineers or scientists at all; they might just get by with business/contract managers?
That’s not correct. If you check NASA’s web pages on HEOMD’s Life and Physical Sciences division (I just did) they do quite a bit that that. Physical sciences, for example, covers the experiments done on ISS involving things atomic physics and cosmic rays. I’ll admit that, like many NASA web pages, they aren’t very well organized and are also a bit dated (Mr. Loverro is still listed as the head of HEOMD…) But it’s clear Space Life and Physical Sciences handles many (most?) of the biology and physical experiments done on ISS.
I admit I’m a little curious how this will be integrated into the Science Mission Directorate. Presumably as one or two new divisions, parallel with the current four (astrophysics, heliophysics, planetary science and Earth sciences.) But the whole funding, grant and project structure feels different. Unlike the existing four, Space Life and Physical Sciences doesn’t fly missions; they fly experiments on ISS. Would that mean they are going to turn that into a series of “mission of opportunity” programs? That’s the way SMD handles flying NASA instruments on foreign spacecraft. And funding for the data analysis might get a little convoluted. There is a big overlap with things the NSF funds. There also seems to be a very different processes for how SMD and HEMOD NASA center work versus competitively selected work (i.e. AOs for grants which open to more or less anyone.) I guess we’ll have to wait and see how this ends up working.
Closer integration between experiments on the ISS and on robotic spacecraft might be a good thing. At the moment they seem artificially divided based on the question of whether there are people on the spacecraft.
I’m old enough to remember when Mars Sample Return was scheduled to occur in the far off future of 2018.
But from what I know it certainly seems like one of those missions that we were better off doing later, with a far fuller understanding of what would be required to do it properly and technology having caught up with ambition. Kind of like sending people to Mars. I can’t help but smile at all those 20 year old mission concepts, with their snappy concept art, that didn’t include on-site 3D printing, or a small quad/octa-copter drone.